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Terrorist Attack Response Help

The unprecedented attack on the United States committed on September 11, 2001 has brought tremendous challenges to our country and society.  Among those challenges are the spiritual and religious challenges before us.  Here is a collection of material that may provide some guidance or help in this most difficult time.

PC(USA) Plans Response

Committee to recommend church response to federal leaders, congregations on Sept. 11 attacks

by Evan Silverstein

TEMPE, AZ - The Presbyterian Church (USA) will submit a formal response on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to President Bush, Congress and the denomination's congregational leaders and ecumenical partners.  If the executive committee of the General Assembly Council (GAC) has its way, that is.

 Committee members meeting here on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved two separate motions recommending formation of a writing team to develop correspondence outlining the church's reaction to the suicidal aerial attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The committee's recommendation will be submitted on Saturday to the entire GAC, which must approve the measure.

 A writing team could incorporate portions of an advice and counsel memorandum from the PC(USA)'s Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) with suggestions for a letter of response from the church. The Advocacy Committee for Racial Ethnic Concerns and the Advocacy Committee for Women's Concerns also helped compose the document.  The GAC executive committee also approved a recommendation commending the three groups for their roles in writing the paper.

 "The Advice and Counsel group sees the moment in which we are in as … one in which the church has an opportunity to speak to a new situation in both our world and in our church," said the Rev. Peter Sulyok, ACSWP's coordinator.  "Because both congregations and our nation have been changed by the events of Sept. 11."

 The three-and-a-half-page memorandum calls for a "measured response" to the attacks, the worst acts of terrorism ever on U.S. soil. "We also recognize that in our pain and wounded national pride, we must be  thoughtful about what has happened," the memorandum said. "Careful not to react in a spirit of vengeance, prayerfully listening for the guidance of God through the world of the Holy Spirit within the community of faith, and attentive to our Reformed tradition."

 Those compiling a church response may also draw from a special resolution approved Sept. 20 by the Presbytery of San Joaquin. And also from a letter to the denomination written shortly after the assaults by three top church leaders.   

"We know that the deep shock and grief we feel on behalf of all who have perished is multiplied many fold for those whose lives have been touched directly," said the letter signed by General Assembly moderator the Rev. Jack Rogers, stated clerk the Rev. Clifton Kirkpatrick and John Detterick, executive director of the General Assembly Council.