REFLECTION ON 9-11
BISHOP DONALD J. KETTLERREFLECTION ON 9-11
Address at a Memorial Service
September 11, 2011
Fairbanks, AK
After September 11, 2001 until today we are a wounded people. We continue to share loss and pain, anger and fear, shock and determination. We remember the attacks on our people, our nation and, in fact, on all humanity. We remember with sadness all those who died that day.
We not only remember but we continue to honor the selflessness of firefighters, police, chaplains and many brave individuals who gave their lives because they cared about others.
In recalling the cell phone messages to loved ones from hijacked airliners, the calls from stairways on the doomed towers, the increased numbers of people at church, ecumenical and interfaith services, and the heartfelt prayers in homes and hearts, we saw our nation turn back to God. There grew an intensity in the faith of many. Many needed to revive a faith which could teach us about good and evil, justice, freedom and responsibility. Jesus Christ showed us again through his life, teaching, death and resurrection, an example of care, love and justice for a broken world.
The dreadful deeds of September 11th could not go unanswered. We continued to seek out those responsible and worked to protect our people from additional attacks. We worked for the safety and common good of all people. Today our nation must continue to respond in many ways, including the legitimate use of force, developing better security at home, finding better measures of effective national security, using economic embargoes on implicated nations, and continued international diplomacy.
No argument, no grievance can ever legitimize what happened on September 11th. Without forgetting the terrorist acts of September 11th we also need to address the conditions of poverty and injustice which were used and exploited by the terrorists to justify their actions.
It is wrong for extremists of any religious tradition to distort their professed faith to justify violence and hatred. Whatever the motivation, there can be no religious or moral justification for what happened on September 11th. People of all faiths must be united in the conviction that terrorism in the name of religion only profanes religion.
We must not allow ourselves to be captured by fear. Acts of ethnic and religious intolerance toward innocent Arab-Americans, Muslims or any other minorities must be repudiated.
We acknowledge the right and the duty of a nation and the international community to use military force, if necessary, to defend the common good and to protect the innocent against mass terrorism. But in doing this the principles of non-combatant immunity (not harming innocent civilians) and proportionality (the level of one’s military response) must govern our governmental and military decisions. Military force can be directed at those who use terror and those who assist them, but not toward the innocent.
We must not only act justly but be perceived to acting justly, if we are to succeed in winning popular support against terrorism.
Today, ten years later, is still a time for prayer. We pray for the victims and their families, for our president and national leaders, for police and firefighters, relief workers and for our military men and women. We pray for an end to terror and violence.
Today is also a time for dialogue with all faith communities including Islam. Together we must repudiate terrorism and violence. Finally, today is a time for hope. Above all, we need to turn to God and to one another in hope. We believe hope is not a matter of optimism, but a source for strength and action in demanding times. We have the responsibility to teach and to live out in our time the challenges of Jesus found in the Beatitudes: comfort those who mourn, seek justice and be peacemakers.