BOOKS, FAITH, WORLD & MORE

MINORITY REPORT

Daniel Hertzler

Review of Where Was God on Sept. 11? Seeds of Faith and Hope. Edited by Donald B. Kraybill and Linda Gehman Peachey. Herald Press, 2002, 216 pages, $10.99.

How shall I describe this collection? I might call it a “quickie book.” From September 11 to publication date was less than four months. A typical Herald Press book takes over a year from from submission to publication; this book was not only produced but also conceived during less than a third of that time. Another analogy might come from the end of the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand, where his disciples are said to have gathered up 12 baskets full of leftovers. It appears that the editors have scoured the sources to find relevant comments before they get lost in the rush of emerging history.

“How can people of faith make sense of these events?” ask the editors in the preface. “What do the events of September 11 teach us about God, good, evil, love, forgiveness, and justice? Are there are other ways to respond to these events beyond the stark choice of despair and retaliation?” They go on to say, “The authors do not necessarily agree with each other, nor do we agree with all of them. But they have helpful words for people of faith in the wake of September 11. Most important, they speak words of healing, hope, and care.”

The book is a reminder that people of faith have sought to respond to the terror of September 11. It is as if they heard someone say, “Don’t just stand there. Say something.” We recognize that this has been important, because the responses heard most readily have been voices of “despair and retaliation.”

This book is clearly a minority report. The retaliation engineered by U.S. President Bush has pushed up his approval rating. Most people in the U.S. favor retaliation. Most media sources support it. Who would have the nerve to raise questions or suggest alternatives? Sixty-nine sources included in this volume have the nerve. Some are committees or couples. Most are individuals. Many are members of historic peace churches—Brethren, Mennonites, Quakers—but some are surprises.

The book is organized in seven chapters, somewhat overlapping. Within each chapter are about 10 shorter items, supporting the chapter’s topic. The book begins with “Where was God?” by John P. Braun, pastor of Charleswood Mennonite Church in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He asserts that “God is among those who are suffering and hurting and grieving.” He adds that “We are not helpless. We are children of God. Life is not hopeless. Our hope is in Christ.”

The collection ends with “A Prayer to End the Terror” by Lindsay McLaughlin. Lindsay is identified as the daughter of the U. S. Ambassador to Afghanistan who was killed by terrorists in 1979. She prays in part, “Give us the courage to stop the terror and violence the only way we can—at its source. . . . Give us the courage to call on our leaders to act and lead us in ways to truly counter terrorists—ways of community, compassion, and justice for all the world.”

I can agree with most of what I find in this book. Yet one piece that raises my hackles is by Miroslav Volf, professor of theology at Yale University. He had been in the UN building at the time of the September 11 disaster, advocating reconciliation with enemies. He mentions also that in Croatia, where he came from, a town near his home was completely destroyed by ethnic clashes. So he is a man who knows violence. In reflecting on the issue, he justifies Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who, he says, “was doing a right thing for which he felt he had to repent. He was doing the right wrong thing. Taking a life is always the wrong thing. The choice Bonhoeffer had was doing the lesser of the evils.” I have read critiques of Bonhoeffer that in my opinion go deeper into the problem of evil than this.

Otherwise, as I thumb through these pages, I mostly find myself saying, “Yes! Yes!” because what is said is what I would have said if I had thought of it. However, several pieces which strike me as notable because I would not have expected them.

Among them is David E. Ortman’s “God bless . . . ” Of this alternative to “God Bless America” Ortman wrote, “Just once I’d like to hear a chorus of ‘God bless Australia.’ Or ‘God bless Afghanistan.’”

He goes on, “If God is a great God, then surely God is big enough to bless all the people of the world. Or is our God too small?” So Ortman tried his hand at a new version. It’s not particularly good poetry, but much better theology:

God bless the world you made,
All people here.
Stand beside us and guide us,
From Afghanistan to Zaire.

And so on. I note that to have it rhyme, David used an out-of-date label for the Congo. But he makes a point. I found him convincing enough that I quoted his poem as the conclusion to three different sermons on three different texts to three different audiences.

Another piece I find interesting involves the dilemma of Jim and John Smucker of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. They have food and lodging establishments, and after September 11, employees of theirs began to display flags. This troubled the brothers. They asked their managers to remove the flags.

That caused a crisis. “Phone calls and e-mails from employees expressed outrage, disbelief, and embarrassment.” So the Smuckers spent a day listening to employees.

“At the end of the day,” the Smuckers report, “the dilemma remained. Few opinions had changed, but many relationships were on the path toward healing.” Despite their personal disagreement with much of what they heard, the Smuckers gave each manager the freedom to decide whether or not to fly the flag.

Other responses of more than usual interest are from family members of persons killed on September 11. Among these are Phyllis and Orlando Rodriguez, whose son died in the World Trade Center. They wrote President Bush, “Your response to this attack does not make us feel better about our son’s death. It makes us feel worse. We feel that our government is using our son’s memory as a justification to cause suffering for other sons and parents in other lands.”

We have no evidence that anyone in high places listened to messages such as this. But at least someone has said it. In this case and in others in the book, those speaking were people able to do so with authority.

At the same time comes news of a visit set up by Global Exchange for persons who lost family members on September 11 to meet with families who have lost members from the bombing in Afghanistan. The first family they were scheduled to meet was that of Abdul Basir Amiri and his wife Shakila, who on October 17 lost their five-year-old daughter Nazila, killed by an American bomb. “The terrorists did something evil,” said Mr. Amiri, “and then a pilot dropped a bomb which killed Nazila. I do not know why Allah allows such things to happen; perhaps they feel the same way about their God. We can only grieve for each other.”

So far as I know news such as this has not appeared in the popular U.S. media. But The Nation (Feb. 4, 2002) reported that civilian deaths from U.S. raids in Afghanistan may have been more than the number killed at the World Trade Center. So although the voice of peace is only a minority one, a few are still hearing it.

This minority experience is nothing new for peace people. In January 2002 the Public Broadcasting System carried a program about conscientious objectors in World War II. Entitled “The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It,” the program depended largely on interviews with a group of COs. Some served in Civilian Public Service. Others went to jail. All seemed to agree that although being a CO was a fearful thing in World War II, they would do it again.

At the end of the program, one speaker mentioned chaos theory, which holds that even the fluttering of a butterfly has a worldwide effect. He considers that their fluttering may have had ongoing significance.

Perhaps that is a point of the final chapter in Where Was God? Entitled “Another Way of Responding,” it includes 10 items, beginning with John Paul Lederach’s “The Challenge of Terror” and ending with the Lindsay McLaughlin piece from which I quoted earlier. In the face of majority support for retaliation, some are willing to say, “There has to be another way.”

After I had written the above, I came upon two other books on the subject. One is Threatened with Resurrection, by Jim S. Amstutz (Herald Press, 2002). It is a study book with 13 chapters, each of which begins with a Scripture text.

Much of it I have heard before, but the personal anecdotes are interesting. Also Amstutz identifies the issue of self-preservation, which he says “is indeed woven into the very fabric of our North American culture.” Indeed is that not so?

“Challenging the pervasive assumption of self-preservation makes no sense unless we approach it from a faith perspective. Without resurrection faith to guide us, and the Holy Spirit to empower us, embracing this difficult yet essential understanding of faith is indeed impossible for each” (p. 17). Indeed is that not so?

Is There No Other Way? The Search for a Nonviolent Future, by Michael N. Nagler, is the other book. This wide-ranging volume challenges violence at its very center. The author depends heavily on Gandhi but also draws on sources from Jesus and Augustine to Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama. From Gandhi he quotes the following definition of power: “Of power there are two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love” (p. 140).

Nagler draws extensively from the efforts of Gandhi, not only his negative protests but also his positive programs. The author is aware of current efforts, such as Witness for Peace and Christian Peacemaker Teams. He reports the work of Andre Trocmé and the French villagers of Le Chambon who protected Jews during the German occupation.

He also cites an example of a direct challenge to the Gestapo from the Gentile wives of Jewish husbands rounded up in Berlin in 1943. Drawing on the book Resistance of the Heart, by Nathan Stoltzfus (Norton,1996), he reports that these women saved their husbands by spontaneous street demonstration. This counteracts that old chestnut which holds that nonviolence only works with a “nice” opponent. Hitler and the Gestapo were not nice opponents.

Books such as these three are important antidotes to the sickness which pervades our culture. That sickness is a combination of the emphasis on self-preservation and the conventional wisdom that violence is necessary because nothing else works.

—Daniel Hertzler was a conscientious objector in World War II, but the closest he got to the war was a physical examination in Philadelphia. The hired man on his father’s farm was drafted, so Daniel was designated to take his placed on the farm and was deferred for farm work. But he “escaped” after the war by making two trips to Europe on cattle boats.