One day before the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, a panel of faculty members from the Divinity School discussed how Duke's Christian community might reflect on its work and life together a year later.
The discussion, moderated by Greg Jones, dean of the Divinity School, opened with a hymn and prayer, then a reading by Sally Bates, chaplain of the school, from the gospel of John.
"A year ago, Pope John Paul II called this 'an unspeakable horror,' yet we have been speaking about it since then," Bates said. "The problem with words is they are inadequate."
The panel included Ellen Davis, Emmanuel Katongole, Bill Turner and Will Willimon, who are Episcopalian, Catholic, Baptist and Methodist, respectively.
Davis, an associate professor in the school, spoke about the ways in which her prayers have changed over the past year.
"I am not finding [my original prayer] useful," said Davis, who teaches on the Bible and practical theology.
The prayer she said has been the most comforting is the Jewish Kaddish, a prayer by mourners that never speaks of the mourners' own losses. The final prayer she mentioned, Psalm 46, was the first prayer she said last year after hearing about the tragedy, but said since that time it has developed a new meaning for her.
Katongole, a visiting assistant professor of divinity, criticized the media's "oversaturation" of the word terrorism.
"[Sept. 11] may become the new excuse of not seeing the real concerns of the world," said Katongole, a Uganda native. "How can we live in a global community when people live on $1 a day, the life span in some parts of the world is around 40 years and the world's four richest people are richer than the 40 poorest countries?"
Although his concerns from before the tragedy had only intensified, Turner--an associate professor of the practice in the Divinity Schoolâ??said a year ago he began to question how best to preach the gospel in the wake of the horror.
"The church can ill afford to be a ventriloquist's dummy for the state," Turner explained. "The lips are moving, but the thoughts and words are generated by someone else.... The church must speak a word that is authentic."
Turner also said the U.S. could not afford to be the metaphorical bully of the now-global village. He added that the people who died were not heroes, but victims of a sinful world.
Willimon, dean of the Chapel, criticized the largely secular response of American Christians to Sept. 11.
"We didn't reach out and grab the cross," Willimon said. "We grabbed the flag." He went on to explain how three months after Sept. 11 letters of complaint at churches had increased because people wanted to say the Pledge of Allegiance, have a flag and say a prayer for the president rather than take part in the typical services.
He concluded the discussion on a lighter note with his own interpretation of why church attendance rates had declined after rising so quickly following Sept. 11.
"People were thinking erroneously that the Christian church is a place of consolation," Willimon said. "But through our bumbling efforts they found Jesus and realized that Jesus is just not that helpful. Jesus is the reason for the slump in church attendance."
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