September 11, is a complicated date for me. I had a friend in the Twin Towers on September 11, 2011. I had the privilege of visiting with her when she returned to Kansas not long after the events of that tragic day. Her story of fleeing the collapsing buildings, crossing the Hudson River, and finding shelter in a church is one that I will never forget. I think of her every year on September 11. This year, 2017, President Trump stated that Sept. 11 was “a day that changed the world, and also changed us.” He vowed that the United States would “defeat evil.”
What makes September 11, such a complicated date for me is that it was on September 11, 1973, that the United States orchestrated the overthrow of the government of Salvador Allende in Chile. His was the first democratically-elected Marxist government in the Latin America. Thousands of people “disappeared” in the bloodbath that followed the overthrow. The Mothers of the Missing still meet in the city center in the capital, Santiago. This year marks the 44th anniversary of the overthrow, and the United States continues to train soldiers and dictators at the School of the Americas, in Fort Benning, Georgia.
My personal reading these days has been in the area of nonviolence. I am convinced that war is a violation of our confession of faith that teaches that we are created in the image of God. As Martin Luther said, we are called to be reminders to each other of the presence of God. War and the preparation for war is, in my view, a betrayal of our faith.
My thoughts today lead me to believe that war is a function of political power, not human nature. The truth, of which Jesus spoke and which Pilate questioned, the truth that sets us free, is that we are created in the image of God and infused with the Spirit of God and called to witness to the presence of God.
In friendship,
David