UPDATE: letter from Bishop Mark Sisk of the Diocese of New York – see below.
The Rev. Anne Mallonee, vicar of Trinity Wall Street in New York City writes at Episcopal Life Online on the work of reconciliation at “Ground Zero”
As we approach next year’s 10th anniversary of 9/11, we are asking how the holy work of reconciliation is to be played out through this parish, at this site, in the years to come.
And so it was that in May, it was in total alignment with Trinity’s mission, our sense of values and 313 years in Lower Manhattan, for me to attend a local community board meeting to speak in support of a proposed Islamic community center in our neighborhood, the Cordoba Initiative. The mission of the center is to be peace and reconciliation, inter and intra-faith understanding. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is not a stranger, as he and Trinity Television worked together right after 9/11 to produce a piece to promote dialogue and mutual understanding in the wake of the terrorist attacks. He leads worship in a mosque just a few blocks from St. Paul’s and Ground Zero, a mosque that has been there almost 30 years.That community board meeting was a frightening display of hatred and incivility. What I encountered there, with what I have read and heard in the months since, has only strengthened my resolve for this difficult work of reconciliation. As the issue has grown from a local concern to a national and even international tempest, particular details of content have gotten traction such as the location of the proposed community center, constitutional rights and even the faith of the president of the United States. But underneath all this lies fear and hatred: Fear that can only be addressed through the willingness of people to come together, to address the issues that fuel the fear and build the barriers; and to reject the ingredients that foster prejudice and hatred.
Trinity has been criticized for supporting Park51, as the proposed community center is now called. I have been confronted in anger by those who ask how I can be so naïve, so stupid, so duped as to trust Imam Feisal; not because they know him personally (they usually do not) but solely because he is Muslim. The experience has led me back to the ninth chapter of Luke, when Jesus has sent the twelve to go out to preach the Kingdom and to heal. They come back later, both amazed by the work they have been able to do in his name, but alarmed because they saw an unknown stranger doing the same kind of good work. Rather than celebrate this witness to the power of God, they tried to stop this stranger. But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for whoever is not against you is for you.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer, Will Bunch thinks many current controversies are all connected to fear of “the other.”:
America, we are in for the bumpy political ride of a lifetime. It will take enormous courage for defenders of two centuries of religious freedom and tolerance toward both religious and economic refugees to stand firm in the face of the kind of raw public anger and emotion that have caused backbone-impaired politicians like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid or supposed progressive stalwart Howard Dean to wither in mere days. Our determined minority may be barely clinging to our cherished traditions — as best expressed by President George Washington in 1790 when he wrote “the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens” — in the face of this onslaught for the next few years.
Let’s face it: This country has long had its Know-Nothings and its Birchers and its McCarthyites, but it never had gizmos like Fox News or Sarah Palin’s Twitter feed to fuel toxic ideas so far so fast. It’s time we admit these seemingly disconnected battles over “anchor babies, mosques, and a black man in the Oval Office are all part of the same war against “the Other,” and that we are in the fight of a lifetime.
received by email
August 24, 2010
Dear Sisters and Brothers in the Diocese of New York
I am writing to tell you that I wholeheartedly join other religious and civic leaders in calling on all parties involved in the dispute over the planned lower Manhattan Islamic community center and mosque to convert a situation that has sadly become ever more divisive into, as Archbishop Timothy Dolan recently stated, “an opportunity for a civil, rational, loving, respectful discussion.”
The plan to build this center is, without doubt, an emotionally highly-charged issue. But as a nation with tolerance and religious freedom at its very foundation, we must not let our emotions lead us into the error of persecuting or condemning an entire religion for the sins of its most misguided adherents.
The worldwide Islamic community is no more inclined to violence that any other. Within it, however, a struggle is going on – between the majority who seek to follow a moderate, loving religion and the few who would transform it into an intolerant theocracy intent on persecuting anyone, Muslim or otherwise, with whom they disagree. We should all, as Christians, reach out in friendship and love to the peaceful Islamic majority and do all in our power to build and strengthen bridges between our faiths. We should also all remember that the violence and hateful behavior of the extremist are not confined to any one religion. Over the centuries we Christians have numbered more than a few among us who have perpetrated unspeakable atrocities in Christ’s name.
I must admit that I also have a more personal connection with this issue. At the Episcopal Diocese of New York we know the leaders of this project, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan. We know that they are loving, gentle people, who epitomize Islamic moderation. We know that as Sufis, they are members of an Islamic sect that teaches a universal belief in man’s relationship to God that is not dissimilar from mystic elements in certain strains of Judaism and Christianity. Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan are, without question, people to whom Christians of good will should reach out with the hand of hospitality and friendship, as they reach out to us. I understand and support their desire to build an Islamic center, intended in part to promote understanding and tolerance among different religions.
For these reasons I applaud the positions taken by Governor Patterson, Mayor Bloomberg and others and look forward to furthering the efforts to resolve this issue. I am convinced, aided and guided by the One God who is creator of all, that people of goodwill can find a solution that will strengthen, rather than divide, the human condition,
The Right Reverend Mark S. Sisk