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Friends United Meeting |
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FUM's Response to Terrorist Attacks
September 21, 2001
In response to the cruel attack on civilian airlines resulting in devastation in New York City, the Pentagon and Pennsylvania, Friends United Meeting expresses our grief for the victims and counsel one another as we look toward healing in the aftermath of this fearful reality.
Friends United Meeting, headquartered in the United States, has an international constituency. A large percentage of our membership is in Kenya, where many suffered in the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi in 1998. We also have a school in the Palestinian city of Ramallah, and the local Ramallah Friends operate a play center for children in a nearby refugee camp. For many years, they have suffered the effects of war and terrorism directed against civilians on both sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
We are, therefore, familiar with the emotions of anger, violation, fear, grief, and the desire for justice and even revenge that have swept the United States in the last week. We are also grateful, through these experiences, to have seen people of faith, rooted in confidence in the grace of God, respond with compassion, mutual care and loving service that crosses lines of supposed enmity.
In his Journal, the seventeenth century Quaker, George Fox wrote:
"I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness. And in that also I saw the infinite love of God..."
We desire and urge all peoples to live in awareness of the infinite love of God. Friends have long sought to find ways of dealing with evil that recognizes that the enemy is not this person or that nation, ethnicity or faith. Rather, the enemy is sin, dwelling in the hearts of people in rebellion against God. We have found the reality of redemption in Jesus Christ, who commanded those who would follow Him to love their enemies. (Matthew 5:44) We recall the words of Paul, "The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world." (2 Cor. 10:4)
We, therefore, pray the nations will pursue the cause of justice and peace in ways that do not foster future violence. We are asking our own members to remember George Fox's historic counsel that "the Spirit of Christ, by which we are guided... will never move us to fight and war against any man with outward weapons...." Instead, we encourage one another to find ways to reach out in love across walls of enmity that separate us and "overcome evil with good." (Romans 12:21)
FRIENDS UNITED MEETING
Stanley Bauer, Presiding Clerk
Retha McCutchen, General Secretary
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