Expanding Our Post-9/11 Empathy

By Chloe Breyer

At a moment in an age when television sound-bites and short internet vignettes are accepted forms of religio-political public speech, two visual messages stand out as particularly trenchant: “ Blood of Heroes ,” a homemade internet memorial to the victims and heroes of Sept. 11, 2001; and the Faithful America TV ad featuring American religious leaders apologizing for the Abu Ghraib abuses. “Blood of Heroes” was compiled – possibly by a Vietnam veteran – in 2002 to muster patriotic support for the war in Iraq.

To the theologically untrained eye, both media pieces seem to add religious fuel from the right and left to a raging political fire. But here's why religious literacy matters: From a faith perspective, the Faithful America apology ad is actually the sequel to the “Blood of Heroes,” not its competitor.

It's still circulating on the internet. Faithful America's ad aired last week on Al Jazeera. To the theologically untrained eye, both media pieces seem to add religious fuel from the right and left to a raging political fire. But here's why religious literacy matters: From a faith perspective, the Faithful America apology ad is actually the sequel to the “Blood of Heroes,” not its competitor. It further articulates similar important religious premises and, like every good sequel, corrects the mistakes of the first episode.

One of the greatest and most difficult challenges of real religious faith is what Reinhold Niebuhr called “sluicing altruistic passions beyond the reservoirs of nationalism.” It is easy, this great 20th century theologian argued in the 1940s, for “individual unselfishness [to] be transmuted into national selfishness.” The nation, Niebuhr argues in Moral Man, Immoral Society , has “rituals of state . . . impressive display of fighting services . . . and also “man's pious attachment to his countryside, memories of youth,” which all inspire “awe and reverence in a citizen.” Thus, “the sentiment of patriotism achieves a potency in the modern soul, so unqualified, that the nation is given carte blanche to use the power . . . for any purpose it chooses.”

The “Blood of Heroes,” a “four-minute patriotic slide-show,” combines quotes from leading figures in U.S. history with images of the attacks on the World Trade Center. Besides honoring the victims of 9/11, its author appears to have it in for the detractors of “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” An internet search found it linked to veterans and conservative religious groups.

A closer look reveals hints of important biblical principles amidst the flags and dust-covered rescue workers – namely, that because human beings are created in God's image we are called to value the lives of strangers as much as we do our own. “This is someone's daughter,” reads the caption under a picture of a woman falling from one of the towers. “This could be your sister,” say the words next to a photo of an injured victim on the sidewalk.

These statements draw on a lesson from Genesis, echoed in the baptismal covenants of many Christian traditions: We are called to see God reflected in all persons and promise to respect the dignity of every human being – not just friends and relatives. Thus, when we see the image of a traumatized woman dialing her cell phone, our faith as well as our reason agrees with the caption, “This could be you – someone you love is gone.” It's not just the author's invitation to God to continue blessing America that makes this video “faith-based.” More tellingly, the trouble he takes to make viewers feel the loss of a stranger as if it were a friend's points toward this basic belief that all humans are made in God's image.

Present too, between the pictures of smoking rubble and the fighting words of American revolutionaries, is the idea common to all the Abrahamic faiths that we are our brothers' (and sisters') keepers. “Blood of Heroes” places responsibility for preventing another attack squarely on the viewer's shoulders. “What are you doing right now?” a series of stark questions and quotes begins, “Have you already forgotten?” “[Sitting] on the couch, watching TV, having 30 minute pizzas delivered to our door” according to the “info” section of the video, is a luxury, along with prayer and voting, we have been given by those who died for our liberty. Though the video does not explain how supporting pre-emptive war against a nation that had nothing to do with the World Trade Center attacks is a better anti-dote to complacency than, say, advocating for U.S. compliance with the Geneva Conventions or replacing that foreign-oil guzzling SUV with a more fuel-efficient means of transport, its “make-a-difference” message is undeniable.   “Never forget” are the last words we see.

What, biblically speaking, is objectionable about these principles, as much as we might disagree with the conclusions drawn from them? While they might be obscured by deeply debatable political inferences – the “info” section clearly suggests that war with Iraq is the way to prevent a future Sept. 11's and that those who disagree are cowards – what is wrong with the points about our responsibility for one another in a time of danger? The answer is: not very much. An uncomfortable reminder of the cost of the lives lost that day is warranted, as is the suggestion that though we may not have suffered directly, others did.

If God really made all human beings in God's image, where, for example, are the gut-wrenching photographs of the Afghan mothers and fathers who lost their children in a U.S. bombardment of a wedding party in 2002? . . . “Blood of Heroes” clearly needs another episode.

But the video doesn't say all it could. If all human beings are made in God's image and the suffering of some is the business of all, wouldn't that point be better made if we included those people of darker skin from foreign lands? If God really made all human beings in God's image, where, for example, are the gut-wrenching photographs of the Afghan mothers and fathers who lost their children in a U.S. bombardment of a wedding party in 2002? Where is the photograph of the distraught Iraqi mother still seeking her lost son about the time that the prison abuses began last year? “Blood of Heroes” clearly needs another episode.

Part II, I believe, comes in the unlikely form of an Al Jazeera television ad – also making internet rounds – sponsored by Faithful America and endorsed by almost 100,000 U.S. citizens. It features American Jewish, Christian, and Muslim leaders apologizing to the Arab world for the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. While the ad doesn't explicitly show the ghastly images of Iraqi detainees, they are the backdrop. “A Salaam A' alaikum (Peace be with you)” Rev. Dr. Donald Shriver, former president of Union Theological Seminary in New York, tells the presumed Arab audience. “As Americans of faith, we express our deep sorrow at the abuses committed in Iraqi prisons. We stand in solidarity with all those in Iraq and everywhere who demand justice and human dignity.” Others featured on the ad include Rabbi Arthur Waskow of the Shalom Center , Sister Betty Obal of the Loretto Sisters , and Imam Feisal Rauf of the American Sufi Muslim Association .

Once again we have a religious message about the dignity of every human being, but this time it's the foreign enemy rather than our fellow countrymen and -women whose suffering we honor. FaithfulAmerica.org's agenda is a new organization that “aspires to be an online wing of a powerful new progressive faith movement, like the ones fought for independence, abolition, and civil rights,” and this ad – their first – suggests strongly we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers. Bush's apology for a few rogue soldiers and the “barbaric acts of an unrepresentative few” did not say enough about the systemic nature of the abuses, the organization claims. “We condemn the sinful and systematic abuses

committed in our name, and pledge to work to right these wrongs.”

The leaders in the Faithful America ad recognize that prophetic strand of biblical religion that does not seek to reinforce tribal or patriotic points of view, but that tries, rather, to challenge them. Extending religious empathy beyond national borders is no easy task. If the prophets of ancient Israel had an uphill struggle in this regard, how much greater is the challenge for their modern day equivalents in a liberal democracy like ours.

To sign on to the Faithful America ad, visit <www.faitfhulamerica/adclip.htm>.

The Rev. Chloe Breyer is associate rector of St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Manhattanville in New York City, and travels regularly to Central and South Asia in connection to her interfaith ministry. She is an occasional contributor to Slate.com and is the author of The Close: A Young Woman's First Year at Seminary . Chloe may be reached by email at cbreyer@cac.dioceseny.org .