For those of certain ages, there are events which forever stay in memory. My mother could tell me where she was when she heard about Pearl Harbor. I remember what I was doing when I heard that President Kennedy had been shot. And for all of us we remember where we were when the planes hit the World Trade Center and the rest of that day of infamy 10 years ago.
I was working on a new exhibit at the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and my wife called me to tell me that a plane, probably by a terrible accident, had hit the New York City building. Quickly the horror of that day began to unfold and we all realized that something terrible had happened, killing thousands of innocent people and setting us on a new course as a nation. I remember telling Darlene, the research assistant at the Historical Society, to make a vertical file and for want of what to call it just label it as “9/11.” The numerals became synonymous with terrorism.
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Fred Anderson
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George was the disaster relief coordinator for the Virginia Baptist Mission Board and he was driving to Southwest Virginia when he heard the news. Before the morning was over, Jim had placed the Virginia Baptist feeding unit on alert to be ready to respond. By the next afternoon Virginia Baptists “were rolling towards New York with 22 volunteers and 5,000 meals ready to cook for the workers and victims of the disaster.” It was the beginning of a mammoth response by Virginia Baptists — distributing meals, providing a healing presence and even cleaning apartments.
Within a week of the terrible day, Bill Duke, then pastor of Hillcrest Baptist Church in the Richmond area, telephoned and suggested that a worthy project would be to gather and publish sermons delivered in response to 9/11. He offered to gather these and we determined that the publishing would be a worthy undertaking of our new organization, the Center for Baptist Heritage & Studies.
Sept. 11, 2001, was a Tuesday — a crisp, beautiful, blue-skies day in Richmond — a day which began with no indication that it would become one of those “days which will live in infamy” — and before it was over every minister would be changing his sermon for the coming Sunday. Bill Duke was right. It would be important to redeem the time.
In the hours which followed the tragedy, many Virginia Baptists experienced shock and sadness over the sudden death on Sept. 12 of Nat Kellum, the effective, compassionate and beloved treasurer of the Baptist General Association of Virginia and director of business services for the Mission Board. The blows came heavy that week — the massive loss for the nation and the down-home personal loss for Virginia Baptists.
We set no parameters for accepting sermons. We were open to publishing whatever was sent and there was a large response. They came in every form: electronic, handwritten, typed, legible and illegible. We determined not to be censors and we were offering no awards for writing. We took the bundle to our homes and everyone connected with our workplace proofread. My wife and I found that in reading the sermons we experienced some measure of healing. Certainly, the overwhelming emphasis from the messages we read was the theology of Christian hope in the face of indescribable tragedy. It was an emphasis which America and the world needed in those days.
Bill Duke felt that the sermon which he delivered on Sunday, Sept. 16, 2001, was “the longest and hardest sermon” of his life. He admitted that “few, if any, preachers were prepared by experience or education to address their congregations in the face of such as horrific national experience.” He called it “uncharted territory for most preachers.” The images of that Tuesday and the days which followed were seared into the recent memory bank of worshippers. What does a Christian minister say in response? Bill Duke used Isaiah 36-37, employing the stories of ancient peoples in a sermon on “Our Security.”
None of the sermons published in the book were considered as models, but each one did offer how a particular minister addressed the common subject. There was diversity and variety with 65 sermons submitted from pastors of large and small churches, rural and urban, and from male and female ministers. Vallerie King was still new in her pastorate at Emmaus outside Richmond and she chose Luke 12:4-12 for comfort, noting the last verse which reads, “For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say.”
Barbara Jackson, who operates her own book designing business, gave professional attention to the publication while her husband, Lloyd Jackson, was engaged in much of the disaster relief work in New York City. Jackson was a guest preacher that Sunday after 9/11 at Welcome Grove near Warsaw and he used Acts 3:1-10 for a sermon on “Tragedy and Mission.”
The book of sermons was entitled For the Living of These Days: Responses to Terrorism. The Center for Baptist Heritage & Studies paid the costs. It was determined that the entire amount of sales would support a humanitarian endeavor. Virginia Baptists bought the book in such numbers that some $25,000 was given to the Virginia Baptist Mission Board to purchase more disaster feeding units.
During the days and weeks following 9/11, we all witnessed the turning by Americans to traditional sources of spiritual strength. Churches and temples opened their doors for prayer. At the University of Richmond a candlelight service was held around the lake; and there were speakers from various segments of the campus community. The speaker whose message stayed with me the longest was Bettie L. Clarke, the director of the UR dining hall. She is an African-American and a Baptist. I remember that she said to use your best tablecloth and your best china and flatware, showing that each day you will live life to its fullest.
In the aftermath of horrific tragedy, Virginia Baptists shined by helping victims and by sharing the Christian message of hope. In so doing, Virginia Baptists were living life to its fullest. Steve Allsbrook, director of missions for the Dover Baptist Association, wrote at the time: “Perhaps our lights shine brightest in dark times. How we handle crises, how we grieve, how we choose to go on living — all afford a chance to show others the Lord who promises to walk through the deepest, darkest times with us.”
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies. He may be contacted at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.