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Breakfast speaker: Amid tragedy, 9/11 survivor realizes different faiths pray to 'God of all people'
By LINDA M. LINONIS
GIRARD
“Love and forgiveness ... that is our call in this world today,” the Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell told the diverse audience of Christians, Jews and Muslims at the 29th annual Mayors’ Prayer Breakfast.
The Rev. Dr. Campbell was the keynote speaker Tuesday morning at the Mahoning Country Club, 710 E. Liberty St., where the Mahoning Valley Association of Churches hosted its annual pre-Thanksgiving event for nearly 200. The retired director of the department of religion at Chautauqua Institution addressed “What the World Needs Now; Leadership in the Time of Tumult.”
Her topic coincided with current events as she spoke after the grand jury’s decision in Ferguson, Mo. Whether one supports the decision or not, Dr. Campbell said, “We have the freedom to make ourselves known and we can fight for justice.”
“We thank God for those blessings,” she said. “We should be grateful to God, whose love is large enough to love all people of faith and those of no faith.”
Dr. Campbell, a peace and social-justice activist, noted that citizens in a democracy must act on their conscience. She did that in what she called “life-changing work” with the civil-rights movement and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the struggle to end apartheid with Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
She recalled a banquet at which Bishop Tutu commented that “God loves everyone ... and if you think that’s easy. ...” But she said that is our challenge, too.
Dr. Campbell related a story from the aftermath of Sept. 11. She was working in the New York at the time of the terrorist attacks. A pastor friend told her about a young man in his 30s who ran down 47 flights of stairs in one of the towers and survived. The young man told the pastor that he couldn’t get the scene of “everyone praying to one God” out of his mind. Dr. Campbell said the young man told the pastor he had been tempted to believe that his religion was the only one. “In the midst of tragedy, his life changed,” Dr. Campbell said, noting he realized that people of different faiths prayed to the “God of all people.”
Dr. Campbell said the young man realized one could wholeheartedly “embrace their faith” and still “respect the faith of others.”
She noted that the United States is the most “religiously pluralistic” country in the world. The speaker said the prayer breakfast was an example, as it brings together different religions practiced in the Valley. “There is interfaith respect,” she observed.
“God can’t be owned or contained in one religion,” Dr. Campbell said. “If we are passionate believers, we will recognize the same passion in others.”
She suggested that people see “the best of what each religion teaches,” and “hearts and souls will be touched.” That should motivate us to “reach out” to one another.
Dr. Campbell said that Youngstown and the Valley are deep in her DNA. She was born Nov. 13, 1931, in Southside Hospital. Her parents, the late Dr. James and Alice Jane Bunn Brown, were active in the community, and “religion as a part of life” was her family legacy.
She was the first ordained woman appointed as general secretary of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, was director of the U.S. Office of the World Council of Churches and was among founders of the National Religious Partnership on the Environment.
Program participants were the Rev. Dr. Robin Woodberry, executive director of MVAC; the Rev. Ed Weisheimer, who introduced the speaker; Chester Cooper of First Presbyterian Church, Imam Walid Abuasi of the Islamic Society of Greater Youngstown and Rabbi Franklin Muller of Congregation Rodef Sholom, all of Youngstown. Sister Alexandra Klimovich of St. Elisabeth Convent in Minsk, Belarus, offered a prayer. Sons of Bethel of New Bethel Baptist Church sang.