Professor studies congregations' reactions to 9/11

By Joy (May) Sherman

Dr. Doug Nelson, Anderson University chair of the Department of History and Political Science, took a sabbatical. And, as with many other professors, he spent that time in research and study — but his subject was an unusual one.

Nelson pursued an in-depth study on the presence and influence of the American clergy in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. “The clergy, in past times of national emergency, have been opinion leaders and have played a role in providing leadership for the mass public,” Nelson says. “So in the case of 9/11, and in the case of the war on terrorism, I was interested in what clergy were saying from the pulpits and what kind of positions they were taking on the attacks.”

After gathering sermons at random — from both large and small churches, denominationally diverse congregations, televised and Web accessible materials — Nelson had more than 100 documents from which to glean his information, as well as two books of collected sermons that were published after the attacks. Nelson read for common themes throughout the sermons and found a broad division of two: 1) questions relating to providence, as in “Why did this happen?” and “How does this fit in to the broader plan of salvation?” and 2) questions relating to peace and justice.

While the content of some sermons may not have surprised Nelson, he did discover quite an array of caustic commentary relating to Islam as an evil religion and one that condones the slaying of Muslims, a position he found most disturbing. “There were some people who were on one side, very combative. At first I thought it was an exceptional thing, but then I found it to be much more common.”

Nelson also consulted opinions from an opposite view; he collected a number of documents from peace churches and pacifists, whose reactions on American response to the terrorism ranged from a desire for some measured actions (mostly mainline Protestant churches) to vigilant opposition to American action (pacifists who argued that there are no “Christian Americans”; we are Christians first, and Americans incidentally).

Another indicator for Nelson was the comfort level of clergy to speak on the issue; many ministers only spoke to him on conditions of anonymity. Perhaps even more surprising to him was how quickly the subject was dropped among congregations across the U.S. “After about a month, I found it very hard to find people who were talking about this event. It was not like Vietnam; this was not like World War II or World War I — all of which were bigger, very physical, present wars. The local grief issue on the day after [9/11], the Sunday after, [the clergy] spent a lot of time talking about that. But the month after, they were back to things much more immediate.”

Nelson hopes for his work to be published; while his random sampling is not perfect scientific methodology, he believes the work to be of benefit for others. In the meantime, he has extracted several other questions to be addressed — a study of how the clergy influence their congregations with regard to issues of peace and justice. Perhaps it’s new material for his next sabbatical.