NEW YORK -- New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has decided no original secular speeches will be made during the city's official 9/11 commemorations. Instead, he and other officials are looking to the clergy to provide modern-day words of hope and comfort as people pour into the city's churches, according to The New York Times.
Many clergy interviewed by the newspaper said they plan to keep their sermons simple; others were still groping for words.
The Rev. Paul Williams of the Christian Churches, an evangelical denomination, was still working on an appropriate message for several congregations in Nesconset, N.Y.
"I don't want to deal with it, that's why I'm avoiding it," Williams told the Times the first week of September. "Somehow, I'm quite sure my text will be an Old Testament text on the suffering of Israel, that God's people are accustomed to passing this way."
Richard Lischer, a professor of preaching at Duke University, said preachers should limit their oratory and focus on Scriptures.
"Preaching is meant to interpret God's word for this particular moment in our history," Lischer said. "But this is such an extraordinary moment that it may well be if we all listen to something together in which we can find ourselves, we will experience greater healing."
Lischer urged preachers to avoid trying to explain the attack's meaning or God's intent. Clergy should shun sentimentality and irony, he said, pointing people to the Bible for comfort.
