Fellow citizens of the world, brothers and sisters in Christ, All Hail:

I will never forget the events of September 11, 2001. It was the beginning of my junior year at the University of Detroit Mercy. Upon entering the classroom, Ned (a fellow student) said, “Two planes crashed in New York, and more are loose.” I honestly thought he was joking. He said, “No, no, I’m serious.” By then I was sitting in my seat. We both got up at the same time, to the turn the old television on. It had bad reception, but good enough for us to see what was happening. Ned was telling the truth, unfortunately.

My mind immediately went to the temples, missions, and all the saints of the Universal Hagar’s Spiritual Church, who lived on the East coast. After that class, I went to work. When I sat down in my cubicle, I called Mme. Elizabeth Clements, my dear godmother’s sister, in New York City, and Prof. John Wiley, my godfather, in Hackensack, New Jersey. I could not get through, a strange beeping sound took the place of the normal ringing. My faith in God was still strong, but I just wanted to hear some saint’s voice from out East, to reassure me all was well, from a material standpoint.

Although I renounce the killings of the terrorist, I cannot completely disagree with their disgust of the West. Father Hurley taught us that the Western world is far behind in terms of spiritual growth. Western culture has its successes, but glorifying it is no good, without pointing out its problems. In 2004, while participating in an email discussion group, the subject of Western values came up. My response applies here, which I reprint in part.

“It may not be completely possible to narrow down the problems of society down to a particular decade, but we must admit some things are going wrong. For example, when my mother [and father were children]…growing up in Detroit people left their front doors and car doors open and things were rarely stolen. How many of us can leave our doors open with such confidence [today]? What changed? I may not know exactly what but something sure did!

“My first supervisor in the computer industry gave me some valuable computer support advice that applies to this discussion. Whenever a user came to me saying this or that does not work, he told me to ask, “Has it worked in the past?” If they said something like, “Oh yes, my printer worked fine yesterday.” Then I was to ask them, as well as myself, “What changed?”

“This Halloween one of the favorite costumes were “Pimp” costumes and “Hoe” costumes. These were made in adult and children’s sizes. And guess what—in the Metro Detroit area these costumes were sold out. When I read about this I could hear parents saying, “My daughter wants to be a Hoe for Halloween.” I could hear children in the playground saying, “What were you for Halloween Johnny?” “I was a Pimp for Halloween and my sister was a Hoe.” Am I the only one who finds something wrong with this?

“My point here is that although there was no “Golden Age”, as Dr. Koukal stated…there have been changes in society culturally speaking, some of which were not good….[S]ometimes we march forward touting progress when we are actually regressing. Sometimes when getting rid of a bad cultural paradigm we throw out the good that was in the bad, that is “throwing out the baby with the bath water”.”

As we reflect on the fifth anniversary of 9-11, let us think on our subject, “Morality in the West”. Can we really preach morality to other nations, given racism, sexism, poverty, etc. are still ramped in our society? The short answer is yes. The long answer is yes, provided we continue to work on our own problems. There is hardly anything worse than a hypocrite. The American message & mission to other nations should be, “Look, we know what it is like to suffer from moral issues and social ills. Let us work together, as a global community, to find common ground, eradicate injustice everywhere, and help each other be the greatest nations world history has ever seen.”

I pray you receive something good from these words. Peace, joy, happiness, success, health, & love are yours always.

I have the honor to be your obedient servant,
Reverend George H. Latimer-Knight
Written September 5, 2006 at age 24

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