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How do we respond to the devastation of September 11, the deadly attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon? Many responses come to mind: Prayer. Care for the injured and bereft. Increased security, increased vigilance. Just punishment for the masterminds behind the carnage. Sharper on-the-ground intelligence-gathering. Stronger international cooperation against terrorism. Congregational immersion in Scripture stories of God's people who lived through radical loss and destabilization, from Joseph to Daniel to John, Peter, and Paul.

But there is one more response: American Christians will want also to become better global citizens.

Since the so-called end of the Cold War, many of us have not given much thought to the rest of the world except as occasional business, tourist, or short-term mission connections. Those days of ignorance are over. We have been hit in the solar plexus with the truth that that we are globally connected and cannot cut loose.

In his bestseller on globalization, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Thomas Friedman describes a label on a computer part that reads, "This part was made in Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, China, Mexico, Germany, the U.S., Thailand, Canada, and Japan. It was made in so many different places that we cannot specify a country of origin." We are globally integrated as never before. Yet many of us have continued to live cocooned in our own little circle of friends, walled off from people who are different. To think about the rest of the world overwhelms us. Masses of data pour over us, jumbled in sound bites that juxtapose great human tragedies with beer ads. We know that even the internationally minded—American expatriates and missionaries—have made mistakes. How can ordinary citizens like you and me know enough to make intelligent comments on global issues?

"Whenever I think about those people over there, I worry," one churchgoer said recently. "And I know God doesn't want me to be worried. So I've decided he doesn't want me to think about them." Another Christian says that's why she doesn't read the newspaper anymore. The news disturbs her, and surely that isn't the will of God.

Christians should be different. Of all people, Christians are to love our neighbors. When our neighborhood expands to include the globe, then we're called to love globally. How? Some of the most important steps may be some of the simplest:

• Pray through the newspaper, especially the world news section.
• Befriend foreigners who live in your city.
• Develop strong relationships with your church or denominational missionaries.
• Ask members who are business owners to talk about their global involvements.
• Go to a local college and find out whether there's a group of local "friends of international students."
• Ask your high-school and college youth what they're studying about global issues.
• Teach a church class on the biblical basis of mission, tracing global issues from Genesis to Revelation.

And we should strive to do this without a patronizing smile, at arm's length. Loving our neighbors means something more. It means being vulnerable. It means entering into their pain. When God in Jesus came to live among us, he shared our troubles and felt our hurts. Do we empathize with those in other countries?

Globalization has hurt a lot of people. Although transnational business has brought a lot of wealth to other countries, people in those countries suspect that transnational corporations—most based in America—are reaping the lion's share of the benefits. This breeds a love/hate feeling toward America.

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October 22 2001, Vol. 45, No. 13