 outStanding in
the Field
A
Church's Litany of Remembrance
“It just couldn’t be a typical summer
Sunday,” said Dwyn M. Mounger (’65B), pastor of
the First
Presbyterian Church in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
The Sunday to which he was referring was August 6,
1995, the fiftieth anniversary of the dropping of the
atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. The
devastation that resulted is all too familiar—eighty
thousand people were killed, and many of those who
survived the blast were crippled, burned, or suffered
radiation sickness. And Oak Ridge played a part in the
tragedy.
Located in east Tennessee, Oak Ridge was secretly
organized by the government during World War II as part
of the Manhattan Project, which developed atomic energy
as a weapon of war. It was Oak Ridge that provided all of
the enriched uranium-235 for the bomb that destroyed
Hiroshima.
To commemorate the anniversary, Mounger wrote a
“Litany of Remembrance” for a service that
featured music centered on the theme of peace and
included the celebration of the Eucharist. The litany,
Mounger says, remembered victims of all wars and gave
thanks for friendships that continue to strengthen among
previously estranged nations.
The litany has been used during the
congregation’s annual Hiroshima Remembrance Day
service each year since, with some revisions to
accommodate the political realities of the time. For
example, in this year’s service, Mounger added the
line “…and especially from international
nuclear arms competition, recently rekindled by the
actions of India and Pakistan.”
This year’s litany also included a poignant, true
story titled “The Charred Lunchbox,” which was
written and illustrated by the Komyo
Gakuen Nursery School in Hiroshima.
During the service, children from the congregation
rang a miniature replica of Oak Ridge’s
International Friendship Bell, which was installed in a
pavilion in A. K. Bissell Park in May 1996.
Cast in Kyoto, Japan, the four-ton, bronze bell
symbolizes the “friendship and mutual regard that
have developed between Oak Ridge and Japan,” says
Mounger. “It further serves as a symbol of our
mutual longing and pledge to work for freedom,
well-being, justice, and peace for all the peoples of the
world for years to come.”
Mounger, who admits his passion for history, takes to
heart Santayana’s warning that those who forget the
past are destined to repeat it. “We need to remember
the past, even the painful things,” he says.
Another of Mounger’s passions is travel, and he
has led eleven ecumenical overseas tours to China, the
Middle East, and eastern and western Europe. He has led
worship services in Jerusalem and at Auschwitz, site of a
World War II death camp. He has helped raise money to
repair a dilapidated school that the Hungarian government
had returned to a church in Budapest that he once
visited. In his sermons, he speaks both passionately and
eloquently of the places where he has been. “Part of
being a Christian,” he says, “is accepting the
responsibility to stand up and speak out against
evil.”
First Church elders Jack Davidson and Anna
George Dobbins with Dwyn Mounger at the
International Friendship Bell, A.K. Bissell
Park
When Mounger arrived at the First Presbyterian Church
in Oak Ridge in June 1995, the congregation had already
shown itself to be dedicated to such activism. In the
1950s when the Civil Rights movement was underway, a
group of church representatives (and other citizens)
worked to break down barriers that kept Blacks from being
served in local theaters, barber shops, and restaurants.
In the late 1960s, during the height of the Vietnam War,
church members planned and produced a controversial
antiwar play titled The Milestone. In this
decade, the church has been actively engaged in providing
sanctuary to refugees from all parts of the world
including Vietnam, Poland, Ethiopia, and a Kurdish
community in Iraq. It has encouraged interracial dialogue
through forums and retreats and has brought young people
both from Chicago and from Ireland—Catholics and
Protestants—to Oak Ridge to work toward
reconciliation.
“Activism isn’t something that I brought
here,” says Mounger. “I have had to hustle to
keep up with my congregation.”
According to Elder Charles Hadden, who was chair of
the church’s Pastor Nominating Committee, what
Mounger brings to Oak Ridge is his “devotion to a
ministry of caring for people’s spiritual needs with
a wealth of knowledge of religious history and
theology…. He shows great compassion and
humility.” In fact, his congregation’s
spiritual nourishment is of primary concern to Mounger,
who says, “What I hope for the members of my church
is that they will continue to grow spiritually, to hold
up the light of Jesus Christ, and to continue good
witness.”
© Copyright 1998 Princeton
Theological Seminary
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| last updated 02/08/99
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