Community Corner

Hinsdale 9/11 Victim Remembered

Jeff Mladenik was a husband and father of four when he died aboard American Airlines Flight 11; the death of Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the notorious attack, prompted the leader of Mladenik's church to offer his thoughts.

With news of Osama bin Laden's death dominating headlines, Rev. Dr. Daniel Meyer of Christ Church of Oak Brook received a flood of media requests Monday regarding Hinsdale native and former Christ Church associate pastor Jeff Mladenik, who was killed on Sept. 11, 2001.

Mladenik died aboard American Airlines Flight 11, one of two planes that were hijacked and crashed into the World Trade Center in New York. He was a 43-year-old husband and father of four.

Christ Church forwarded to Patch an email containing Meyer's prepared answers to several questions pertaining to Mladenik's legacy at the church as well as the national reaction to bin Laden's death. Edited versions of the answers are below.

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(Mladenik's family requested that no photos of Jeff be published, according to Renee Montgomery, communications and media director at Christ Church.)

What can you tell us about Jeff Mladenik and the events of September 11?

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Rev. Meyer: Jeff served part-time as our Pastor of Workplace Ministry and the rest of the time as an executive of a technology company.  We had lunch together on Saturday, Sept. 8 and Jeff talked about his upcoming business trip.  He shared how much he was looking forward to coming to work for the church full-time, so as not to have to make long-distance trips away from his wife, Sue, and his children.

When news of the tragedy hit on that September Tuesday, his closest associate at our church came to me and said: “I’m sure that Jeff was on that plane.” The effect on all his colleagues, on our congregation, and especially upon his family was unspeakable grief. Jeff was a gigantic figure with so much to give.

Many locals who lost family members or friends in the 9/11 tragedy are reflecting on loss today. How is the [church] remembering associate pastor Jeff Mladenik? What does his legacy mean to the church? 

Rev. Meyer: The news of Bin Laden’s death obviously made me think, immediately, of Jeff.

When that first plane hit the twin towers, the terrorists took Jeff’s body from us, but they couldn’t take his whole life—not in the fullest sense. Jeff’s intelligent and passionate faith, his wonderful sense of humor, and the generosity of his love made an everlasting mark on his family, his friends, and our church. We miss him dearly, but we have much of him living within us.  We believe we’ll see him in heaven one day and are trying to live in such way that he’ll be proud of us when he sees us coming.

There are a lot of people celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden. What do you think of this? 

Rev. Meyer: Having had several of my loved ones murdered through the years (one by Bin Laden on 9/11), I can’t criticize or condemn anyone for celebrating today. It is only natural to be glad that someone who preached hatred, commissioned mass murder, and left so many people with tears and fears will do so no more. We all know that profound challenges and threats still face us, but for a lot of us the world feels slightly safer and more just this week, than it did before May 1.

At the same time, I don’t believe that Bin Laden’s death comes close to achieving “justice.”  Even if we were to capture and kill a terrorist for every innocent life lost on September 11, it does not “even” the score.  It can’t bring back the precious lives lost on that day or since.  Taking “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” certainly creates a feeling of momentary satisfaction.  But staking our hopes on justice by retribution only gives us a world where there are a lot more blind and toothless people in the end.  We’ve got to do more than high-five one another that Bin Laden is dead.  We need to keep working together to create a world in which the social and spiritual conditions that breed the ignorance, hatred and hopelessness on which Al Qaeda feeds are no more.

What other input on Osama Bin Laden’s death might you have from a religious perspective?

Rev. Meyer: I lived for two years in Belfast, Northern Ireland during the worst of the terror there.  I saw how much the hostilities between the antagonists there depended on neither side ever really getting close enough to one another to build real relationships.  We may not be able to do much today to affect the view of hardened extremists overseas, but Christians and Muslims in the United States could be doing more to cross the walls that keep us in relative ignorance or suspicion about one another.  Perhaps the events of this week will provide impetus for a new level of relationship-building.

The Bible teaches that it is the God-ordained job of the government to wield “the sword” that restrains the progress of evil (Romans 13), but that it is the job of individual Christians to be “the salt” – to seek to overcome evil with good (Romans 12).  That was the vision for which Jeff lived and would be, I think, what he’d want us to focus on now.


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