Our task as congregations or the Church at large is not to offer specific policy prescriptions in the face of another shooting tragedy, another instance of radical Islamic-based terrorism, though each of us as Christians committed to the Lord's call to be good citizens, may have our own individual opinions.
Above all, our tasks as Church boil down to a few:
- to pray,
- to weep with the grieving,
- to proclaim the truth about God revealed in Jesus Christ and the whole Bible which witnesses to Jesus, and
- to make disciples for Jesus Christ.
"Let’s call our congregations to pray together. Let’s realize that, in this case, our gay and lesbian neighbors are likely quite scared. Who wouldn’t be? Demonstrate the sacrificial love of Jesus to them. We don’t have to agree on the meaning of marriage and sexuality to love one another and to see the murderous sin of terrorism. Let’s also pray for our leaders who have challenging decisions to make in the midst of crisis. Let’s mobilize our congregations and others to give blood for the victims. Let’s call for governing authorities to do their primary duty of keeping its people safe from evildoers.Read the whole thing.
"And let’s bear patiently with those who jump the gun, in arguing about the politics on social media. For many of them, the jump to talk about gun control or Islam or military preparedness or any other issue isn’t so much about pontificating as it is about frustration. They, like all of us, want this horror to end, and they want to do something—even if that’s just expressing themselves on Twitter.
"As the Body of Christ, though, we can love and serve and weep and mourn. And we can remind ourselves and our neighbors that this is not the way it is supposed to be. We mourn, but we mourn in the hope of a kingdom where blood is not shed and where bullets never fly."
[Thanks to Philip Daniels and Jeff Schultz for sharing a link to this important article over on Facebook.]
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