Churches across Texas are participating in a campaign to raise awareness about gun violence and build coalitions focused on its prevention.
Texas Impact designed its Vidas Robadas — Spanish for “Taken Lives” — project to connect university and church-based advocates through the installation of memorials featuring hundreds of colorful T-shirts emblazoned with the names of gun violence victims and crisis hotline numbers.
The project already is under way in some congregations and will continue in others until a final installation in front of the Texas statehouse during the next legislative session early next year.
At Wilshire Baptist church, gun owner Scott Spreier makes a T-shirt for the gun-violence awaremesss project.
The initiative included a May 18 T-shirt installation and demonstration outside Dallas City Hall to coincide with the National Rifle Association’s annual convention held nearby in Downtown Dallas over the weekend. Ministers and members of First United Methodist Church of Dallas, Lakewood United Methodist Church, Lovers Lane United Methodist Church, Northaven United Methodist Church and Wilshire Baptist Church brought portions of their Vidas Robadas displays to the center to memorialize gun violence victims and advocate for meaningful gun safety policies.
Bobby Watson
The demonstration, which included Moms Demand Action and Giffords Gun Owners for Safety, was intended “to hold the NRA accountable and to focus especially on youth gun violence,” said Bobby Watson, Texas Impact policy advocate.
“We have extreme gun proliferation in the U.S., and these guns aren’t going to go anywhere, but we know there are a lot of Texans who support reasonable reforms,” he said. “We want to help re-instill the idea of responsible gun ownership and safe storage to reduce accidental shootings and teen suicides and to reduce gun thefts from cars.”
“We’re not coming after your guns,” Heather Mustain, associate pastor at Wilshire Baptist Church, said about the downtown demonstration and the overall message of Vidas Robadas. “This is a conversation and an experiential opportunity to connect our hearts with what we see going on with gun violence. It humanizes these issues and enables us to talk about reforms that can make a difference.”
While some Texas churches already have hosted and taken down their displays, others are ongoing, Wilshire members were invited on a recent Sunday to stay after Sunday morning worship to make the T-shirts that will be installed May 26 to June 10 in a place visible from a major street outside the church.
Like many other displays around the state, the Wilshire installation will include 100 white T-shirts representing suicides by gun and display the phone number of a local crisis hotline. Another 100 colored T-shirts will represent people who died in firearm accidents or homicides. These include the names of victims, their ages and dates of death.
Altogether, the display honors the 2,400 lives lost to gun violence in Dallas County since 2018, Mustain said.
“We hosted a T-shirt-making event with about 80 people involved. We spoke all the names (of those killed) aloud in a litany of lament. We made a full event of it instead of just preparing T-shirts. We wanted to really focus on the lives lost and to pray for the families who were left behind. This humanizes the issue of gun violence.”
Several miles away in North Dallas, Northaven United Methodist Church has its T-shirts displayed across the length of a second-story glass atrium that faces a major city street. The colorful T-shirts are visible to thousands of drivers who pass the church each day.
Suicide Lifeline T-shirt display at First Congregational Church of Houston..
The 2022 shooting massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, was still fresh on the minds of some organizers who helped plan installations at their churches.
“Saddened by events such as the Uvalde shooting, the catastrophic loss of life from guns in our country, and the fact that suicide accounts for 55% of gun-related deaths in the U.S., our congregation felt compelled to raise awareness about the soaring cost of gun violence and advocate for responsible gun ownership,” said Jan Glazner, a lay leader at First Congregational Church of Houston.
“When our church made 200 shirts to honor lives lost to guns in Harris County, I felt deep sadness at the loss and young age of some victims but also moved and empowered by a group of people coming together to make a difference.”
Display of T-shirts at the San Antonio Alamodome Peace March.
Cynthia Engstrom
Cynthia Engstrom, lead pastor at Travis Park Church in San Antonio, explained her congregation’s involvement as an effort to motivate people who feel overwhelmed and immobilized by the enormity of the nation’s firearm epidemic.
“When people don’t know what to do, too often they do nothing,” she said. “When people don’t know how to pursue needed change, too often they do nothing. When people don’t believe they have power or influence, don’t have voice or vote, too often they do nothing. The power to change this lies completely in the hands, the voices and the will of the American people who are largely aligned ideologically regarding the need for reasonable legislation that will preserve life and liberty, constitution and community well-being.”
Central Presbyterian Church in Austin described its installation as a protest against gun violence ravaging young people, the LGBTQ community and the city as a whole.
“Virtually every religion has a version of the Golden Rule, a call to love our neighbors and to work for peace in the world,” said Pastor Katheryn Barlow-Williams. “Even if we don’t share the same religious beliefs, we can work together to create safe communities. We can stop the gun violence that takes lives and leaves behind a canyon of grief.”
Activism is another component of Vidas Robadas, as participating communities are encouraged to connect with like-minded groups throughout the state, to invite neighbors to learn about gun violence, to cooperate with other anti-violence initiatives and to press legislators for common-sense reforms, Watson said.