Historically Baptist Belmont University devoted its Monday morning chapel service to prayers for a student whose life was cut short by a mass shooting. DeEbony Groves, 21, was one of four victims killed by a gunman in a Sunday morning…
Parkland massacre takes pastor back to father’s mass shooting death
For one Baptist minister in South Florida, the response to the most recent school gun massacre is visceral. Joe LaGuardia, pastor at First Baptist Church in Vero Beach, graduated in 1996 from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where one of his best friends was fellow student Aaron Feis — the assistant football coach and security guard who died protecting students from gunfire. What’s more, his father was killed in a mass shooting in Pennsylvania in 2013.
Service at Emanuel marks transition to normalcy, worship
In a well-attended Sunday morning worship service at Emanuel AME Church that felt like a purposeful return to normalcy, the Rev. Betty Deas Clark importuned her listeners to trust that the Lord will relieve burdens and provide comfort.
Are social media “thoughts and prayers” helpful anymore?
By Alan Rudnick In the wake of tragedy it has become an automatic response for many Christians: “Our thoughts and prayers are with…” I know, I said it on Facebook and Twitter after the shootings in San Bernardino, Sandy Hook, and…
When prayer is not enough
By Thomas J. Whitley It was “just another day in the United States of America. Another day of gunfire, panic and fear.”
God, guns, freedom, and idolatry in America
After another mass shooting last week, I watched countless conversations about mass killings unfold on social media and in the news cycle. As many Christians defended complete and total legislative inaction in the wake of wonton violence, I was literally…
Naming the Mother Emmanuel massacre
The nine individuals murdered last night in Mother Emmanuel Church are martyrs. Their lives bear faithful witness not just to a particular faith, but also to a segment of citizenry within both our country and the peaceable kingdom of Jesus…