“U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez of the Western District of Texas awarded the damages Monday (Feb. 7) to survivors and heirs of survivors of the Nov. 5, 2017, church shooting, months after determining that the U.S. government was 60 percent liable for the massacre.” - BPNews
“The First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, has marked one year since 26 of its members, including the pastor’s daughter, were killed in one of the worst shootings in modern U.S. history.” - CPost
“A family that lost several relatives during a mass shooting at a Texas church says the federal government was negligent by failing to report the gunman’s criminal information to a national database, according to a lawsuit filed this week.” RNS
“The conspiracy theorists, Jodi Mann and Robert Ussery, say they believe the mass shooting never happened and instead that it was staged by the Department of Homeland Security” Washington Post
The violence in Sutherland Springs Texas on November 5 got many of us thinking twice about whether our churches are safe places. From a purely rational, data-based perspective, they’re just as safe as they were a month ago. From a theological perspective, they are as well.
But when something horrific like that happens, our hearts tell us it might be time to make changes. It’s not just emotional reaction that moves us to look at a real event and think, “Yes, that could have happened at our church any time — but seeing it happen in a church so much like our own now gives us a reason to think about our security now.”
But we want to think biblically about all this. We want to properly frame these issues in well-informed faith, and respond to the dangers in a faith-filled way. “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (NKJV, 2 Tim. 1:7).
“Their faith, while not in prayer, is in something else. Namely, that all human problems and challenges, such as climate change, gun violence, and even terrorism, are problems that can be solved if only we apply the right techniques, which these days are almost always political steps” CPost
