As seen on Baptist News
America needs more than thoughts and prayers as a collective national response to “routine mass murder,” a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship leader said after weekend shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, claimed both lives and national headlines.
Stephen Reeves, associate coordinator of partnerships and advocacy at the CBF national headquarters in Decatur, Georgia, said in a blog Aug. 6 that the latest victims and their families are indeed in his thoughts and prayers, but he has heard the phrase so often that sounds dismissive and trite.
“Sadly, it seems to be the extent of our collective response to yet another mass shooting,” Reeves said.
While the El Paso shooting exposes the danger of white supremacist ideologies and racially motivated hate, Reeves said, the unknown motive of the Ohio shooter spotlights “just how efficiently lethal” the high-powered, high-capacity, semi-automatic rifle used in the attack can be.