United Methodists are beginning to wrestle with the larger public health issue of gun violence in America in the aftermath of the Oct. 1 shooting at a country music festival in Las Vegas.
At last count, some 58 people were killed and another 489 wounded by gunman Steven Paddock, who fired on the crowd at the Route 91 country music festival from a suite at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas. Paddock shot himself as police broke into his hotel room.
Since then, individuals and groups across the United States have denounced the continuing wave of gun violence topped by the Las Vegas massacre. Even the National Rifle Association, staunch advocate of gun ownership, issued a statement saying it would consider legislation to ban a device called a "bump stock," which adapts a legal semi-automatic weapon into one capable of shooting at automatic-fire rates. Several of Paddock's guns were equipped with bump stocks.
Among United Methodist responses:
In the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference, Bishop LaTrelle Easterling invited clergy and laity to gather at 1 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 17 at the Conference Mission Center for a town hall meeting called "Critical Conversations: Gun Sense." The announcement described the event as "a time for dialogue and discernment on how people of faith and faith leaders can and should be responding in light of the recent events in our country."
Guest speakers at the event will be the Rev. Susan Henry-Crowe, top executive of the General Board of Church and Society, the denomination's social-action agency, and the Rev. Mark Schaefer, chaplain at United Methodist-related American University in Washington, D.C.
"I know this is short notice," said Bishop Easterling in the announcement, "but I hope you sense the urgency on how we must address this situation."
On Oct. 5, the Rev. Jeania Ree Moore, Church and Society staff member, sent a press release announcing a resource, "Gun Violence 101: Pastoral Cheat Sheet," to help United Methodist clergy in discussions around the Las Vegas shooting and other instances of gun violence.
"'Thoughts and prayers are not enough,' was a common refrain, as were critiques of those who 'politicized' the issue by drawing attention to the lack of adequate gun laws in the U.S.," Rev. Moore said in her press release. "You will likely be discussing this shooting, and responses to it, at church Sunday and in the coming days.
"The Gun Violence Pastoral Cheat Sheet [https://www.umcjustice.org/documents/51 ] is a quick-reference resource offering guidance for pastors on how to speak about gun violence in congregational settings that run the gamut in their views on this issue."
Rev. Moore said that the "pastoral cheat sheet" was created earlier this year from an idea offered by the Rev. Lindsey Long Joyce, a pastor in the Northern Illinois Annual Conference that includes Chicago, currently the nation's top city for gun violence. Rev. Moore said that Rev. Joyce attended a Church and Society-sponsored event, "Faith and Guns Forum," held in Fall 2016.
"She had pastored a church in Chicago, where she regularly encountered the hard, painful, unrelenting reality of gun violence, often over a coffin in a funeral service," Rev. Moore explained. "Her pastoral struggles with gun violence, along with her advocacy involvement and desire to aid fellow Christians in faithfully engaging this reality, led her to propose and create this resource."
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Cynthia B. Astle serves as Editor of United Methodist Insight, which she founded in 2011.