We Call for a National Day of Prayer and Fasting Against Gun Violence

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We're sick of mass shootings that claim the lives of innocents. We wonder: What if we first counter our gun violence epidemic not with laws, but with a spiritual approach reminiscent of past leaders such as Jesus, Gandhi, King?

To that end, we propose a national day of prayer and fasting against gun violence.

We're talking about giving everyone a break from the fear, anger, and grief that we inflict on ourselves through inaction on gun-related slaughter. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used this approach against racial injustice, wisely observing that "darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that" (Strength to Love, 1963)

We're talking about a day to generate hope that gun violence can be reduced and eventually stopped. We must engender a vision of hope to conquer gun violence, for as Proverbs 29:18 says, where there is no vision, the people perish.

Think about it. Prayer and fasting are spiritual practices common to most major religions and many minority beliefs as well. Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Sikhs, as well as Blacks, Asians and Pacific Islanders, women – all these groups along with random citizens, have been struck down by angry, isolated, deluded men with guns. (Most mass-murderers are men, statistics show).

What could we pray for? We advocate praying for our political leaders to fulfill the people's will, as democracy pledges. We need to calm ourselves as an antidote to the irrational idea, borne of fear, that arming ourselves will protect us against violent predators. We can benefit from fasting for 24 hours from all violence-drenched media that entices us to solve our disputes with guns. We can turn off social media that often fuels gun violence, even though our personal feeds may not. Instead we can contemplate deeply our relationships with God and one another, to quit "othering" those who are different from us whom we scapegoat as the causes of our social, political and economic woes.

There will be costs to such an approach. People without privilege could lose a day's pay, which most can't afford. Certain types of businesses, such as the service industry and transportation, would be disrupted for a day or longer, given how tightly commercial distribution is scheduled these days. Television, cable, and internet rankings would drop as we fast from violent media. (Could we even persuade some channels to "go dark" for the day?). Schools would close as teachers and students stay home to pray and fast. Essential services and first responders might be exempt, or planned with minimal staffing.

Who could lead us in such a widespread observance? There are many organizations with prominent leaders who could plan and enact a national day of prayer and fasting against gun violence. Local and regional efforts already have been held, but a national day of prayer and fasting would require countrywide coordination and cooperation among all like-minded faith communities.

Faith communities would be crucial to such an effort. Churches, synagogues, temples and mosques as well as home-based faith groups could open and staff their gathering places to allow communities to come together in prayer. Believers could give up their daily routines, even much-beloved recreational pursuits, to concentrate on prayer. In addition, fasting from food and water requires us to reduce our physical activity to compensate. Muslims do this every Ramadan, Jews fast on Yom Kippur, and Christians fast during Lent and other times, so we have plenty of homegrown guides to show us how.

We needn't worry about the breadth and depth of such a widespread observance. Even if a national day of prayer and fasting occurred in only a few urban centers, concentrated efforts in strategic regions could still disrupt the nation's daily routine significantly to have an impact. Tone-deaf politicians who fail to appreciate the motivation of such an observance, and to adjust their governance accordingly, would be forced to consider their future viability for election to public office in the face of widespread voter action.

As radical as the disruption of a fully observed national day of prayer and fasting would be, it's no more radical than the rivers of blood drenching our nation now from gun violence. History, both social and political, has long shown that violence won't be stopped by more violence. Saint Oscar Romero knew this when he urged Salvadoran military to lay down their arms and cease killing their fellow citizens. Jesus knew full well the consequences of such an approach when he prophesied that "those who live by the sword will die by the sword."

We are living by guns, and we're dying by guns. Only by a radical approach that addresses our spiritual illness first can we ever hope to stop the flood of blood washing over us from guns. Who among us has the courage to step up to this challenge and lead us all through prayer and fasting to stop the reign of death we now endure?