COGIC leaders call for fasting, gun reform
A spiritual response is needed to mass shootings occurring across the United States, Church of God in Christ leaders and other pastors said Monday.
Other actions must also be taken, they said, including gun reform legislation and the designation of white supremacist groups as official terrorist organizations.
“These killings are abhorrent and an intrinsic evil that must not be politicized or trivialized, nor must religious people be encouraged to seek symbiotic settlement with evil,” said Bishop David Hall, Sr., prelate of the Tennessee Headquarters of the Church of God in Christ. “These killings must stop and our society redeemed from impending destruction.”
Hall assembled a meeting of about 30 black pastors, most from COGIC churches, Monday night to discuss a coordinated response to the shootings.
He urged pastors to call for a time of fasting and prayer for the country, to collaborate with other racial and ethnic groups to establish a more humane immigration policy and to seek financial and educational opportunities for black youth.
The pastors noted that a particularly difficult task will be seeking gun reforms at the state level, including seeking strong background checks and possibly making it illegal to possess weapons such as AR-15S or AK-47S.
“I think it is incumbent upon us as individuals who love humanity as given to us by God to do more than just fast and pray, but actually petition our legislators to see if we cannot bring about sensible gun laws, to see if we cannot work to eliminate some of these weapons that are designed to kill people in mass,” said the Rev. Freddie Thomas, pastor of Christ Communion Temple Church.
President Donald Trump came up multiple times in the conversation, with Bishop Kendall Anderson, pastor of Homeland Church of God in Christ, describing how he told his congregation on Sunday to pray that Trump “have a change of heart and speak more words of kindness that will heal the nation instead of divide the nation.”
“The rhetoric our president has been saying over the news media for quite some time, I believe has added to these killings that take place in our nation,” Anderson said.
The North Texas man charged with capital murder for killing 20 people in El Paso left behind an anti-immigrant manifesto posted online shortly before the attack. Investigators have not indicated a possible motive for the shooter in Dayton, while the suspect in the Southaven shooting was a recently suspended employee.
Bishop Charles Patterson, pastor of Pentecostal Temple Church of God in Christ, said that he doesn’t blame Trump for any recent shootings, but does blame him for increasing racial tension in the country. He also urged his congregation to pray for the president and other political leaders.
“I believe as Psalms 127 says, ‘Unless the Lord keeps the city, the watchman watches in vain,’” Patterson said. “We are still in the hands of God.”
Part of the “Public Saints Speak Up” initiative to respond to the recent shootings will involve working alongside people in other denominations to solve the problem, the pastors said.
Hall also said that he believes the evangelical Christians who “have the ear of the president need to do a little soul searching.”
In the 2016 election, exit polls showed that 80 percent of white evangelical voters supported Trump. Since then, Trump has named several influential evangelicals to an advisory board.
Some evangelicals are identifying too closely with Trump and his rhetoric for the sake of “judges and a culture of a conservative approach to politics,” Hall said.
“I think that they’re dealing with the devil in some ways, and that’s not the Christian thing to do,” he said.
An important part of the initiative will be the time of fasting and prayer, Hall said. On Sunday, he spoke to his church about how in the biblical Book of Esther, the figure Mordecai wears sackcloth and ashes to publicly show his horror and sorrow at the king’s plan to kill the Jewish people. Later, Esther goes before the king to plead, saving their lives.
He doesn’t want his church members to get used to the feeling of hopelessness, he said.
Katherine can be reached at kather ine.burgess@commercialappeal.com, 901-529-2799 or followed on Twitter @kathsburgess.