The Episcopal Church is making news for its efforts to reduce gun violence. Last night more than 1,000 people in the Diocese of Chicago braved
Episcopalians Against Gun Violence press release on reducing gun violence was featured on RNS Press Release Services (excerpted):
Support for gay marriage reached a new high in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, marking a dramatic change in public attitudes on the subject across the past decade. Fifty-eight percent of Americans now say it should be legal for gay and lesbian couples to wed.
Daniel Schultz has an excellent round-up of the faith-based efforts to reduce gun violence on the website of Christian Century. It includes both Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence, whose leader, Vinny DeMarco, recently spoke to the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops and CROSSwalk, an initiative of the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago.
We need to work together to lessen the occurrence of gun deaths not because people are evil but because we’re neither as smart nor invulnerable as we like to think ourselves. We need each other to make our way through life. That’s what society, that’s what the church, is all about.
The Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath currently underway at Washington National Cathedral and other churches is a “remarkably inspiring idea,” says Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, who is
President Obama is gaining support from evangelical leaders for his efforts to require universal background checks for gun purchases. Time’s Zeke Miller reports:
The Very Rev. Gary Hall and Rabbi David Saperstein reflect on the gun violence epidemic in The Huffington Post:
As Catholic leaders gather in Rome to select a new pope and as the Senate Judiciary Committee resumes its markup of gun bills, leaders of diverse faiths in the U.S. are taking action today to demand that Congress pass common-sense gun law reforms to prevent the gun violence that claims the lives of 33 Americans every day.
Bishop Ahrens spoke powerfully of her experience as a pastor and church leader in the days following the tragic shootings in Newtown. “There’s no one to impress when your heart is broken,” she said. “The cross reveals violence and speaks forgiveness offering new life. The love revealed in the life and witness of Jesus speaks to a peace.”