Mass Shootings: The Sacredness of Each Life, and Confronting Fear
Season 2, Episode 205, Oct 03, 2019, 09:33 AM
What In God’s Name has a conversation with Mark Koyama, Tina O’Neil, Sarah Ellis, and Mona Brooks of the United Church of Jaffrey, New Hampshire. Our conversation: their community’s religiously anchored response to the number of Americans killed by gun violence in 2019.
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Here are timecodes to help you navigate through today’s show:
04:50 What are the differences and similarities between responses to gun violence that come from a worldview grounded in a commitment to living as though God has something to do with the world, and a worldview grounded in a commitment to living as though no god has anything to do with the world?
06:30 Rev. Mark Koyama explains the project, and how it responds to the frustration that many people feel about the numbers of people dying in gun-related violence in the United States.
10:10 The community decided to create the crosses themselves. What happens when we make things rather than buy them?
10:30 Where do we discern the presence of God in this project?
13:10 Shayna points out the contrast between the time that it took to put each cross in the ground, and the time it took for the Dayton gunman to kill and wound many people.
14:24 People who regularly pray and engage in liturgy at least are practiced at returning to what is of ultimate concern. Is that true? Does it make a difference in the world?
17:32 Tina O’Neil describes resonating with the idea that it was no longer good enough to think and pray, but that we need to think, pray, and act. How is this more religious than just thinking and praying?
18:44 What is this culture of fear doing to us, as a society?
20:45 What is the faithful response to the culture of fear? Tina tells her grandchildren “to make a stand.”
21:43 How would you complete this sentence, on the topic of gun violence and mass shootings: “I wonder………”