Response to the Shooting at First Baptist Church, Sutherland Springs, TX

Church Security and Soft Targets

Pastoral Response to the Texas Church Shooting, 11-5-17

Rob Tennant, HillSong Church, Chapel Hill, NC

Tuesday, November 7, 2017

            Terrorist events (see Boston Marathon bombing, San Bernardino shooting), mass shootings (see Orlando night club, see Las Vegas country music concert), racially motivated violence (see Charlottesville), and other deadly interruptions into the flow of normal life have occurred with alarming frequency in the last 7-10 years.  We Americans haven’t yet caught our breath from the unthinkable attack in Las Vegas, and we learn of Sutherland Springs, Texas.  We learn that we love the people of that small community because the First Baptist Church (FBC) there was shot up on a Sunday morning, the sanctuary full.

            For me, a church pastor, this hits close to home.  I have raced through, in my own mind, how our church would react if a shooter entered.  I have played the scenario out repeatedly.  Truthfully, I don’t know what I would do because I am not prepared for that.

            On a Sunday morning, I am prepared to preach.  I am prepared to meet the people of the church.  Some need encouragement, and if I can, I give it.  Some need a welcome and a hug.  I certainly can and do give that.  Some are leaders in the church and we need to confer about what’s going on Sunday morning or what’s going on at other points in church life.  These are the things on my mind on a Sunday morning.

            I hope, my heart and mind are prepared to encounter God.  I pray that we – myself and all in the church – come expecting to see God act among us.  Over and over the disciples who walked with Jesus every day found themselves surprised by his displays of power as he commanded demons and the demons obeyed and angry, storming waves on the sea cowered before him.  They found themselves scandalized when they saw Jesus love people society had pushed to the margins.  These disciples saw it every day with Jesus and still got surprised.  I hope we’re open enough and worshiping with enough eager anticipation that we see it when God send surprises of love and provision and hope to us.

            What we’re not doing is preparing how to respond to a crazed, murderous shooter (or bomber) (or vehicle operator).  And I don’t we should.  I think our call and our responsibility is to God.  We need to be looking for God when the church gathers.

            My heart goes out to First Baptist Church Sutherland.  That church, like ours, is small.  So many were killed and so many more were critically injured or traumatized, and the community is so small, that that specific church may not recover.  The pastor has got to be devastated.  I don’t know if I could continue in ministry if a shooter killed a bunch of our people, and I survived.  We pastors feel a certain responsibility for all who enter.  God has entrusted the worshipers into our care. 

            The other time, recently, I felt such a burden for a church was the Emmanual African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC, when Dylann Roof shot up their prayer meeting in June, 2015.  On that occasion, I preached a sermon about how churches should exist in a time of random, unpredictable, deadly violence.  The text of that message is here https://honesttalkwithgod.blogspot.com/2015/06/sermon-in-response-to-shootings-in.html. 

            One of the things I stressed in that message is that the deadly shooting happened when the church was doing “what churches do.”  They were in a prayer meeting, and they welcomed Dylann Roof, a dangerous person, into their fold.  They didn’t know he was dangerous.  We never do.  We know we are called to welcome people – people with mental illness, people will deep-seeded anger, and people who are themselves badly broken.  As we are church, the body of Christ, we welcome the lost.  That’s what we do.

            FBC Sutherland was different than Emmanual AME Church in that they never had the chance to welcome Devin Kelly.  He came in shooting, killing.  He may have destroyed that church.  God allows human beings agency – the freedom to make moral choices.  Part of being made “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27) is we have free will.  But too often, we use our freedom for evil.  God allows this because without this freedom, we would no longer be human.  Atheists will see and evil event and use it as an opportunity to attack the church, but they don’t understand the bigger picture.  God has created a world in which human beings and God are in a relationship of love and trust.  God doesn’t force the relationship.  But God is active in it and God is active in the world. 

The mark of the person walking in close relationship with God, in Jesus Christ, is how that person responds in crisis.  Tragedy hits all people – Christ followers and non-Christians alike.  God is seen in how his church represents his love and hope in the face of tragedy.  On Sundays, we in the church, pastors and worshipers, whether long-time members or first-time attendees, have the same invitation.  We are invited into the presence of God.  That’s what we’re seeking and preparing for, not a shooting.

I wrote in 2015 the following after the mass murder in Charleston:

We as a community of faith have to tell the alternate story – the grace story.  … We have to be the story of hope.  We do this by opening our doors and ourselves to the lost and hurting people in the world.  Yes, churches are soft targets because broken people need a soft place to land.  Hurting people need to meet Jesus in an atmosphere of love. 

By being a safe place, a soft target, we risk everything.  Dylann Roof could walk in here.  Or someone without a gun but with a dangerous agenda could attempt to infiltrate our community.  Our commitment to being a people who welcome all leaves us open to such risks.  But we embrace that because God has given us a particular mission.  God calls us to live a story in which people of different backgrounds are brothers and sisters who embrace each other in the love of Jesus.  God calls us to stand in the midst of the violence, throw open our doors, and say to the world, “Come in, you’ll be loved here.  You’ll be valued here.  You have a place here.  In the heart of God, in God’s Kingdom, you have a home.

In coming days, it will become harder for us to tell this story and live this mission.  But we will do it no matter the cost because God enables us as God calls us.  And we will do it with great joy because God’s story is a grace story and a joy story.  The hope for the world is in the telling and living of that story.  Now is the time.

Those words still ring true.  I know some churches are talking about having armed security.  I suspect there may be people in our church family who are armed when they come to church on Sunday morning.  My own preference would be for us to post signs that say “No firearms on the premises are permitted.”  My desire for this is not a comment on gun ownership as a political issue.  I offer no comment on that issue in this essay.  The action of posting a “No firearms permitted” sign would be a statement about where our focus is.  Our focus is on meeting the Holy Spirit of God in this place. 

This action wouldn’t slowdown someone like Dylann Roof or Devin Kelly.  But it would be a reminder to all our people that we put our trust in God.  The people of FBC Sutherland Springs put their trust in God too.  I don’t know why they died.  I don’t know why Stephen was stoned (Acts 7:58-59), but John died a natural death (John 21:23).  I don’t know why most churches have pleasant Sundays but on November 5, tragedy his Sutherland Springs. 

But I know this.  We who follow Christ cannot let tragedy tell us who we are to be or how we are to live.  Tragedy doesn’t get to be the boss.  Racism doesn’t get to dictate to us.  Terror doesn’t the first word, the last word, or any word.  We churches are communities of Christ followers.  We are the body of Christ.  We’ll voluntarily exist as soft targets because we want to be safe places for broken people who need a soft landing.  

Sermon in response to Shootings in Charleston, June 17, 2015

“Living God’s Story” (2 Cor. 6:1-13; 7:2-4)

 June 21, 2015

        Paul pleads with the Corinthian Christians, “Make room in your hearts for us. … I have great pride in you; I am filled with comfort. In all our affliction, I am overflowing with joy” (7:2, 4).

        In this church, rich Christ followers looked down upon impoverished Christ followers and sometimes flaunted their wealth.  Within this church, there was serious misunderstanding about appropriate sexual ethics for followers of Jesus.  The Corinthians Christians struggled with how spiritual gifts should be exercised worship.  In some cases people with particular gifts were elevate above others even though the gifts were supposed to be from God.  The Corinthian Christians struggled in their understanding of resurrection.  And they did not know how to leave behind paganism and polytheism and give full devotion to Jesus.

        The reason much of the best practical teaching in the New Testament comes from Paul’s letters to Corinth is the believers in that church struggled in so many areas.  Paul was at his wits’ end trying to show these new believers how to live as a community –the body of Christ, the family of God.  Furthering complicating his task were other teachers who came claiming that the Corinthians should ignore Paul.  These others who, according to Paul claimed to be “super-apostles,” made his task of shepherding this complicated group even harder. 

        At times Paul came down quite hard on the Corinthians.  Numerous commentators I have read believe he saw himself as a spiritual father to the Corinthians and the father’s discipline is apparent in both letters.  Yet, he tenaciously holds onto joy. 

Make room in your hearts for us. 

I have great pride in you.

I am overflowing with joy.

Today, churches across America must cling to joy and love and fellowship.  We must cling to who we are in Christ tightly for I fear what is coming.  Recently a 14-year-old African American girl at a pool party was roughed up by a stressed out white police officer.[i]  This was the latest in an unfathomable string of racially-motivated incidents.  I know authorities say it wasn’t about race.  They always say it isn’t about race.  Yet, coincidentally, these stories have a consistent theme; unarmed minority youths are bullied, abused or killed by armed white people, often white law enforcement officers.  The story Texas was the latest until this past Wednesday, June 17. 

On that day, Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, SC was doing what thousands of churches across America do on Wednesday night.  They were having Wednesday night prayer service.  I have probably been a part of close to 1000 of these services in my life.  It is an activity that is a normal part of church life in many traditions.  In this case, it was a small group, all African American.  And a white man came asking to see the pastor.  This church community did what the church does.  They brought the man in, welcomed him, took him to the pastor, and made him feel like he was a part. 

Clearly he looked different, but when we are in Christ, our differences are signs of God’s beauty.  We celebrate our uniqueness as we join our hearts to one another.  They were doing what churches do.  That’s what really gets me about this story.  The Emmanuel Church was creating safe space for Dylann Roof to seek God.  He sat in that safe space for nearly an hour, and then violated it as he killed 9 people who were welcoming him into their circle.

When we recite the names – Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and the rest, and the places – Staten Island, Cleveland, Baltimore, Missouri – and now we add this sad chapter, I fear America is on a collision course with a violent explosion in racial tension.  I believe the worst is coming.  But that does not have to be all that is coming.

We who bear the name ‘Christian’ can to take this time to show what it means to be ‘in Christ.’  We must do this.  We have to go out of our way to hold up a competing narrative to the one that’s ripping across our nation.  We have to stand in the power of the Gospel and say, “There is another story, one in which people, black and white, Asian and Hispanic, male and female celebrate one another and love each other.”  We have to tell that story as the story of racism rages loudly. 

A part of our proclamation of the Gospel is to weep for Clementa Pinckney, Daniel Simmons Sr., Cynthia Hurd, Sharonda Singleton, Myra Thompson, Tywanza Sanders, DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Susie Jackson, and Ethel Lance.  These people are brothers and sisters – our brothers and sisters in Christ.  When our family dies, it hurts.  When death comes as the church is being the church, we weep loudly and deeply.  That must be part of our statement of faith.

So too we must commit to being the safe space where all can come and find the love of Jesus.  Make room in your hearts for us, Paul said. I am overflowing with joy.  Even now, even through tears, anticipating days of darker violence, we have joy in Christ. 

I have had the experience the pastor at Emmanuel had.  Someone comes asking for the pastor.  The person appears to have some things very wrong in his life.  When the pastor responds to the unsettled individual, there is no telling what will happen.  That is the point where a voice in my head says, ‘this could get very interesting.’ 

I talked for over an hour to a suicidal man who thankfully finally allowed me to escort him into the hospital emergency room.  I have received bomb threat phone calls.  I testified in a court in trial involving gang-violence.  These personal experiences of mine by extension are the experiences of the church. I, no we, have been through these things.

I have read articles about churches being “soft targets.”  That is kind of the point when I say we need to be safe space.  “Safe” means it is emotionally and spiritually safe in the same way Jesus was a welcoming presence to the most sinful of people.  In his day, the religious institution, represented by temple and synagogue, had become corrupt.  Sinners did not find hope in these places but rather condemnation.  The religious powers that be were not safe for people whose lives were a mess.  They would come broken and ben made to feel worse. 

On the other hand, Jesus was safe for people who had major problems.  People who had really failed in their lives could come to Jesus and receive love and hope, not condemnation.  Thus, Jesus’ church must be safe for lost people including those who are hurting, unstable, unbalanced, and maybe even dangerous. 

Emmanuel Church was Jesus to Dylann Roof, a mass murderer.  They extended his grace.  Paul tells the Corinthians, “We appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.”  The word “vain” can mean empty.  With all the struggles the Corinthians had, Paul feared they would receive the grace but never live graced lives.  They would continue to live as pagans, to listen to competing preachers who put Paul down, and show no signs that they were filled with the Spirit of God.  They would mouth words of belief in the Gospel but it would make no difference in their lives. 

America is about to explode in racial violence.  I pray the welcome Emmanuel Church gave to Dylann Roof was not in vain.  I pray their hospitality does not come up empty.  I pray the story of churches across America is a story of God’s people standing up to hatred and violence with love, compassion, hospitality, and grace. 

At some point, anger will reach a boiling point in some African Americans.  How could it not?  That anger will bubble over into violence.  Some in white America will respond defensively or judgmentally.  Others in white America will try to insulate themselves from the struggle.  This will especially be the case in more affluent communities.  If the violence, the blowback, and the indifference and isolation become the defining narratives and only stories told and heard, we will have failed as people charged with proclaiming the gospel.  The grace of God we have received and Emmanuel Church showed will be in vain.  Grace comes up empty.  The world is fallen. The stories of violence and hate will play out.  They cannot be the only ones. 

We have a better story to tell.  Paul tells the Corinthians, “now is the acceptable time.  Today is the day of salvation” (6:2).  He doesn’t mean today is the day one decided to entrust his life to Jesus, although that is a starting point.  When Paul says in 2 Corinthians 6 that “today is the day,” he means today is the day to live into the salvation we have been given.  How do we do that?

As I discussed these matters with church friends at VBS this past week, one said in response to the Charleston shootings, “I want to do something.”  I understand how she feels. I hope others feel this way.  I suggest reading stories.  Pray until your knees wear out.  Participate in marches and community discussions.  Travel to Charleston and sit in on memorial services.  Go out of your way to develop friendships with people from backgrounds different than your own.  Try to see the world from a perspective that is different that your culture vantage point.  Acknowledge your own prejudices and ask God to help you get those biases out of your life.  Do all these things. 

If you hear this and you don’t have any emotion and you don’t find in yourself any sorrow over what happened, check your heart.  Jesus is weeping at the death of his children.  If we call ourselves Christians, then we weep when He weeps.  We grieve as deeply as He grieves.

Live into salvation.  How?

I want to do something?  What?

We as a community of faith have to tell the alternate story – the grace story.  In the middle of the coming story, we have to be the story of hope.  We do this by opening our doors and ourselves to the lost and hurting people in the world.  Yes, churches are soft targets because broken people need a soft place to land.  Hurting people need to meet Jesus in an atmosphere of love. 

Paul knew the Corinthian Church was full of heartache.  In chapter 6 verses 4-10, he recites all the difficulties he has faced as a servant of Christ.  Yet he said to them, “Our heart is wide open to you” (6:11).  And he begged them, “Make room in your hearts for us” (7:2a).  He risked being wounded again because he hoped he could help the church become the community where people meet Jesus and come to life, a life lived eternally in love and grace.

By being a safe place, a soft target, we risk everything.  Dylann Roof could walk in here.  Or someone without a gun but with a dangerous agenda could attempt to infiltrate our community.  Our commitment to being a people who welcome all leaves us open to such risks.  But we embrace that because God has given us a particular mission.  God calls us to live a story in which people of different backgrounds are brothers and sisters who embrace each other in the love of Jesus.  God calls us to stand in the midst of the violence, throw open our doors, and say to the world, “Come in, you’ll be loved here.  You’ll be valued here.  You have a place here.  In the heart of God, in God’s Kingdom, you have a home.

In coming days, it will become harder for us to tell this story and live this mission.  But we will do it no matter the cost because God enables us as God calls us.  And we will do it with great joy because God’s story is a grace story and a joy story.  The hope for the world is in the telling and living of that story.  Now is the time.

AMEN

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[i] http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/10/us/mckinney-texas-pool-party-video/

Veiled Hope

            I am reading the Prophet Ezekiel.  This Biblical book is not for the faint of heart.  The opening chapters tell of the Priest Ezekiel’s visions received while living in Babylon among the exiles of Judah.  God repeatedly and graphically describes the punishments has loaded on the shoulders of his people for their sins.  The God of Ezekiel is angry.

            I am reading the Contemporary English Version, which like many versions inserts titles into the text.  The title for 11:1-13 indicates the mood: “Ezekiel condemns Jerusalem’s wicked leaders.”  Ezekiel 11:22-25 is subtitled “The Lord’s glory leaves Jerusalem.”  And the title for chapter 12 is “Messages of Doom for Judah and Jerusalem.”  Good times!  God is not playing around here – “condemns;” “the Lord’s glory leaves;” “Doom;” – this is serious stuff.

            However, note that these divisions do not account for 11:14-21.  In that section, a little hope slips in.  God is severely ticked off at his people, but God is still God.  And God cannot be God without holding out hope even in hopeless situations.  Please note this, remember it, and go back to it whenever despair knocks at the door.  God always holds out hope, even in hopeless situations. 

            “It’s true that I, the Lord God, have forced you out.  … I will be with you wherever you are.  … I will gather you.  … You will be my people and I will be your God” (from 11:16, 17, & 19).  From God’s perspective, the horrors of the Babylonian exile were directly tied to the sins of the people of Israel and Judah.  Historians would look and see a powerful empire, Babylon, who overwhelmed many small nations in its path, Israel being just one.   In that historic interpretation, Israel never really recovered to be the called out nation again. 

Israel went from one overlord to another, Assyria to Babylon, Babylon to Persia, Persia to Greece, Greece to Rome.  Israel never again gained independence until 1948.  Today, Israel is essentially a secular state and a powerful ally of the most powerful of secular states – the United States of America.  This can all be explained by a historian and the explanation won’t have much to do with theology.

God, view though is very different.  In God’s view, Israel fell, but was never forgotten.  God came to ultimately redeem Israel and the world in the incarnation, Jesus of Nazareth, God in the flesh. 

So which view colors ours, that of the secular historian or God’s perspective? 

I write this as we near the end of 2014, at a time of turmoil in our country and around the world.  America struggles with racial tension and uncertainty regarding immigration.  Terrorism in Nigeria, the threat of democracy’s utter failure in the way Russia is bullying Ukraine, protests in Hong Kong, and the seemingly endless war in Syria are some of today’s stories that come together as testimony that the world is fallen.  There will be no peace and no hope for peace because hatred and violence reign. 

In the face of the bitterest realities that plague us today, Ezekiel, the prophet who presents an angry God, hints at hope.  Every problem I named in the previous paragraph, God ties to sin, to rebellion against Him.  Yet God does not abandon humanity to die in the consequences of our sins.  God continues to promise He will be with us.  He will gather us.  In Christ, we will be his people and he will be our God. 

Does such good news truly come from the dark chapters of anger and wrath?  It does.  Even in judgment God is still God and whenever and wherever God is God, there is mercy.  Mercy and discipline, grace and accountability – we can count on it all from God.  Writing as a Christian, I especially believe that the gathering hope Ezekiel hinted at comes full force in the gospel and in the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit. 

I am reading Ezekiel.  It is not easy.  Sometimes it goes down like medicine which tastes to awful it distorts my face to drink it.  But I need that medicine.  Even more I need this word from God.  So I continue taking it in knowing am blessed because of it.

Something is Broken in Me

This was written by my friend, an author and blogger.

I kept waiting to hear from the predominantly white evangelical church in America. I kept waiting for someone from that community to chime in and say something—anything. Even something like, “I see what’s happening in Ferguson. I don’t understand it, but I want to. Can someone help me understand it?” One person contacted me to ask a question that sounded something like that.

But, for the most, part, days passed, and I was hearing nothing (http://www.deidrariggs.com/2014/08/14/why-weve-got-to-go-there/).

I respect her so much that when I hear her put out a call for words from “white evangelical church in America,” I feel like the professor has given an assignment.  As a pastor, I consider myself “evangelical.”  Even though the word is freighted with political baggage and is often misunderstood by many who have a secular worldview, I still embrace.  To me, evangelical means one who believes Jesus is the full revelation of the triune God – Father, Son, and Spirit; and salvation is in Him; and finally, the Bible is the true revelation of who He is and is instructive for a believer’s life.  By that definition, I am an evangelical.  I am also a white, middle class, suburban American male.  I don’t think any of those terms require definition or qualification.

Michael Brown, a black teenager, unarmed, was shot by a white police officer in Ferguson, MO.  The officer who killed him will have to live with this the rest of his life.  He shot and killed an unarmed teen.  Whatever the young man did, was it necessary to shoot him?  Every night that he goes to bed, he sleeps with the knowledge that while doing his job, trying to maintain law and order, he pulled his gun and killed a young man/big kid.  I consider 18-year-olds young men and don’t accept calling them ‘kids’ as so many sports commentators like to do, but that’s for another column.  This policeman killed someone whose whole life was ahead of him. 

Why could he not resolve the confrontation with Michael Brown in another way?  Call for back up.  Use a Taser.  Use pepper spray.  Shoot the kid in the knee.  I am not a policeman.  I do not know the techniques.  I do not know what happened that day in his confrontation with Michael.  One of the reasons I have not commented is I do not know happened in this specific instance.  Maybe this was entirely a race-related event.  Maybe race had nothing to do with it.  Maybe it did.  Did Michael Brown provoke a policeman who has been disrespected one too many times by one too many young persons?  Was this about an overaggressive cop, or was it racism through and through?  It is just as possible that what happened was an example of racism that still lurks like a demonic agent of destruction bent on bringing our society down.  I just don’t know.  

I don’t know Michael Brown.  I don’t know the officer.  I wasn't there.  And I don’t know how trustworthy the news reports are.

I do know that it is tragic when a teen dies.  Truly, someone’s baby died.  Even if he did something wrong, it should not have come to this.  It is very sad that a young man died in this way.  Our culture’s violent reaction is an extension of the tragedy as well as an expression of wounds that continue to afflict America with pain.  The death of Michael Brown is awful for his family and at another level it is awful for America.

We have to acknowledge that something is broken.  Inside all of us, sin arises because we are apart from God.  We choose our way instead of God’s way.  Given Eve’s opportunity, every one of us eats the forbidden fruit willingly.  Something inside Michael Brown was broken.  

Something broken in the police officer led him to pull that trigger.  I know the voices who defend law enforcement officials would cry out that the policeman did nothing wrong.  He was using the necessary force to do his job.  I cannot deny or affirm that.  But I know that before he shot Michael Brown, something in him was broken – and now that which was broken has shattered even more. 

Deep in me, I know there is much that is broken.  Every time I demand my wife be someone other than who she is it is an example of my brokenness spilling out.  She is remarkably strong and loving to endure my self-centered, shallow tirades.  Every time I yell at my kids when a calmer response would accomplish more and be less destructive to their psyches, I know it is my brokenness on display.  Deep in every human, something is broken.

Jesus did not come to fix what is broken in us.  Jesus came to show what was always true – that which is broken in us leads to death.  This is why in baptism we go under the water.  Every time I baptize, as I sink the believer under I say, “Dead in sin.”  As I bring her up I say, “Raised to new life in Jesus.”  Jesus did not come to mend us.  Jesus’ arrival sheds light on already true fact: we are already dead.  But in Him, we are born again. 

The wounds of Trayvon Martin have not yet healed, and Michael Brown is upon us, awakening us to what is broken in all of us.  By the way, this means we (and here I mean “we whites,”) cannot, cannot, cannot talk about Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown as “they” (as in “those blacks”).  “We” and “they” does not work in this conversation.  This conversation will never gain any traction in drawing humanity together if “we” and “they” continue to be used.  We are heartsick about Michael Brown because he is one of us.  He is a human being.  He was made in the image of God.  Jesus died on the cross to cover his sins.  I feel my brother has died. 

As we have moved from Trayvon to Michael (and all the awful news that has popped up in between), Michael will barely fade from our lips when another incident will arise.  What can we (“we humans”) do?  Maybe we start with a question. 

The next time a tragedy happens, ask what is broken in each person involved.  What is broken in the victim?  What is broken in perpetrator?  What is broken in our system that allows such rush-to-judgment news reporting?  What is broken in social media that makes it such fertile ground for creative expressions of hatred and evil?  What is broken in me that I react the way I do, feel the way I do?

If, instead of anger, we recognize brokenness, we may feel compassion before we feel rage.  The compassion in us may have greater pull on how we express ourselves.  We may be more inclined to pray than we are to vomit our rage with confrontational posts and tweets.  And maybe, if we make asking what is broken in him an everyday practice, we might be more compassionate all the time.  We (“we humans”) might be intentional about seeking ways to be compassionate with each other all the time, and not just in times of turmoil like our current crisis. 

That is my thought.  I don’t know anyone in Ferguson, MO.  Beyond praying, I cannot do much there.  But in my life, in my town, in my interactions with people, I can be guided by the question what is broken in him or her.  As I process that question, I hope, no I pray, it will lead me to be compassionate.   In compassion, maybe I can do my part to present the world with an alternative story one in which people turn to Jesus and are born again to live forever with each other in God’s love.