Thoughts and prayers: a sincere expression of sympathy or a means to political apathy?
This year, the U.S. has seen over 355 mass shootings, six of which were in the past week alone. As expected, almost all of these shootings are followed by politicians and presidential candidates tweeting, Instagramming, and posting statements on Facebook of sympathy for victims, survivors, and their families. Usually something along the lines of, “Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Paris/San Bernardino/ Sandy Hook Elementary/wherever the tragedy happens to be.”
But after the tragedy in San Bernardino, Calif., the American people have had enough.
At first, the headline threw me for a loop. Why are we yelling this on the front page of a newspaper? But then I got on Twitter and the message became clear when I saw hashtag #ThoughtsandPrayers trending. In essence, the old adage “thoughts and prayers” has become just that -- an old adage. While politicians throw it out left and right, the actual impact and value that that phrase is supposed to hold has gone out the window.
Posts were coming up by the thousands, calling for an end to the “thoughts and prayers” approach and, instead, asking the government to provide a “please just do something” approach. Several of these posts referred to God supposedly not doing anything, several of them didn’t; it's really about whether you want a government that has faith but doesn’t act.
Christ didn’t call Christians to have faith but not act. James 2:14-17 says:
“What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,' but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
Jesus may have been talking about cold and hungry people, but I’m talking about the families that lost children, spouses, parents, brothers, sisters this year due to the inhumane and evil acts of others. What are we doing for them? What are we doing for this country?
#ThoughtsandPrayers is not just a trend, it’s a symbol of the American people right now. And while we may not all have the same opinion on gun control, we can agree that something has to be done. The point of this movement is not do discredit those who pray, it's to say that there needs to be a call to action along with those prayers. Stop taking “moments of silence” and start rejecting funds from the NRA. Stop blaming everything on Obama and start realizing that the government’s inability to do things is due to a sick political agenda from both parties that we allow to happen. Stop saying “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” and start asking yourself if your child, friend, brother was shot in San Bernardino -- would you still say the same thing?
And most of all, stop blaming this violence on everything but the shockingly easy accessibility to weapons. We’re so set on keeping Syrian refugees out of this country, because of the fear that they might be terrorists. There’s a very small percentage of those refugees that may have ISIS associations, but every gun ever made is with the intent to kill or wound something. Tightly increasing gun control will never completely eradicate incidents of senseless violence, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.
