Gun violence from Texas to Nashville should call Americans to prayer − and to action

On Friday night near Cleveland, Texas, police say, a man with an AR-15 shot to death five of his neighbors, including a 9-year-old boy. On Monday afternoon, police found seven people dead, including two missing teenage girls, at a home in the small town of Henryetta, Oklahoma.

As a nation, we are only weeks removed from the shooting at a church school in Nashville, Tennessee and the shooting at a bank in Louisville, Kentucky. And those are only crimes that have captured national attention. In cities across the country, citizens live in fear of their lives, besieged by violence on the streets and in homes, workplaces, schools and churches.

The Covenant School shooting in Nashville was personal for our family. We lived in Nashville for 10 years and love that growing metro with a small-town heart. A dear friend’s children attend Covenant School. A colleague at Texas Baptist College, affiliated with the seminary where I work, lost a nephew. And my wife was part of a prayer group of moms that included the Covenant pastor’s wife.

It’s hard to comprehend the depravity that motivates someone to gun down people in cold blood. For every shooting, there are survivors whose lives will never be the same. Just read this haunting profile of the victims of the Sulphur Springs, Texas shooting from five years ago.

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Political blame game follows gun violence but doesn't offer solutions

Unfortunately, after every mass shooting there is a predictable cycle where Democrats and Republicans blame each other, scoring quick rhetorical points that offer political catharsis but few solutions. The exception was the massacre in Uvalde, Texas, which resulted in bipartisan federal legislation that included funding for mental health, funding for state red flag laws, tightening laws on gun trafficking, funding for existing school safety programs and a few other laws tightening gun purchases.

But clearly, we have more work to do to reduce incidents of violence and to make our communities safe. I’m a conservative, but I recognize that this multi-layered, complicated epidemic will require both political parties to work together.

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Republicans should ask themselves what measures they could offer that might create more friction between guns and the people intent on committing acts of murder. A few Republicans in the Senate supported red flag legislation last year and 19 states, including conservative states such as Indiana and Florida, have red flag laws. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has urged his fellow Republicans in the state legislature to follow suit.

Democrats might acknowledge what is possible. The United States is not Australia. We have a Second Amendment that isn’t going anywhere. So are they willing to vote for protective measures such as Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s school safety bill, which would provide federal grants to help public and private schools be protected by police officers?

And might the media be part of the solution? Are journalists willing to call attention to the daily violence in communities around the country, often in cities that boast of stringent gun laws but where other causes of crime are sometimes ignored by left-wing prosecutors?

Taking this issue seriously will require Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, gun owners and gun control advocates to work together. We’ll need to ask ourselves what is effective and what is doable in America.

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America's problems with violence go deeper than gun laws

Even as we encourage our leaders to shape public policy, we also need to look deeper than our state capitols and Washington, D.C. and acknowledge a deep spiritual sickness. Laws can do much to curb violence, but they can’t do everything.

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Christians rightly rage at death. Jesus, at Lazarus’ tomb, wept and was angry. We find our hope in the resurrection of Christ, who defeated the power of death. Yet, our hope doesn’t keep us from working to prevent future acts of violence. We both pray and we act.

America is in need of serious moral and spiritual renewal. Our founders understood that our unique experiment in freedom will hold up only if there is a corresponding spiritual foundation. As John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

If we really want to see mass shootings be less common, it's time for us to stop pointing fingers and to start acting and praying.

Daniel Darling, director of The Land Center for Cultural Engagement, columnist for World Magazine and author of "Agents of Grace: How to Bridge Divides and Love as Jesus Loves."

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Texas shooting shows we need prayer, action on guns from both parties