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In Defense of Praying After Tragedy
Those who denigrate prayer after mass shootings reveal their own ignorance.
On Wednesday, a man fired more than 100 rounds into a Catholic church in Minneapolis. He was targeting students attending a back-to-school Mass. Tragically, he killed two children and injured 18 others. He then killed himself.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey rushed to the scene and promptly criticized Christians.
“Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now,” he said. “These kids were literally praying. It was the first week of school. They were in a church.”
“Enough with the thoughts and prayers,” Jen Psaki, former White House press secretary, wrote on X.
In response to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defending those “who believe in the power of prayer,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on X, “These children were literally praying as they got shot at.”
Leftists obsess over microaggressions, but they have no issue with their leaders mocking Christians after Christian children were murdered for being in a Christian church.
Despite the condescension, this is an objection worth addressing.
One reason Christians pray is that there isn’t anything physically we can do in many tragic situations. But we can appeal to the God of the universe. He can protect responding officers. He can heal the wounded and guide the doctors caring for them. He can comfort the broken-hearted. He can supernaturally intervene in ways we can’t. And of course, a police officer on the scene shouldn’t only respond in prayer.
If you don’t believe in God, that may seem silly. Fine. But you should understand why Christians pray.
There’s another contention in these statements, too: Prayer failed and, by extension, so did God. The shooter even wrote “Where is your God” on one of the magazines for his rifle.
Anyone drawing this conclusion is unaware of the Bible and church history.
Jesus, God’s only begotten Son, lived a perfect life, yet died on a cross while facing similar taunts: “He saved others, but he can’t save himself.”
Yet, those mockers didn’t see what was happening right in front of them. On the cross, Jesus paid the penalty that you and I deserve for our sin. On the third day, God raised him from the dead. Jesus’ sacrifice offers salvation to those who confess him as Lord and believe God raised him from the dead.
What looked to human eyes like the ultimate failure was God’s plan to save mankind—and offer a hope that pain and death can’t diminish.
“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us,” Paul wrote in Romans 8.
Those families in Minneapolis weren’t the first Christians to suffer greatly. Most of the apostles were martyred for their faith. In the Roman Empire, Christians were crucified, burned, thrown to the lions and otherwise tortured. Since 2009, Islamists have killed more than 50,000 Christians in Nigeria.
What’s remarkable are the many stories of Christians facing their deaths with calmness, joy or even song.
In 202 or 203 A.D., a group of Christians was arrested for their faith. After being sentenced to a gruesome death, Perpetua, a young mother, wrote in her diary, “We returned to prison in high spirits.”
A narrator continued the tale. The day before their deaths, they spoke to the mob, “stressing the joy they would have in their suffering.” As she and the other martyrs died, she urged others to “stand fast in the faith and love one another.”
Non-believers may assume that the earthly suffering of God’s followers diminishes Him. It doesn’t, and it hasn’t for 2,000 years. Even though I often fail to live this truth out well, our hope isn’t in this world.
And when tragedy makes that hard to remember, it’s time to pray.
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