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Thoughts and prayers do something7/2/2023 Price, professor of worship, church & culture and founding executive director of the Institute for the Study of the Black Christian Experience at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, who said the repetition of the phrase, and the expectation that it will be uttered by political figures almost instantaneously after a tragedy like a school shooting has made the idiom more or less meaningless. “It becomes a soundbyte, and becoming a soundbyte desensitizes the urgency in which says. We just move on like, ‘Okay, here’s the next shooting.’ It almost becomes a pat kind of saying,” Monroe said. Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist, the Boston voice for Detour’s African American Heritage Trail, and a visiting researcher in the Religion and Conflict Transformation Program at Boston University School of Theology. “We are coming after every single one of you and demanding that you take action, demanding that you make a change.”ĭuring an interview with Boston Public Radio Monday, Reverend Irene Monroe said that while the phrase may be well-intentioned, it's become almost satirical in an era dominated by mass shootings and little congressional movement on gun control. “We’ve had enough of thoughts and prayers,” Delaney Tarr, a former student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, said after a student shot and killed 17 kids at the school in 2018. Many of those affected by mass shootings say thoughts and prayers are not enough. Twenty years later, mass shootings have become a grim fixture in American culture, and the phrase, which was once meant to be a warm gesture, has become a common refrain among lawmakers and public figures. Read more of Slate’s coverage of the San Bernardino, California, shooting.In 1999, when 15 students were gunned down at Columbine High School, a group of students from a nearby school hung a banner that read, “Our thoughts and prayers are with you.” But it’s nothing compared to the losses we endured this week, and last week, and the week before that, and the week before that, and the week before that. Going forward, it seems the phrase will become a politically inflected dog whistle in some quarters in the vein of Chik-fil-A and “Merry Christmas.” That’s a loss. Until now, “thoughts and prayers” has been a bipartisan cliché, and a harmless one. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. The issue is that politicians like him continue to offer thoughts and prayers and nothing else: no assault weapons ban, no universal background checks, no federal gun registry.Īnd what about those tweeted assurances that a politician is praying? Here’s what Jesus himself said, in a passage in the book of Matthew introducing the Lord’s Prayer: What Cruz chooses to do in his bedroom is his own business. It’s hard to imagine that even the most dedicated atheist objects to Ted Cruz kneeling by his bed at night to pray for the victims of yesterday’s shooting. The problem is when “thoughts and prayers” are the only response to a public event that calls for political action. (Full disclosure: I contribute regularly to the Atlantic.) Conservatives are exquisitely tuned to this long decline, but it’s not new, and it’s reflective of a country in which the fastest-growing religious identification is “no religion.” Almost one-quarter of Americans now say they are atheists, agnostics, or “nothing in particular,” according to Pew, so it’s to be expected that we’re hearing more skepticism over politicians’ expressions of piety.Īnd let’s be clear: This week’s prominent “prayer shamers” aren’t really against prayer. Green subtly put her finger on a real phenomenon: America’s declining patience for expressions of civil religion, particularly in elite quarters.
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