The Daily News today has a cover on the San Bernardino shooting declaring that “God Isn’t Fixing This.” “Prayers aren’t working,” the associated article says.
The paper takes particular aim at Republican presidential candidates for talking about prayer instead of gun-control policies.
The cover continues: “As latest batch of innocent Americans are left lying in pools of blood, cowards who could truly end gun scourge continue to hide behind meaningless platitudes.”
In response to the murders in Colorado last week, I suggested prayer is a needed response, rather than doubling down on defending positions on abortion. Readers on both sides of the issue called me out on it for “platitudes.” For believers, this should be a point of reflection. Do we pray? Do we really truly pray? In the face of horrific violence? In the face of suffering? Do we make time? Is it more than just a nice or desperate word here and there, a quick acknowledgement or routine? Do we pray in thanksgiving and in petition? Do we believe we owe God praise and worship, even in the midst of dreadful news and death and destruction?
Do we pull the prayer card — talk about it, feel good about it, feel better when we tweet #PrayforParis or do we let it orient our lives?
The Daily News and others are obviously taking on God here, too. It’s part and parcel of the secular air we breathe, where even Christians have bought into a privatization and compartmentalizing of faith.
If people see faith has become a platitude in our own lives — something for Sunday or for Christmas and Easter, big moments in life, and a hashtag — then, of course, you’ll get covers like the Daily News. Practical atheism doesn’t inspire. Radical, transformational loves does.
All that said, James Taranto, as usual, is memorable:
“God is dead.”–Nietzsche “Nietzsche is dead.”–God “GOD ISN’T FIXING THIS”–Daily News “Daily News isn’t fixing this.”–God
— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) December 3, 2015