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07224 April 17, 2007
Presbyterian and other religious leaders mourn Virginia Tech killings
'Hold on to Christ and each other,' Kirkpatrick urges
by Jerry Van Marter
LOUISVILLE - As Blacksburg, VA, gathers to mourn the loss of 33 students and teachers gunned down on the campus of Virginia Tech yesterday (April 16), Presbyterian and other religious leaders are expressing their grief over the worst mass murder in United States history.
"When we participate in a child's baptism, we promise as a community of faith to uphold that child and nurture him or her in the faith," said Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick. "Today I ask that you pray especially for the Presbyterians and others who will be upholding and nurturing these students and their families."
Presbyterians in Blacksburg have been ministering around-the-clock as the community struggles to come to grips with the deaths.
Virginia Tech Presbyterian campus minister Catherine Snyder was doubly affected. Her husband, a professor at Virginia Tech, was teaching classes in Norris Hall - where 31 of the killings occurred - when the shooting started.
"This is a very close-knit community and there is no one who hasn't been touched by this tragedy," said Ginger Taylor Evans, whose husband, the Rev. Alex Evans, is pastor of Blacksburg Presbyterian Church. She said Alex, who is a volunteer police chaplain for Blacksburg, spent the entire night after the shootings notifying families of the victims.
A prayer service was held at the Blacksburg church last night, one of thousands across the country. Students, faculty and administrators at nearby Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, for instance, held their own prayer service this morning.
"Churches around the world join churches and councils of churches in the U.S. in sending sympathies to those who are suffering, and in upholding parishes in Virginia in their ministry during these difficult days," said World Council of Churches General Secretary Sam Kobia from WCC headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
Also in Geneva, the general secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Rev. Setri Nyomi said: "We pray to God that the families, friends and colleagues of the victims will some day find healing, even as we understand this horrendous act of incomprehensible violence will never leave their consciousness."
Nyomi added: "We pray also for the United States of America and all nations as they struggle to overcome the temptation to rely on arms and as they work to find true security for all their peoples."
In New York, National Council of Churches General Secretary Bob Edgar echoed Nyomi's call for an end to violence. "The escalation of gun violence compels us to call for an end to the manufacture and easy distribution of such instruments of destruction," he said.
"A faith that expresses compassion for all God's children is opposed to violence in all forms," Edgar continued, noting that numerous U.S. faith leaders "have spoken up continually about the epidemic of gun violence in our country. Despite repeated calls from faith and community leaders to Congress and presidents nothing ever seems to get done to stem the tide."
Assistance of all kinds is pouring into Blacksburg, Ginger Evans said. "The connectional church is such a blessing," she told the Presbyterian News Service in an interview this morning. "The offers to help have been overwhelming."
Evans said Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) was among the first to call after news of the shootings were broadcast. Three PDA-trained specialists were immediately dispatched to Blacksburg to help organize the massive relief effort.
"It's amazing," Evans said. "We Presbyterians fuss about so many things, but at times like this we feel so united."
Kirkpatrick said: "In terrible events such as this, it is fear that separates us. But Paul's words remind us that we are not alone:
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 8:38-39).
"Let us hold on to Christ and to each other."
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