wfn.org | United Methodist Officials Respond To Shooting

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

CONTACT: 	Tim Tanton
(10-21-71B){185}
		Nashville, Tenn. (615) 742-5473	      March 26, 1998

NOTE: This is a sidebar to UMNS #184.

Shooting raises big-picture questions
for both church and society

by United Methodist News Service

The March 24 shooting at a Jonesboro, Ark., school raises questions for
both church and society about issues such as gun control and negative
influences on children, two United Methodist officials said.
The shooting left four children and one teacher dead at Westside Middle
School. Two boys, ages 13 and 11, have been charged.
"This is a tragedy beyond belief," said Jane Hull Harvey, a child
advocate and a staff executive of the United Methodist Board of Church
and Society. "It is happening across the world. In the United States,
this type of tragedy has happened at least three times in the last six
months in schools."
Along with shock, grief and anger, United Methodist Bishop Jack Meadors
of Jackson, Miss., said he felt "concern and compassion for the victims
and their families, (and) concern for the young people who were reported
to have done it and their families."
For Meadors, chairman of the churchwide Episcopal Initiative on Children
and Poverty, the shooting prompts big-picture questions.
"What is it in society that allows this to happen?" he asked. "Where has
the church been, what is the role now in the church (in) responding to
this and the role of society?"
A response to the tragedy must be made at every level of society --
federal, state and local, he said.
The faith community is already responding to the grief of the families,
he noted. There is a continuing need to provide support for families and
students in the school and the community, he said.
"We must examine the influence of television on our society today," the
bishop said. "Ours has become a culture of violence, and it's imperative
to look at the influence television is having, where heroes are
glorified who take the law into their hands.
	"I think it's imperative for the nation to look seriously at our
gun laws," he continued. "The accessibility and availability of guns has
to be re-examined."
Harvey agreed.
"The Jonesboro, Ark., shooting is indicative of the fact that we as a
nation have not dealt with the gun violence that is killing people," she
said. "We've too long listened to the National Rifle Association say
that we are guaranteed the right to bear arms.
"For the nation to be armed as it is provides children with weapons to
play with.
"As a church, we must call for deep conversations in the nation to talk
about why children are killing children and why we have readily
available weapons for people to kill people," she said.
Attention also must be focused on "the place of the family in a society
where there are so many broken families and broken homes," Meadors said.
"What are the causes? To what extent is it a spiritual problem as well
as an economic and an emotional problem?"
	In this type of situation, the church is called to both a
pastoral and a prophetic response, he said.
The pastoral response entails working directly with the victims'
families in their time of grief and sadness -- and providing continuing
pastoral care to the perpetrators and their families also, he said.
By taking a prophetic stance, the church must "call the nation to look
at who we are as a violent society, to recognize the incredible number
of children and young people who are killed every year by violent
crime," Meadors said.
Often, that crime is youth-on-youth, the bishop noted.
"It almost seems as if our children and youth have declared war on
themselves, on their country, on their families."
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