wfn.org | NCC on Fort Worth Church Shootings

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227
E-mail: news@ncccusa.org; Web: www.ncccusa.org

104NCC9/17/99  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NCC LEADER ISSUES INDICTMENT AGAINST GUN LOBBY
IN WAKE OF FORT WORTH, TEXAS SHOOTINGS

 NEW YORK, Sept. 17 ---- The Rev. Dr. Staccato Powell,
Deputy General Secretary of the National Council of Churches
(NCC), has issued a stinging indictment against the gun
lobby and its supporters.  Dr. Powell declares, "Wednesday
night's shooting at the Wedgewood Baptist Church, which left
seven people dead, is another senseless atrocity perpetrated
with a firearm."

 Dr. Powell and the Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, NCC
General Secretary, participated Sept. 9 with the U.S.
Conference of Mayors calling on Congress to enact further
legislation for gun safety.  This latest act of violence,
according to Powell, shifts the focus from gun safety to gun
accessibility.  "Earlier in this century our national
resolve was not to control smallpox, polio or tuberculosis,
but to eradicate these diseases from the common fabric of
our fragile society.  We should treat guns as a plague that
needs to be eradicated for our own health and challenge the
gun lobby, which is allowing this plague to be spread."

 Dr. Powell cited the words of the Rev. Dr. Eugene
Carson Blake, noted ecumenist and former NCC President, who
at the 1963 march on Washington indicted American Christians
for "coming late" to a commitment to civil rights.  "We can
ill afford to 'come late' to speak against this malignancy
claiming the lives of our children," Dr. Powell said.

 Another faith leader, Rabbi Joachim Prinz, speaking on
the same occasion as Dr. Blake, recalled Nazi Germany and
said that the basic problem, then and now, was not evil but
silence.  The NCC's National Ministries Unit, directed by
Dr. Powell, plans to convene representatives from NCC member
communions to strategize about ways to refute the arguments
of the gun lobby.  "By taking our stand on the side of
peace, goodwill and humanity, we assist in the fulfillment
of one petition of the Lord's Prayer, 'deliver us from
evil,'" he said.

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