[ACNS, by Gavin Drake] Prayer services have been held throughout north Texas following Friday’s atrocity in which 12 police officers were shot – five of them fatally. The incident occurred when a gunman with links to far-right groups opened fire on police officers guarding a protest rally. The protest was being held in response to the deaths of two black men who were shot and killed by police in separate incidents earlier in the week in Minnesota and Louisiana.
“Our city is broken, aching and torn,” Carrie Headington, missioner for evangelism in the Diocese of Texas, said.
“Today [Friday] was a clarion call to action. A call to pray. A call for racial reconciliation. A call for justice and peace. A call to see the dignity in all persons. A call for the church to live fully into our mission as ambassadors for Jesus. Today is a call to love.”In a video message from Toronto, where he was attending a meeting of the Anglican Church of Canada’s General Synod, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry called on the church to pray and to begin a national conversation to build “a better way” for the country – “a way that allows all of us in this country to be the children of God and accorded the respect and honour that is due all of us as God’s children.”
In his message, Bishop Curry repeatedly said that all human beings were children of God, made in His image, and worthy of respect. He said that it was a “time of great pain and turmoil for us as a country”.