DALLAS — This week, people of faith are crying out.
“Why didn’t God do anything,” Reverend Dr. Lucretia Facen asked her congregation at St. Paul United Methodist Church in Dallas.
After what happened in Buffalo, how could God let it happen again?
“Can I tell you what the question is for me,” Facen asked. “Why did we let this happen?”
“We’re waiting on God, but God’s waiting on us,” she said. “God empowers us to act.”
After every mass shooting, Facen is at a loss, just like Rabbi Andrew Paley of Temple Shalom in Dallas.
“Sometimes there are no words,” Paley said.
Imam Omar Suleiman, founder of the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research, says things like this are often unfathomable and unexplainable.
“Sometimes it’s ok for us to not have those answers,” Suleiman said.
Leaders of all faiths question say, while we can’t answer why God allows this to happen, followers can question their response.
Thoughts and prayers didn’t stop this mass shooting, and they likely won’t stop the next one.
At least, not alone.
“Thoughts and prayers are fine, but they will not solve this problem alone,” Facen said.
“We believe that prayer is insufficient without action,” Suleiman said.
“I think God is crying at this moment, wanting God’s creatures to do right and to do good,” Paley said.
Unless we do something to end this vicious cycle, faith leaders say we will continue crying out in desperation, wondering why.
“I lean back on a quote that said something to the effect of, ‘I wanted to ask God why he allows murder and tyranny and hunger and poverty,’” Suleiman said. “’But I was afraid he might ask me the same question.’”
For people of faith, it’s clear: God is listening.
Are we?