Tag: Peace On Earth

If you give it a quick glance, this looks like a normal nativity scene. Except on the wall behind sits details of mass shootings in America, and the amount of people that died in those Mass Shootings.

rt.com reports:

The priest at St. Susanna, Father Stephen Josoma, told Boston 25 News that the move is aimed at getting people talking and stopping gun violence. “There’s cities, nursing homes, coffee shops, military installations, churches, theaters,” he said, noting the locations of mass shootings that have taken place across the country.

Josoma said the idea came after he and his parishioners were “discussing the gun control issue and how it seems to be stagnated across the country.” He went on to state that “this is not the picture of Christmas peace we want to have in people’s minds for years to come. It can’t be this forever, it just has to change.”

The signs sit underneath a banner which reads: “If you only knew the things that make peace.” The priest said he hopes they will encourage people to “look with an open mind and an open heart and continue the conversation.”

The signs have proven controversial online, with one person taking to social media to say that “mass shooters don’t deserve that kind of recognition. Church is for holy people. We should discard these monsters in active volcanos.”

Read more (including Twitter reactions) at RT.com

Sofa feels that at a time when churches around the world sing about Peace on Earth, its good to see a church tackling how unpeaceful events have arguably become normalised.

“Blessed are the peacemakers”, and all that I guess..?