"Gun violence has intruded into too many places where people have always felt safe. As people of God we struggle with how to respond. We call for more vigilance, fewer guns, tighter controls, and all the other responses our hearts and our faith call us to. But, in the end, we find ourselves again faced with the blood of innocents. We know this will never end until our faith in the risen Christ has overthrown the voices of violence and fear that seemingly compel us to stock our lives with firearms.

"Let us respond with the transformative power of love and again dedicate our lives to ending all of these expressions of hatred and self-loathing. To the people of Roseburg, Umpqua Community College, and the community as a whole: Know that we are with you in your sorrow, loss and fear and offer healing prayers for your tomorrow [October 2] St. George's Episcopal Church in Roseburg has opened its doors as a place of prayer and healing for all the community."

That's the best the bishop could do? Really?

Overnight, CNN reported the Oregon shooter singled out Christians to murder. Yes CHRISTIANS.

Liberal news outlets said not a word about the anti-Christian connection and neither did a liberal Episcopal bishop. This was a hate crime pure and simple and the bishop couldn't even say the words.

The shooter asked each person he killed if they were a Christian or not. When they said yes he said, "Good, because you're a Christian, you're going to see God in just about one second." Then he shot them dead.

What if he had said, "Are you a sodomite", or "are you a Muslim" and then said, "Good, because you're a sodomite or a Muslim in about one second you're going straight to hell."

Would the bishop have been so low-keyed in his response? Not likely. You would have heard screams and cries of homophobia and Islamophobia ringing from coast to coast. TEC's unofficial sodomite organization Integrity would have seen lesbian (the Rev.) Susan Russell with her bullhorn weighing in about America's increasing homophobia and blamed it on "institutional homophobia" or African Anglicans for not caving into their world view.

CAIR would have issued a statement about the alarming growth of Islamophobia in America and how Christians hate us and then blame presidential hopeful Dr. Ben Carson for his islamophobia even though he dared tell the truth that Shari'a Law and the Constitution are mutually exclusive documents and demonstrate incompatible worldviews.

But no, nothing. They were Christians who were shot, born again Christians that TEC despises and the Episcopal Bishop of Oregon was too ashamed to mention. God forbid we should say anything about those people who died except some vague talk about the "transformative power of love" -- TEC's latest nomenclature to say absolutely nothing in high sounding language. And what of the "self-loathing" that the bishop talks about - pure psychobabble. Those being shot were not full of self-loathing; one doubts that the shooter was either. This was a dedicated, planned killing with some 13 guns (legally obtained) and a tightly wound mother unable or unwilling to stop her son or tell the police that she had an armed son who might be a tad crazy.

What does "transformative...love" mean anyway? No one knows, and nothing will change. The Diocese of Oregon lost 1400 ASA members between 2003 - 2014 clear evidence that "transformative... love" doesn't seem to be building church membership. Of course, the bishop did say he would keep the lights on in one church if they needed it.

This is not just another gun tragedy in America where some 88 to 92 people die each day from gun violence, some 20,000 alone being suicides. This is about fatherless America. This is about the fact that fully fifty percent of all children growing up in this country will grow up with only one parent -- mostly mothers, a fact that came to life in the World Families Conference in Philadelphia recently. And this is a society that champions women!

The shooter never knew his father. He lived in California and had lost all touch with the boy.

Easy access to guns is a major contributor to the problem. Under current federal law, background checks are only required for gun sales at licensed dealers. According to Mayors Against Illegal Guns, approximately 6.6 million guns are sold each year in America by unlicensed private sellers. That translates to 40 percent of all U.S. gun sales. (Source: Congressional Record.)

Mega pastor Rick Warren told me that his son, who struggled with a lifetime of mental issues, was able to buy a hand gun on line with no background check and then kill himself. He could have just as easily killed his parents first. Thank God, he didn't.

Guns kept in the home are more likely to be involved in a fatal or nonfatal unintentional shooting, criminal assault, or suicide attempt than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense. That is, a gun is more likely to be used to kill or injure an innocent person in the home than a threatening intruder, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Claims that guns are used defensively millions times every year have been widely discredited. Using a gun in self-defense is no more likely to reduce the chance of being injured during a crime than various other forms of protective action. At least one study has found that carrying a firearm significantly increases a person's risk of being shot in an assault; research published in the American Journal of Public Health reported that, even after adjusting for confounding factors, individuals who were in possession of a gun were about 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession.

This man was a loner as are millions of young men his age growing up without fathers in America today. They watch violent movies, violent TV, play violent videos, develop pathological views about Blacks, Jews and Christians, then they buy guns and carry out their fantasies.

The Rev. Dennis Kreiss, who pastors a non-denominational church in Roseburg, Oregon, has been in the hospital visiting with families of the victims. His church was one of the churches holding a vigil last night. When he was asked what we should be doing right now, he echoed Jesus' words in Matthew 5:44: I would say what Jesus said, our job is to protect those that we love and also to love our enemies and to pray for those who hate us and despitefully use us. The Episcopal bishop could not cite even one Biblical verse.

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