first baptist church
Balloons are released during a funeral service for some victims of the Sutherland Springs Baptist church shooting, in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Nov. 15, 2017. REUTERS/Darren Abate
A federal judge found the U.S. government 60 percent responsible for a 2017 mass shooting that killed 26 people at a rural Texas church, where a former Air Force serviceman used firearms he should not have been allowed to purchase.
U.S. District Judge Xavier Rodriguez ruled on Tuesday that the Air Force did not use reasonable care when it failed to record Devin Patrick Kelley's plea to domestic violence charges in a database used for background checks on firearms purchases.
He said the government bears "significant responsibility" for harm to victims of the Nov. 5, 2017 massacre at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, TX.
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“This is a great time for two churches that have been impacted by racial division to come together through the symbols of prayer, communion, focus on love and justice rather than racial division and hatred,” Roberts said.
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It is, of course, bringing up memories and exposing old wounds that we thought may have been healed throughout the process of time. It’s thrust several members back into that June 17, 2015, time when everything was kind of just moving very rapidly and having a lot of people experience the sheer raw emotions of having their church violated and having their ministerial staff and loved ones murdered within the sacred walls of the church.
The site of a shooting at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas, U.S. November 6, 2017. REUTERS/Rick Wilking
In a small town like Sutherland Springs, everyone will be affected by the shooting, Buford said. Police said the youngest shooting victim was five years old.
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In one of his last official acts, President Obama has designated Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, and other civil rights landmarks in Birmingham, Ala., as the Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument.
The designation protects the historic A.G. Gaston Motel in that city, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders had their 1963 campaign headquarters, as well as Kelly Ingram Park, where police turned hoses and dogs on civil rights protesters. And it includes the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where four girls died in 1963, after the Ku Klux Klan detonated 19 sticks of dynamite outside the church basement.
Senior Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas. Photo courtesy Religion News Service.
So much for turning the other cheek.
After evangelical icon Tim Tebow canceled his scheduled appearance at First Baptist Church in Dallas because of controversial remarks made by senior pastor Robert Jeffress, the pastor appeared to fire back at the New York Jets quarterback in his sermon on February 24.