The First Congregational United Church of Christ in D.C. featured signs from the “March For Our Lives” in its windows, denouncing prayer and demanding gun control.
The church featured several of the protesters’ signs in its windows at the front entrance to their building. Some signs display “Thoughts & Prayers Don’t Save Lives” and “We Need Gun Control, Not Thoughts & Prayers” in large, bold lettering. Rev. Audrey Price, the Senior Supply Minister of the church, sent a statement to The Daily Caller News Foundation, saying the signs were part of an art installation, “Enough!” It is intended to “elevate” the message of the protesters.
“With the Enough! exhibit, we elevate the voices of these youth and young people at First Congregational. We also honor the individuals who were killed in Parkland, other school shootings and in daily gun violence throughout our country,” Price wrote in the statement.
[Enough! Art Installation at the front entrance of First Congregational United Church of Christ in D.C. (picture taken by The Daily Caller News Foundation)]
[Part of the First Congregational UCC Enough! Art Installation featured in the front windows. (Picture taken by The Daily Caller News Foundation)]
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The poster did not, however, specify the signs were part of an art exhibit and also did not clarify whether the messages on the signs align with the church’s beliefs about the power of prayer — or lack thereof. No posters featured in the windows advocate prayer or God as part of the answer to gun violence.
[Poster in the Enough! Art Installation explaining the “March For Our Lives” and promoting gun control (picture taken by The Daily Caller News Foundation)]
“We realize we cannot obtain peace and justice through human efforts alone. Through prayer and the power of God and the Holy Spirit, we are empowered to continue our work together to bring forth this transformation of our world,” the statement noted.
The church adheres to a Just Peace theology, which promotes reconciliation in Christ as the solution to perceived injustices, the statement added.
“Grounded in UCC polity and covenantal theology, the position focuses attention on alleviating systemic injustice of all types using non-violence and calls us to offer the message, grounded in the hope of reconciliation in Jesus, that ‘Peace is possible.'”
The church did not post any such statement promoting prayer or reconciliation in Christ among the signs displayed in the windows for passersby to see. Church representatives did not respond to TheDCNF’s repeated inquiries as to whether they were concerned passersby might see the seemingly-prayer-denouncing signs as useless and take them to be the church’s intended message. Church representatives also did not answer why they chose to display those particular signs prominently for all to see, given Price’s statement on prayer and the plethora of signs from the march that promoted gun control without denouncing prayer.
First Congregational prides itself in the fact the UCC denomination “has been bold in extending an invitation to all.”
“For example, our historic denominations were first to ordain an African American pastor (1785), a woman (1853), and a gay or lesbian person (1972),” a poster displayed just inside the church’s front doors.
The church considers “racial justice and working to confront white privilege as a critical priority,” the church’s website advertises. The church is part of the Sanctuary movement and seeks to protect illegal immigrants from deportation by the authorities, the website also promotes.
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