It’s become a cliché at this point: tragedy hits, people offer their “thoughts and prayers”, and public (and…
Granted, many who sneer at these innocuous expressions of sympathy are saying faith must be accompanied by action. “Thoughts and prayers”, they argue, can be empty words substituting for doing good. In this they are right. Biblical, even. Christianity doesn’t teach that prayer takes the place of feeding the hungry or caring for orphans. Of course, some of these complaints are rooted in false perceptions, such as the (mistaken) stereotype of religious Americans as uncharitable, just because they don’t want to outsource that charity to the power of the State. Sometimes, it’s simply policy disagreement: Why won’t you do X?? Well, because X doesn’t work, so let’s do Y.
