When violence invades sacred spaces
A recent shooting at a church in Nashville, Tennessee, raises questions of safety in places of worship.
As people responded to the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, in which more than 50 people were killed and hundreds injured October 1 in Las Vegas, members of Burnette Chapel Church of Christ in Nashville, Tennessee, were mourning their own disaster. A shooting at the church on September 24 left one woman dead and seven others injured.
The attack conjured up memories of other shootings at sanctuaries, such as the June 2015 massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and the August 2012 shooting at a Sikh temple outside of Milwaukee.
Attacks on churches are where Mike McPherson’s thoughts went as he waited at Vanderbilt University Medical Center for updates on his friend Joey Spann, who is Burnette Chapel’s minister.
