Emanuel AME pastor Eric Manning shows solidarity with Sutherland Springs
“Though the motives may be different the result is the same: you have now two congregations who have gone through a tremendous amount of hatred and evil within their sacred spaces.”
In the wake of the mass shooting at a Texas church, Eric S.C. Manning, pastor of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, visited members of his own congregation coping with rekindled memories and ongoing grief.
Manning became pastor of Emanuel AME in June 2016, a year after nine people were killed by a white supremacist gunman during a Bible study. This year he picked up the phone and called a Tennessee church and a Canadian mosque that suffered their own attacks. He and congregational leaders from Emanuel AME hope to travel to Texas to visit members of First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, where 26 people died on November 5.
He talked about how things have changed—new security and a new counseling center—for his church members and how they’ve stayed the same—the church doors remain open to members and visitors.
