title:  Latest From Conservatives: God Was Answering Victims’ Prayers By Letting Them Get Shot
text: We are 308 days into 2017, and so far there have been 378 mass shootings   most done by angry white men with too many guns and with domestic violence issues. It s difficult to spin that fact in any way that doesn t spit in the face of our nation s gun lust, but conservatives try. One even says it s a good thing.Donald Trump called it a mental health issue, one that has no proposed solutions, just days after he called for a complete policy change after an ISIS connected terrorist plowed into people in New York.Even Trump s tone-deaf reaction seemed compassionate compared to a conservative blogger and Lutheran pastor who says that God was answering the victims  prayers by taking them to heaven.Hans Fiene wrote his column in The Federalist in response to liberals who say that thoughts and prayers are not enough to quell the mass shooting epidemic. God wanted them dead, he said, and that s what prayer is all about.When we pray these words, we are certainly praying that God would deliver us from evil temporally that is, in this earthly life. Through these words, we are asking God to send his holy angels to guard us from those who would seek to destroy us with knives and bombs and bullets. It may seem, on the surface, that God was refusing to give such protection to his Texan children. But we are also praying that God would deliver us from evil eternally. Through these same words, we are asking God to deliver us out of this evil world and into his heavenly glory, where no violence, persecution, cruelty, or hatred will ever afflict us again. Just like those who put Christ to death, and just like those who have brought violence to believers in every generation, this man only succeeded in being the means through which God delivered his children from this evil world into an eternity of righteousness and peace. Perhaps instead of eternal damnation, the shooter who murdered 26 parishioners should receive sainthood.Featured image via Facebook.