LWF Offers Prayerful Support Following Shooting at Connecticut School

Junge: “That God May Come as a Prince of Peace”

The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) General Secretary Rev. Martin Junge extends prayers to the families, community and people of the United States as they struggle to deal with the tragic shooting, 14 December, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

In a letter to Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), Junge said, “It is with pain that we received the shocking news about the shooting,” in which a gunman shot dead 20 students and six adults, before killing himself.

Junge noted that the shooting happened during the liturgical time when Christians across the world “prayerfully prepare for God’s in-breaking into the world through Jesus Christ.”

It is the Lutheran communion’s prayer, the general secretary said, “that God may come as a Prince of Peace into the troubled and distressed hearts of all those suffering and mourning the loss of defenseless lives in Newtown, and that God’s presence may become a seed for powerful transformation in the midst of these difficult realities.”

He added, “May God’s Spirit empower the church for its witness in these challenging circumstances.”