This is the Daily Article podcast, published by the Denison Forum for Culture-Changing Christians.

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thedailyarticle.com. Now here's today's news, discerned differently.

Are thoughts and prayers a cruel joke?

Dana Milbank is a columnist for the Washington Post and a best-selling author.

He has also been characterized as extravagantly contrarian and one of the most extreme ideologues

in the business.

Consider, for example, the title of his column following last weekend's shootings.

Republicans' thoughts and prayers have become a cruel joke. Millbank cites dozens of such

statements responding to the tragedies. He notes that thoughts and prayers are always welcome,

but then claims that this reflexive response to the endless massacres has become a cruel joke,

as effective as a hallmark sympathy card. Milbank believes that offering prayer is what people say when

they plan to do nothing. To those who criticize his criticism, he responds, we criticize prayer in lieu of

action. I agree with Milbank that if we promise to

pray but do nothing else, we have not done enough. As James 217 notes, faith by itself, if it does not

have works, is dead. However, like so many in our secular culture, Milbank seems to think that we must choose

between prayer and action, that if we pray for victims, we are not acting on their behalf. And he

believes that until Republicans act as he thinks they should, we don't have a prayer.

Last Sunday morning, as the horrific news was still breaking from El Paso in Dayton,

South Carolina Senator Tim Scott was on CBS's Face the Nation.

He was asked about the massacre four years ago when a white racist murdered nine African-Americans

at the Mother Emmanuel Church in Charleston.

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