Liberals are right about ‘thoughts and prayers’ — but not for the reason they think

After a transgender shooter murdered children at Annunciation Catholic School last month, liberals demanded no more “thoughts and prayers.”

For once, they’re right — but not for the reasons they think.

Ritual scorn

Before the facts were fully known, liberals seized on the moment to lecture Americans about why prayer is an insufficient response to the tragedy.

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki declared that “prayer is not freaking enough.” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) went a step further. He used a press conference to browbeat Christians. “Don’t just say that this is about thoughts and prayers right now,” he declared.

The reaction was as predictable as it was tone-deaf.

Evil had just entered the sanctuary of God, and two innocent children were murdered. Yet progressives like Psaki and Frey believe that was the time to denounce believers who offer their sympathy to the victims and call out to God in a time of dire need?

It’s a familiar ritual: Politicians and pundits use tragedy to score easy points against Christians.

Are they right?

Yes — partially. While Scripture recounts miraculous answers to prayer, most Christians don’t experience immediate “results” from prayer (as if results are the goal; they’re not). Prayers don’t restore broken stained-glass windows and (typically) don’t resurrect life.

But in a way, these ghoulish critics are right: America needs something more than words.

America lacks the courage to name evil for what it is and to confront the anti-God and demonic ideologies that deform human souls.

It’s not that prayer is weak, ineffective, or insufficient. Calling on God is not a wholesale abdication of duty. Quite the opposite. Prayer is a powerful act precisely because it’s meant to lead us to repentance, action, and moral renewal. Christian tradition does not sever prayer from action. They are inherently intertwined.

So, I agree: Our country needs more action. But what kind?

Rotten roots

As liberals sneer at prayer — the one practice that consistently births moral courage in the face of evil — they offer to sacrifice the Second Amendment on the altar of progressivism. Endless laws, strict regulations, all in the name of “safety,” are pushed as the “real action” America needs. Ironically, they can’t name a single law that would have prevented the tragedy, short of repealing the Second Amendment entirely.

But gun control is not the cure. The real solution is moral action.

Right now, America lacks the courage to name evil for what it is and to confront the anti-God and demonic ideologies that deform human souls. At the core, the Annunciation Catholic School tragedy is the fruit of moral disorder, the result of a culture that catechizes people into anti-God, anti-truth ideologies.

When a society teaches young people to reject God, meaning, and moral reality — everything that is true and good — we should not be surprised when their brokenness turns monstrous.

RELATED: The idols and lies behind the Minneapolis Catholic school shooting

The cure begins with addressing the spiritual rot at the root of these tragedies: racial individualism, nihilism, the denial of objective truth, and the rejection of God. In the simplest terms, it means rejecting the worldview of progressive liberalism. And prayer, rightly understood, fuels this moral reckoning. It reminds us that righteous action is not merely a policy outcome but a divine imperative.

We have a duty to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. That means it’s time for courageous Americans to stand up and recover a moral vision that forms strong men and women who fear the Lord and walk in His ways.

No law will save us. Only righteous action from God-fearing men and women will prevent the next Annunciation tragedy.

Prayer’s demand

When Jesus hung on the cross and bore the weight of humanity’s sin, mockers looked upon the living God and declared, “He saved others, but he cannot save himself” (Matthew 27:42).

That is exactly what the prayer-mockers do. They think prayer doesn’t work or it has failed. Worse yet, they believe that God has failed.

But the eyes of man are easily led astray. The mockers on that day failed to discern that what they saw as a failure was anything but a failure. Jesus, after all, left the tomb alive.

So, yes: “Thoughts and prayers” aren’t enough. Not because prayer is insufficient but because prayer calls us to more than words; it demands moral seriousness and righteous action.

If “thoughts and prayers” are to mean anything, they must be joined to action — the hard, uncompromising, and courageous work of confronting evil, calling out false ideologies, and shaping a culture that values truth, virtue, human life, and the God that created us. And what is beautiful about prayer is that it prompts righteous but flawed people to step up and do what is right. It fuels our courage to act.

We must pray — because it’s vital — but we must also act. Prayer sets the compass, and moral action steers the ship. It’s high time we took the wheel.