Pastor and Rabbi Call for Unity and Prayer to Combat Political Violence

• Rabbi Oirechman and Pastor Young say if everyone would put personal preferences and differences aside for the common cause, we could see changes.
• During times of violence of any kind, some turn to their places of worship for comfort.
• Watch the video above to hear from faith leaders about how they're helping people keep the faith.

BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT

“First thing that popped in my mind immediately was there’s got to be a level of hatred and stuff that’s going on in our community, whether we want to acknowledge it or not.”

Otis B. Young is a pastor at Kingdom Life Tabernacle in Tallahassee.

He says news of the assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump came as a shock to him and countless others he's spoken with.

“Whether I like the individual that’s running for office or not, he has a soul, he’s a person and nobody deserves to be assassinated at all.”

During times of violence of any kind, some turn to their places of worship for comfort.

Now, we’re in one of those times.

We spoke almost one year ago on local violence within our own communities, now this time, I asked Pastor Young what we can do to unite after political violence.

“How can we stop the violence, from your point of view, in the entire nation?”

“I don’t think there’s one answer to this, it’s going to take several different solutions, one is definitely going to be prayer. I think out of the place of prayer, it’s identifying those in decision making authority to come together to develop a strategy to combat this violent situation because it has now become a culture.”

A culture that Rabbi Oirechman of Chabad House at FSU says can be changed with God.

“We have to first understand that we are finding ourselves in very troubling times and a lot of darkness. We all share the same common denominator; we are all created in God’s image.”

Rabbi Oirechman also says.

“The only way to respond is with the action of light and positivity to each other.”

Rabbi Oirechman and Pastor Young say if everyone would put personal preferences and differences aside for the common cause, we could see changes.