You can read the Bible through and you will never find anything about guns or gun violence. But Scripture is rich with resources that speak to those issues, says Lisa L. Thompson, assistant professor of homiletics at Union Theological Seminary.

"It's not going to have a verbatim answer, but if we read the text, there are principles that come up over and over. One of those is violence, and how we connect and live with one another," she said.

Part of the task of preaching about gun violence is to draw upon texts that illustrate God's disposition toward violence and the sanctity of life and human dignity, she said.

"If the text, and our faith, values life -- the sanctity of life, the imago Dei in every individual -- then somehow that has to hit the ground today," she said. "If we say that gun violence leads to disregard for human life and dignity and does not recognize the image of God in every person because it takes life away so carelessly, then we begin talking about gun violence as people of faith."

Thompson was a featured speaker last fall at "God and Guns: Faith Leaders Address Gun Violence," a conference at The Riverside Church in New York. An ordained Baptist minister, she has a Ph.D. and an M.A. in religion from Vanderbilt University and an M.Div. from Fuller Theological Seminary.

Before joining the faculty at Union, she was an assistant professor of homiletics at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and a Lilly Faculty Fellow at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago.

Thompson's publications include "'Now That's Preaching!' Disruptive and Generative Preaching Practices," in Practical Matters Journal, and "In Search of Our Mothers' Healings: Holistic Wellbeing, Black Women and Preaching," in Homiletic, The Journal for the Academy of Homiletics. Her forthcoming book is entitled "Sacred Imaginings: Black Women and the Practice of Preaching."

She spoke recently with our colleagues at Faith & Leadership.