One of the scriptures suggested this week by the Revised Common Lectionary is the Apostle Paul’s exhortation to the Christians in Ephesus to behave themselves.
No one can say for sure what was happening in Ephesus at the time, but Paul’s pleas seemed aimed at getting unruly Christians to stop arguing and remember whose they are. This requires nothing less, Paul writes, than putting animosities aside and “bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
That’s a tall order, and no doubt preachers – especially Baptist preachers – will take this passage in many different directions. Truth be told, congregational schism is one of the reasons we Baptists have so many churches. But Paul’s call for “humility and gentleness, with patience … in love” could apply to most any group, including Catholic bishops attempting to slap the hands of nuns for showing too much independence of thought.
All you have to do is tune into Fox News (not recommended) to get a sense of how rare it is to lead lives of “humility, gentleness, and patience,” or to bear “with one another in love.” You can take that collapse almost anywhere, but the specific breakdown few of us can get out of our heads began July 20 with the mass shootings in an Aurora, Colo. cinema, and the deeply divided reactions to them.
Last Monday, 24-year-old James Holmes was charged with 12 counts of first-degree murder, 12 counts of murder with extreme indifference, and 116 counts of attempted murder.
A dozen people died and 58 were injured when a gunman opened fire at random in the crowded movie theater near Denver. Four of 10 victims still hospitalized remain in critical condition.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys will argue at length that the shooter was mad, and of course mad gunmen cannot be expected to rationally ponder Pauline epistles.
But the bitter debate on whether guns should be readily available to anyone who wants them must be a matter of deep reflection for Christians and all persons of faith.
Perhaps the most lucid response to the shootings came from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who immediately renewed his call for stricter gun control and criticized presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney for backing away from the issue.
“The president has spent the last three years trying to avoid the issue,” Bloomberg complained on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
If anything, Obama’s and Romney’s dithering is a chilling reminder of the power of the gun lobby, which champions the right of every American to own unlimited numbers of guns ranging from small caliber pistols to powerful automatic weapons.
But this is madness. And although Paul never saw a gun in his life, his call to lead lives worthy of Jesus gives us a strong hint what he would have thought about them.
The July 20 shootings in Aurora sent me searching for a column I wrote for The American Baptist magazine after the December 8, 1980 murder of John Lennon. The omnipresence of firearms has gotten worse in 32 years, and so has power of the gun lobby. When “Jesus and the Gun” appeared as a February 1981 editorial in The American Baptist – along with my cartoon depicting Jesus gazing at a handgun in the sky – it elicited a viciously angry response from gun owners and lobbyists, most of them Christians. (The column is reprinted below).
As I re-read the column more than three decades later, I was disappointed in it. Clearly it was written in anger and it provided anecdotes, not rational arguments.
If I could re-write the column today, I would concede that it is not necessarily unchristian to use firearms. There are many sporting uses for guns ranging from target practice to hunting, and many Christians use guns responsibly. I do stand by one assertion in the 1981 column: I still can’t imagine Jesus with a pistol strapped to his hip or slinging a rifle over his shoulder. Not in a million years.
Too, if I could rewrite the column, I would have put in a good word for the National Rifle Association. NRA members are not universally nutty, even when their urge to collect guns seems born of an obsessive compulsive disorder, or when their non-historical re-interpretation of the Second Amendment seems a bit callow. That’s their right.
And in the interest of full disclosure, I was once a member of the National Rifle Association. Indeed, NRA membership was a rite of passage in Central New York where 14-year-old boys felt called to hunt varmints and their parents felt they should do it safely. The NRA provided the best gun-safety guidelines ever devised. And my Dad, a veteran of the Pacific Theater in World War II, was an NRA instructor.
That said, I hasten to add that Dad was no gun nut. He did keep them around the house and he made sure his four sons and daughter knew how to use them safely. He encouraged me to take my .22 rifle into the woods from time to time. But Dad had preferred to keep guns at arms length. And he had no use for hunting.
There is a picture of Dad taken a couple of years after he returned from Papua New Guinea, where he experienced combat at close range. The picture (above) was taken during his first year as a teacher at Morrisville-Eaton Central School in Central New York. His principal invited Dad and other teachers to join him on his annual deer hunting outing.
“I didn’t think I should say no,” was all Dad would say about it, but the picture is eloquent. Naturally Dad, a former infantry lieutenant, was a fair shot, so he got the deer. But he wasn’t happy about it. Dad was photographed kneeling beside the buck, lifting its head. The haunted expression on his face says it all.
Christians will continue to debate the morality of using guns and other weapons for sport of self defense, but for me there are issues that have already been settled.
In an average year, 100,000 Americans are shot or wounded with a gun. Every day, on average, 300 persons are victims of gun violence and 85 people die. Over 40,000 deaths are caused each year by citizens shooting other citizens, whether intentional, accidental, suicidal or drug or gang related.
Speaking the truth in love: to allow this go on is no way to lead lives worthy of the calling to which we have been called, “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
Jesus and the GunProsecutors and defense attorneys will argue at length that the shooter was mad, and of course mad gunmen cannot be expected to rationally ponder Pauline epistles.
But the bitter debate on whether guns should be readily available to anyone who wants them must be a matter of deep reflection for Christians and all persons of faith.
Perhaps the most lucid response to the shootings came from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who immediately renewed his call for stricter gun control and criticized presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney for backing away from the issue.
“The president has spent the last three years trying to avoid the issue,” Bloomberg complained on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
If anything, Obama’s and Romney’s dithering is a chilling reminder of the power of the gun lobby, which champions the right of every American to own unlimited numbers of guns ranging from small caliber pistols to powerful automatic weapons.
But this is madness. And although Paul never saw a gun in his life, his call to lead lives worthy of Jesus gives us a strong hint what he would have thought about them.
The July 20 shootings in Aurora sent me searching for a column I wrote for The American Baptist magazine after the December 8, 1980 murder of John Lennon. The omnipresence of firearms has gotten worse in 32 years, and so has power of the gun lobby. When “Jesus and the Gun” appeared as a February 1981 editorial in The American Baptist – along with my cartoon depicting Jesus gazing at a handgun in the sky – it elicited a viciously angry response from gun owners and lobbyists, most of them Christians. (The column is reprinted below).
As I re-read the column more than three decades later, I was disappointed in it. Clearly it was written in anger and it provided anecdotes, not rational arguments.
If I could re-write the column today, I would concede that it is not necessarily unchristian to use firearms. There are many sporting uses for guns ranging from target practice to hunting, and many Christians use guns responsibly. I do stand by one assertion in the 1981 column: I still can’t imagine Jesus with a pistol strapped to his hip or slinging a rifle over his shoulder. Not in a million years.
Too, if I could rewrite the column, I would have put in a good word for the National Rifle Association. NRA members are not universally nutty, even when their urge to collect guns seems born of an obsessive compulsive disorder, or when their non-historical re-interpretation of the Second Amendment seems a bit callow. That’s their right.
And in the interest of full disclosure, I was once a member of the National Rifle Association. Indeed, NRA membership was a rite of passage in Central New York where 14-year-old boys felt called to hunt varmints and their parents felt they should do it safely. The NRA provided the best gun-safety guidelines ever devised. And my Dad, a veteran of the Pacific Theater in World War II, was an NRA instructor.
That said, I hasten to add that Dad was no gun nut. He did keep them around the house and he made sure his four sons and daughter knew how to use them safely. He encouraged me to take my .22 rifle into the woods from time to time. But Dad had preferred to keep guns at arms length. And he had no use for hunting.
There is a picture of Dad taken a couple of years after he returned from Papua New Guinea, where he experienced combat at close range. The picture (above) was taken during his first year as a teacher at Morrisville-Eaton Central School in Central New York. His principal invited Dad and other teachers to join him on his annual deer hunting outing.
“I didn’t think I should say no,” was all Dad would say about it, but the picture is eloquent. Naturally Dad, a former infantry lieutenant, was a fair shot, so he got the deer. But he wasn’t happy about it. Dad was photographed kneeling beside the buck, lifting its head. The haunted expression on his face says it all.
Christians will continue to debate the morality of using guns and other weapons for sport of self defense, but for me there are issues that have already been settled.
In an average year, 100,000 Americans are shot or wounded with a gun. Every day, on average, 300 persons are victims of gun violence and 85 people die. Over 40,000 deaths are caused each year by citizens shooting other citizens, whether intentional, accidental, suicidal or drug or gang related.
Speaking the truth in love: to allow this go on is no way to lead lives worthy of the calling to which we have been called, “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”
[Reprinted from The American Baptist Magazine, February 1981]
This time it was John Lennon.
Once it was Vernon Jordan, crumpled in agony in a hotel parking lot with a bullet in his back.
And it was Jerry Ford, crouching in alarm just short of the safety of his limousine as a bullet was diverted from his head.
And it was Medgar Evers. And Malcolm. And John Kennedy. And Martin. And Bobby. And George Wallace.
It has been written that this nation has a harsh way of dealing with its leaders and symbols, who spend their lives in the shadow of violence.
But it goes deeper than that. The gun is a disease, like cancer, that leaves few American families untouched. It may be that no one has shot your sister; but it is likely you know someone who has experienced a tragedy – or a near miss.
One time I was sitting next to a young woman on a bus, on the way to a Billy Graham crusade in London. The woman’s husband was an Air Force major, and she hadn’t seen him for several weeks because he was away on an exercise. She missed him. “Every time he’s away, I realize how much I need him,” she said. “He’s my all.”
Several months later, after the young woman and the major returned to the United States, we heard that they were sitting in their living room one night. She was reading. He was cleaning a handgun. The gun went off, and she was fatally shot in the stomach.
Another woman I know recalls that when she was a child she had a tendency to walk in her sleep. Her father kept a gun in the house to protect the family. One night she arose from her bed and walked, still sleeping, outside the house and into the yard. Her father heard noises and grabbed his gun. He realized in time that the intruder was his only child, and he lowered the gun. Later he put the gun away forever. Lucky chances don’t happen twice.
Six years ago this magazine told the story of a 17-year-old high school honor student from Olean, N.Y. He climbed to the third story of his high school one day and began firing his gun as passing automobiles. When it was over, three people were dead and eleven were wounded. Later the young man was killed in prison.
One time I was spending the summer on a work crew on a small college campus. Late one night I received a telephone call from a professor’s wife whose husband was away and who said she heard a prowler outside her window. She couldn’t reach the campus security office by phone. Foolishly, I crept outside to look. By that time, the security office had been notified and the campus guard walked up the hill. All he saw was a suspicious looking figure lurking in the dark. He pulled his gun, and shouted, “Halt!”
I raised my hands in panic. Fortunately, the guard was not the skittish type. He didn’t shoot.
You add your own anecdotes. The problem is, guns are an epidemic. Especially handguns, which exist for no other purpose than to kill human beings. Those who now raise their voices in favor of strict gun control know what they are talking about. We need to put a halt to the damnable things.
Maybe there are worthwhile political, social, and constitutional arguments to be heard in favor of gun possession. Fine, let them be heard. But none of these arguments have anything to do with Christianity.
The fact will always remain that Jesus and guns are antithetical. Just apply the acid test: “What would Jesus do?”
Would Jesus wear a gun? No. He would not. Jesus and guns are simply irreconcilable. The Lord who ordered his apostle to put away his sword is not encouraging Americans to strap on a holster. And the Lord who told us to turn the other cheek is not now suggesting that we waste our enemies.
Gun control. Now. Before it gets any later.
Please see two of my earlier columns on the subject of guns:
Phil,
ReplyDelete20th 'graph - I think you meant "guns" not "guys"
I've always said that one way for those of us who support gun control (not elimination) would be to make a massive recruitment effort to join the NRA and vote to change their positions.
Terry, Thanks.
ReplyDeleteMichael Bloomberg said he was surprised cops all over America didn't go on strike until assault and similar weapons were taken off the street. He later said he wasn't actually advocating that, but it was a good idea anyway.
From my old buddy Victor Tupitza: "Let me suggest that instead of "independence of thought" the nuns are guilty no less than exercising the soul liberty we Baptist cling to so early. For the life of me I can't understand criticism of Obama's health policy pertaining to human sexuality as a violation of the religious liberty Roman Catholic bishops who, themselves, look to the Vatican for theological direction. Can all this be what Americans believe as religious liberty? Among the nuns and probably a lot of local clerics, no; but Bishops, etc., yes, to the point of covering up the insideous conduct within the church. In fact, the Roman Empire retains its autocrat and unqustioned authority."
ReplyDelete