Loaded: The Church’s Response to Violence

In the interests of full disclosure, I grew up around guns. My father taught me gun safety and how to shoot at an early age. Ever since, I have owned a gun for hunting. (Think Duck Dynasty.)

Since the Newtown massacre of innocent children and the ensuing debate about gun-control, thousands of Americans have rushed out to purchase firearms. Many of them fear the government will clamp down on the sale and possession of certain types of guns. The Second Amendment has once again become a hot topic of debate.

But what does the tragedy of Newtown say about America? If you look at the FBI statistics on violent crime, you will see that violent crime has declined in the last five years. Still, the advent of school shootings should make us pause and take a sobering look at ourselves. What is the role of the church in this generation of cavalier attitudes about violence?

When I research words like “violent” and “violence” in the Bible I am struck by how forcefully the Old Testament prophets tried to warn their fellow citizens that the proliferation of violence in their society was making God every angry. The wisdom books of the Old Testament also contained warnings. “Hands that shed innocent blood” is described in Proverbs 6:17 as one of the things God hates. This is not just a severe warning to individuals; it is also a warning to entire nations that do not take God’s loathing of violence against the innocent seriously. The strong have a responsibility to protect the innocent. Yes, God will deal harshly with individuals who shed innocent blood, but he may also deal harshly with a nation, or factions within a nation, that seek to advance agendas rather than pursue genuine safeguards that protect the innocent. I don’t think God will accept our excuse that real solutions are too expensive.

We can’t stop every evil or insane person from shedding innocent blood, but we can at least begin to explore and implement real safeguards. It is also time to rethink the unhealthy relationship we Americans have with violence in many forms.

For as long as I can remember, sexual sins have topped the list of sins that American Christianity deemed most serious. Perhaps the sin of unwarranted violence needs to replace sexual sins at the top of our list. I even wonder if the church should focus more on confronting violence against the innocent than it does on things like, say, gay marriage. I’m just saying.

Guns or the Jesus Way

There was a predictable spike in gun sales after the Aurora Colorado shootings. While perusing the news, I stumbled upon an interesting article on this subject in a Christian publication. The writer of the article favored gun ownership as the last line of self-defense when other options have been unsuccessful. The comments about the article generally fell into two camps: (1) Those who believe it is acceptable for Christians to own a gun for self-defense and to protect the weak. (2) Those who detest guns, or fear guns, and see no place for the them in the life of any Christian who follows the instructions of Christ that we are not to resist evil people (the turn-the-other-cheek doctrine). This debate has been going on for a long time.

In Matthew 26:51-52 Jesus is being arrested in the garden when one of his followers pulls a sword and hacks off the ear of a servant of the high priest. (That had to hurt.) Anyhow, Jesus immediately tells his followers to stand down. This is where Jesus utters those famous words that whoever lives by the sword will die by the sword.

But hop over to the same story in Luke 22 and check out something that can be easily overlooked in this scene. In Luke 22:36, a short time before Jesus was arrested, he was talking to his disciples about the travel supplies they would need on their journeys to spread the gospel. He told them to pack a sword.

A team of theologians could write an exhaustive commentary on the apparent conflict between Jesus advising his disciples to take a sword on their journeys and, almost in the same breath, telling them that those who live by the sword will perish by the sword. Permit me to throw in my two cents worth. I notice in Luke 22 that Jesus is trying to tell his disciples deep truths about himself and the fulfillment of Scriptures. His ministry is almost over and his disciples, after years of instruction, do not fully comprehend all that Jesus has taught them. When he tells them to take a sword as part of their travel supplies, they quickly and enthusiastically respond that they already have two swords. Jesus tells them that’s enough swords. I can almost hear Jesus’ sigh of exasperation. His disciples understand the purpose of taking swords on their journey but they don’t seem to understand what Jesus is about to do on the cross for humanity.

Christ knows that his followers live in a dangerous, often lethal, and irrational world. Self-defense against criminals and defending the weak are not the same as enduring persecution for following Christ. However, relying too much on the sword (i.e. the gun) for protection in this life puts us in even greater danger because the gun can lure us into a false feeling of security, or exacerbate our fears. In other words, genuine peace of mind must first come from God.

In the interest of full disclosure, I own a gun. But the gun doesn’t give me as much peace when I put my head on the pillow at night as verses like Psalm 3:5: “I lay down and slept, yet I woke up in safety, for the Lord was watching over me.”

Here’s my point: The gun is a tool that deals with symptoms, not the cause of evil. If we want to impact the root cause of humanity’s ills, we need to apply the majority of our efforts at wielding tools like the word of God and living a genuine Christian life. Ultimately, it’s Christ who transforms hearts from evil to good.