I hesitate to get on Facebook these days. Amongst the pictures of cute babies,
supportive statements for football teams, and invitations to play Facebook
games, there are many, many postings about guns. In the days after the Connecticut shootings,
many posted words of support for new gun control laws, while the current trend
I've noticed on my Newsfeed is a series of posts pointing out the dangers of
those gun control laws. Apparently,
limiting access to assault weapons would lead to a rebirth of Nazi Germany in America
and a stripping of every right that Americans hold dear.
I am not qualified to judge whether an assault weapons ban
would be constitutional or not. I'm not
a lawyer, a law-maker, a legal reporter, or a professor of constitutional
law. But I am a pastor - and what
concerns me the most is the sheer passion that I find in many of my Christian
brothers and sisters who argue that we need, simply must have, access to
weapons whose sole purpose is to kill other people, either in self-defense, in
war, or in criminal activity.
Now, I want to be clear right up front: I'm not arguing that the Bible says to do
away with all guns. Scripture tells us
that we can feed ourselves, and many of the guns that people around here own
are for hunting. While my family doesn't
hunt, I appreciate a good piece of deer tenderloin, and don't see any biblical
reason not to! I don't think Jesus would
have a problem with a family shotgun or rifle used to supplement the family
pantry.
When I look in the pages of Scripture, however, I see no
image of Jesus as a 1st-century Rambo, and I'd have trouble picturing Jesus
stopping by the local gun show to pick up an AR-15 or MAC-10. To me, the definitive account of Jesus
addressing the possession and use of weapons is found in Luke 22. There, as he and his disciples leave the
Upper Room for the Garden and, ultimately, a showdown with Judas and his posse,
Jesus speaks of the troubles to come on his disciples. "He said to them, 'When I sent you out
without a purse, bag, or sandals, did you lack anything?' They said, 'No, not a thing.' He said to them, 'But now, the one who has a
purse must take it, and likewise a bag.
And the one who has no sword must sell his cloak and buy one. For I tell you, this scripture must be
fulfilled in me, 'And he was counted among the lawless'; and indeed what is
written about me is being fulfilled.'
They said, 'Lord, look, here are two swords.' He replied, 'It is enough.'" (Luke
22:35-38)
There is, as is often the case, divided scholarly opinion on
what this means. Some scholars claim
that Jesus is literally encouraging his disciples to plan for their own
defense. Others claim that he is
speaking metaphorically, and when his disciples show that they have swords, he
replies with irony. I honestly don't
know which he meant. But what I do know
is that the sword - which would have been a short sword - was not the assault
rifle of Jesus' day; it was the handgun or baseball bat, an instrument of
self-defense. Even if this is an
endorsement of violence in self-defense, it is not an endoresement of
Christians possessing weapons that can kill indiscriminately. And, if we read on, we might just find that
even if he recognized the necessity of owning a self-defense weapon, it didn't
mean he was happy about it, or that his followers should use them.
Later in the chapter, Judas comes to the Garden to
facilitate the arrest of Jesus. As the
crowd closed in, the disciples wanted to defend their Master. "When those who were around him saw what
was coming, they asked, 'Lord, should we strike with the sword?' Then one of them struck the slave of the high
priest and cut off his right ear. But
Jesus said, 'No more of this!' And he
touched his ear and healed him." (Luke 22:49-51) At perhaps the most justifiable time for the
use of weapons in history - to prevent the unjust arrest of the Son of God -
Jesus rejects such violence, even in self-defense.
This is highlighted even more in Matthew's version of the
story. There, as one of Jesus' followers
cuts off the ear of the high priest's slave, Jesus proclaimed, "Put your
sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the
sword." (Matthew 26:52) Violence,
particularly violence with the help of weapons, seems to be anathema to Jesus -
even when it was what we would consider justifiable violence.
Paul takes up the refrain in Romans 12 and 13, encouraging
the Christians of Rome to live at peace and trust the authorities (even pagan
authorities like Rome's imperial government) to maintain law and order. Christianity, even from its beginnings, taught
against vigilante justice. Instead, it
followed the teaching of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: refusing to fight against an enemy, but
instead resisting through nonviolent and subversive means, like turning the
other cheek, going the second mile, and so forth. (Matthew 5:38-48)
All of this is why I get so nervous when my fellow brothers
and sisters in Christ get so "up in arms" about the right to bear
arms. Yes, the nation we live in gives
us the right to own weapons, and the debate over what that means is an
important one to have in the public square.
Yet I can't help but think, "What would Jesus do? Is this really the issue he would pour his
time and energy and effort into? Would
he even be on that side of the debate?"
With the words of Scripture as the only guide I have, I have to say no,
I don't think he'd buy an AR-15 - and I don't think he'd want others to be able
to, either.
You see, the American worldview says that individual rights
are the most important thing. Our
Declaration of Independence states that we are endowed by our Creator with
unalienable rights, including the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. And the argument could be made that the ability to
own an assault weapon contributes to those rights: protecting life and liberty, and contributing
to happiness. But again, when we turn to
the pages of Scripture and the example of Jesus, we don't find warrant to
insist on our own rights. We find the
expectation that we will willingly give up our rights for the good of others.
Does this mean that we can't be Christian if we think gun
control laws are bad or dangerous? No,
of course not. But I do think that the
witness of Scripture, and most importantly of Christ, says that violence isn't
God's way...and we should be very careful about relying on violence to protect
us or using violence or violent instruments for any purpose.
So in the gun control debate, my word to my brothers and
sisters in Christ is, It's ok to be in the debate. And it's ok to have an opinion. I certainly have mine. But never mistake your opinion or mine with
the word or witness of Christ. Maybe if
we could set aside some of our rhetoric and our passion on this issue, we could
have a constructive conversation...and in the process find that, while Christ
accepted the reality that this world can be a dangerous place, he has called us
to be people of peace who sacrifice for others.
In Christ,
Adam
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