A Man Was Lynched Yesterday

From 1920 to 1938, a simple black flag with white font hung from the 7th story window of the Manhattan headquarters of the NAACP. It’s message, “A Man Was Lynched Yesterday,” was a reminder to northern white communities that nothing so trivial as miles could remove from them the shared responsibility of the plight of African Americans. That flag indicted them for their indifference to the suffering of southern people of color who suffered extra-judicial killings at the hands of mobs. No laws were every passed due to a solid voting bloc of southern senators who killed all legislation, and the flag stopped flying when the NAACP was threatened with eviction from its headquarters.

To lay it out in the simplest of terms, lynching is a form of mob violence meant to punish people for alleged crimes and to intimidate groups of people. It happens as a public spectacle with victims on display meant as a message to others. During the last part of the 19th and early decades of the 20th century, postcards were made that bore the images of victims still hanging from trees, with crowds or active participants posed around them. I do not recommend googling the term. The images are too much.

But it hasn’t stopped.

It has only evolved.

Over the past week, and for the days coming, there have been many documentaries and retrospectives of life and death of Martin Luther King Jr. With the 50th anniversary of his death being yesterday, it makes sense. We still have some of the witnesses of that dark day and so we must put down their stories in the historical record before they are lost. Articles are going up from news organizations, and religious sources to commemorate MLK and reflect on his influence. I, personally, have been reading a lot his works and listening to his speeches and sermons recently as I try to find my own way to figure out what MLK means to me. But through it all, there is one thing we need to grapple with.

Dr. King was lynched.

While it was a hotel balcony and a rifle instead of a tree and rope, it was a lynching all the same. Like so many thousands before him, Martin Luther King was lynched by a white man because he was causing problems. Violence was chosen as a solution to the anxiety experienced by a group used to being on top, and feared that equality would mean subservience. In an instant, Dr. King joined a list composed mostly of the nameless. People of color killed for no other crime than amount of melanin in their skin. 

But we remember his name.

Have you ever been to the MLK monument at the Tidal Basin in Washington, DC? I love going there. The view is magnificent, with the enormous sculpture of King facing, arms crossed in defiance, directly at Thomas Jefferson’s memorial across the water. The walls which circle behind him are filled with his most inspiring quotes. All of them paint the image of a visionary who is seeking a better future, and gave his life to make it a reality. The instill in the reader an aspiration for peace and justice. 

It is the King we want to remember.

It is only part of the story.

If this was the man, then no wonder his murder seems so unimaginable.

There have been numerous pieces in places like Sojourners, as well as on the SCLC website, that remind us that our memorials to Martin Luther King only capture part of the image of the man who lived that life. These pieces all call us to look longer at the man we are trying to remember and attempt to find the full view.  We love to remember “The Dream,” but do you know the part of the speech that talks about a “Promissory Note?” We know that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” But do you carry the calls to address brutality from police? Shivers travel down our spines at the mention of the “The Mountaintop,” but what do we feel when we hear “the edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring?” Dr. King spoke as often about the sickness of America as he expressed hope for peace. In one of his most powerful speeches, he proclaimed that America had committed more war crimes than any other nation on Earth. 

He wasn’t just a visionary. 

Martin Luther King Jr. was dangerous.

That is what causes a lynching. 

I have watched many of the retrospectives and documentaries that have come out over the last few days, and I have encouraged friends and family to watch some of them as well. Many are fantastic, and I encourage you to find them as well. NBC News ran one a couple of weeks ago about the relationship between Dr. King and the media. In it, one of the journalists who covered him at the many marches and rallies said something incredibly poignant in remembrance of MLK. He lamented that Dr. King was only seen as a leader of African Americans, and not as a cultural leader for all of us. If it only it could have been.

I know that I will never hold Martin Luther King Jr. with the same reverence as a person of color. As a product of the dominant culture (i.e. middle-class, straight, cis-gendered, white, and male) I could never appreciate him in the same way. My feelings and affections will always be different, and that is OK. I can share my appreciation with communities of color, and we, together, can talk about him. I love to read his words and listen to his public words. I have tracked down sermons and speeches for myself, and rarely have I found one that did not move me. I find that just incredible knowing how difficult it can be to produce profound words on such a regular basis, but, nonetheless, I will never have the same appreciation as a person of color.

That is because Dr. King was speaking FOR them.

He was speaking TO me.

A man was lynched yesterday, 50 years ago. He was a dangerous man. He was so dangerous that some just could not take it anymore. One thought the only way to overcome his crippling anxiety about a world that might look different in the future was to kill the man who personified his anxiety. He took a rifle, and committed a public act of violence. He killed Dr. King on the balcony of a hotel for everyone to see. The visionary we love today was not another victim of the inevitable death that comes for all of us.

Dr. King was murdered

He was lynched.

 

Easter is a Call to Action

It is Easter, the longest season of celebration in the Christian calendar. If you grew up evangelical, like I did, you probably did not live in a world where we remember the Resurrection for more than a single Sunday. Yesterday, you probably dressed up in pastels, or at least saw others who did. However, next Sunday will be just another day at church. Most likely you will not go as attendance tends to drop significantly. As a minister, we joke about how the Sunday after Easter is “Associate Minister Sunday;” the senior minister gives up their pulpit to recuperate after a busy week and someone else will shoulder the burden or preaching. This is part of the informal flow of life in church that we are all used to. 

It takes a lot of energy to prepare all the services.

Our reserves are taxed after writing the “BIG” sermon.

While we may not lie to admit that church does not seem as attractive the week after a big holiday, we must admit that this is the truth. When all the flowers are gone, the choir is missing many of its best singers, and the experienced, charismatic preacher is not in the pulpit, people recognize that Sunday morning is not going to be the show it was last week. There will not be as much pageantry, nor will sanctuary look as colorful.

But it is still Easter.

Christ is risen. He is risen, indeed.

Over the past few weeks, I have written a lot about guns in American society. If you have been reading, I am sure that you noticed. What you may not have thought during all of that was there was very little difference between what I was writing and what you could read in the news. That is the struggle for many of my friends as we try to minister. Our thoughts are not all that different from those around us, and in fact we are not doing much more than participating in social punditry. 

What is the point, then?

I would like to tell you a story of a friend of mine. I will do my best to keep the details foggy to protect the anonymity of those involved while getting to my point. 

My friend was in seminary, and his tradition held a conference every year that gathered students together with experienced clergy to pass on some tips for preaching. As part of the planning, the students were gathered into groups with students from other seminaries and one experienced clergyperson. My friend found themselves lucky enough to be in a group led by one of the most well-known and revered preachers of their particular tradition. During the first group session, one of the students delivered their prepared sermon as part of the group learning plan. My friend told me this student’s sermon was amazing, filled with incredible scholarly historical and theological research about the roles of women in the life of the Church. My friend was quite jealous of this students sermon and their delivery as the group took in the presentation.

When the student was done, there was time for the group to ask questions and offer constructive critique. After the students had put together a smattering of questions and critique, the minister/leader spoke up. “I have a question. What’s the point?”

The entire room fell silent, with a silent gasp coming from the rest of the students. “I mean, you obviously did a lot of research and preparation for this sermon, but there wasn’t anything in there I couldn’t have read in US News and World Report or the New York Times. Where’s the Gospel?”

My friend described how the students in the room began to rise to the defense of their peer. They pointed out passages in Scripture that spoke to the sermon’s goal, and quoted from documents in their tradition that supported the positions of the preacher. This famed preacher who many in the room had seen as a hero waited on them to finish before saying, “Exactly. All of that should have been in the sermon. Remember that when we are supposed to speak, we are supposed to speak from heart of God.”

“Where’s the Gospel?”

It is still Easter. Easter is so much more than just a time of remembrance. Jesus asks more of us that to dress up and arrive at church on time to be seen as having shown up for the resurrection. In this moment, we are called to a greater allegiance than just showing up; a deeper realignment of our future than just appreciation. Jesus was not so easy to follow, nor so easy to ignore. Instead, the events of Easter, from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, call us into new life. They call us to new action.

In a world that worships violence, Easter calls us to peace. On Good Friday, we see that in the words of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane when he looks at Peter. The disciple who has a big role to play in this weekend had just cut off the guard’s ear when his teacher tells him, “Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.”

We are told in 1 John that we are to bring this peace through love. The Apostle says:

   “ We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death. All who hate a brother or sister are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them. We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?”

                                                - 1 John 3: 14-17

Easter is usually full of pageantry. The music is the best we can offer, the sermons the deepest of the year, and the vestments have all been newly washed. But none of this is meant to be merely a spectacle to observe. Our Gospel is one that calls us forward to New Life, and to tell the world that it doesn’t have to be like this.

If only we believed.

Tear Down Your Cynicism

It is Holy Week, the last week of Lent. I haven’t written about it much, but I hope that all off you who read this (the dozen or so actual people and not the bots) have been having a fruitful time of reflection and reorientation during Christianity’s yearly fast. For me, it has been a time of finding the dead things in my life and letting them have their grave. Some have been painful, to which my wife has bore witness, and some have been reinvigorating. None have been easy, but that is the path of Lent. 

One of the hardest things to let die this Lent has been my cynicism. I will speak only for myself, but I am sure I am not the only one who has these thoughts. Cynicism has been almost a way of life for me over the last few years. After the elections of 2016, it threatened to become a worldview, replacing my own faith in God with the reality that no one really cares about anyone else, and so I shouldn’t either. I had to do it because life was becoming just too painful otherwise. 

Too many tears for those who lived in fear.

Too much heartache when violence claimed another life.

Too much despair as people watched their hopes dashed by systems of injustice and dehumanization.

On Ash Wednesday, as I helped my wife with “Ashes-to-Go,” my cynicism’s transformation into a fortress was almost complete as I started to see the news of the massacre in Parkland, FL. I just knew that we would have to grieve again only for society to move on without any change. There would be the images of tears, huddled bodies crying out in pain, families torn apart by carnage, and then we would forget. Just one more scar on the heart turning it more to stone as we expressed our collective inability to care enough about life to endure the inconvenience of gun control.

Then, just a few days later, I was sitting on the couch reading the news when an alert came that  some of the students were making speeches so I pulled up the live stream. Before the night was over, my face was streaked with tears and the fortress was beginning to crumble. I heard Delaney Tarr speak with courage about her newfound conviction. I was wrapped by Emma Gonzalez’s tearful declaration that they would no longer suffer “b.s.” Emotions flooded over me, but I was still sure that nothing would change. I remember how Sandy Hook had pulled at our heart strings. I still remember the parents pleading. I remember where I was when the Charleston shooting happened, and hearing President Obama sing at the memorial service. I even remember watching the news of Columbine, and then watching as the Assault Weapons Ban lapsed just five years later. 

My emotions were deepened, and I appreciated that. 

In the end, though, our policies would not change. 

News started to come of a church in Pennsylvania having a service of blessing for AR-15s.

The NRA started to spin up the social messaging. 

When the town hall happened, my wife and I watched together on the couch. As people who work as youth ministers, we cringed when Cameron Kasky went after Marco Rubio. We thought he was being too much the teenager we knew in our youth groups who thought they were just smarter than the adults. It took us awhile to recognize that what he was actually doing was teaching us that we do not have to put up with politicians not giving straight answers to straight questions. It chipped at my cynicism, but I still knew we were just going to move on and not do anything. That is just how things work in our country when it comes to guns. Maybe that Australian church sign was right; we do love our guns more than our children.

But last Saturday finally tore the walls completely down for me. Before, I had spirited conversations with friends about gun control, but those were just for us. Our society would not change. Hearing the voices on the stage in DC as I stood on Pennsylvania Avenue, however, fully broke me. 

I wept and sang.

I heard the voice of Hope.

When Edna Chavez bore witness to the violence of south LA, when Naomi Wadler bore witness to the bodies of African-American women who are ignored, and when D’Angelo McDade preached the Gospel, proclaiming, “I stand for peace!,” I finally found hope. I hope you will follow the links to YouTube to watch their speeches. It will be well worth your time to hear the eloquence and courage of those who are going to lead us. For that is exactly what is about to happen.

Ever since the Parkland students began to speak out against the uniquely American violence that had arrived in their lives, verses of Scripture started to appear online. Often, it was “And a little child shall lead them.” Isaiah’s image of the redemption that comes from God is a powerful reminder that the trajectory of Creation was always intended to march towards peace. For me, however, another verse began to seep itself into my soul. A prophecy of God’s redemption from a later prophet, warning the people of pain to come and grab to follow.

   Then afterward

    I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;

your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

    your old men shall dream dreams,

    and your young men shall see visions.

Even on the male and female slaves,

    in those days, I will pour out my spirit.”

Joel 2:28-29

When they spoke from that stage, we heard prophecy.

Not the cheap, fortune-teller, but the words of God for the people of God.

As we move through the last week of Lent, on our inevitable march to Good Friday and the death of Jesus, we must tear down our cynicism. Paul tells us that, “faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.” Cynicism is not in the Bible.

Religious Language in Social Conversations

Over the last few weeks I have been writing about our social conversations and relationships to firearms. Some of those posts people have read, and others are not as popular. However, this supposed to be a blog about faith, and as such, I am going to start shifting more directly towards how our faith can engage in these conversations. Often, it can seem that what is said by faith leaders is no different from what we may find in other social commentary. 

What’s the point of our faith if it sounds no different from everything else?

Are we really different?

In some of my recent conversations with people around gun culture, I have noticed a large influx of religious language. I should say right now that this post is not directed at any one person, so if you read this, I am not trying to “slam” you. Since these fruitful conversations about guns, I have begun to notice how the same use of religious language is reaching into other areas of social and cultural debate. While I appreciate that people feel a deep connection to faith, the tenants of faith do not help us when we are trying to find a better future together.

What do I mean by faith language?

When it comes to topics like guns, taxes, climate change, or racial reconciliation some framing of the words, “I believe…” is used. There are negative framing as well, but I am sure all of you reading know that. However, it is not helpful for us to be discussing beliefs when it comes to social influences and trends. 

It is becoming a cliche for an opponent to gun control of climate regulation to say, “I don’t believe [blank] is happening, or will work.” 

That’s fine. You don’t have to believe in climate change. 

But climate change is not a religious tenant, and so its existence is not contingent upon your belief. 

The second amendment is not made more sacred by your belief in its transcendent, existential power. 

By using religious language, such as “I believe…,” the conversation is stymied. Debating beliefs is difficult because beliefs can be esoteric, counter-intuitive. As a Christian, I know that to be true. I mean, for goodness sake, we are about to celebrate a man raising from the dead who walked on water, and healed lepers from disease. Reality does not necessarily jive with beliefs. Actually, beliefs break reality, and for my faith that is a good thing because it calls me to see God as beyond myself.

When it comes to debating social issues, beliefs don’t help.

We need to be talking about reality, not searching for the other-worldly. 

Commentators call this era “Post-Truth.” That may be true when people in every strata of society call things “fake news.” Truthfully, this has more to do with comfort than truth. We want things to be a certain way, and the world to work in a way we expect. When things go differently, instead of adapting to the world, we ignore what upsets us and call it fake. Reality is no longer something to experience, but instead an expression of faith and belief.

I should stop and recognize that it is a deep expression of faith to chose tenants of belief over real experience.

But it does not help us address our social conflicts.

All that to say, you can believe what you want, but it your belief does not change reality.

We Don't Have To Wait On Jesus

As the public conversation continues around guns and legislation, though lawmakers at the Federal level have explicitly said they will do nothing, there continue to be comments from well-meaning people of faith that are unhelpful. Recently, I have witnessed a large collective of offerings around the theme, “Only Jesus can fix the evil we are experiencing.” Such a statement is one theologians would call “eschatological,” meaning it is focused on the return of Jesus as the end of all things. These thoughts display a reliance on the active work of God in order to save us from ourselves, and highlight a need for God’s grace.

While it should go without saying, I must offer the usual framing before I get to my real argument. I recognize that we are a creature in need of God’s grace. I affirm that it is the work of Jesus in my life that has brought me into a reconciled relationship to God, not against any necessarily overt work on my part but as a product of my self-centeredness which is easier than seeing the world through God’s eyes. I proclaim, as a Christian, that I affirm the reconciling work that will happen when God “makes all things new.”

However, the comments like I highlighted in the first paragraph, are lazy.

In words such as those, no matter how meaning, they betray a nihilism inherent to evangelical thinking around guns and violence. They implicitly affirm a view of the world where human beings have no agency over evil, and no recourse but to endure pain. They are the logical extension of “thoughts and prayers;” words that have come to be a signifier of a cynical worldview that nothing can change, and so there is no reason to try. While they are attempting to affirm the power and place of God in the world, they do so by neglecting the actual witness of Scripture, and history of our faith. 

The Bible is never cynical.

The Church is rarely helpless.

The texts from which we draw our faith pain a vibrant image of a God, and a people, on the move. The people of the Torah were not nihilistic in their search for God’s promises. The writers of the Wisdom literature preached more than simply waiting out the dark valleys of life. The Prophets were not resigned to the neglect of God’s people. Jesus did not endure the abuses of the religious and political orders of his day. And Paul did not allow the Church to remain callous towards the suffering of those around them.

While I will note that Jesus told us we would suffer for our faith, indiscriminate and faceless evil was never on the table. Jesus healed lepers, raised the dead, protested materialism in the Temple, and ridiculed the religious and political elite. The text does offer an image of doing all these things from a position of weakness, but never allows complacency on the part of those who call themselves by the name of Jesus.

Because of that, the Church has spoken out against injustice again and again. Christians created an entire movement to reform social orders during the late part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries. Church communities were the rallying point for the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Many Church leaders were vocal opponents to Apartheid in South Africa, leading international divestment movements to put pressure on the government. 

Today, we face a similar calling. Though there are numerous movements to be a part of in our society all vying for justice, this is one to which I am speaking. I do recognize that the struggle against evil in the world is a never-ending conflict, we can not be cynically complacent. God did not create guns. No firearm was ever lowered down on a cloud in a ray of sunlight for human beings to take up. We made that gun. Humanity can do something about the proliferation of violence. There is no good reason why we can not do something about them now.

There might be political reasons.

There might be reasons of tradition.

But not of these reasons are necessarily good reasons. 

Human beings have a great deal of agency in their own existence. While many believe that we are living in a time that is more dangerous than ever before, and decry that people do not leave their homes unlocked any longer, this is not true. In fact, there is a great deal of evidence that we are living in the safest time the world has ever known. This shows that we have done a great deal to make the world a better place. It also lets us know that we can do more.

We can do something about guns. 

Conversations of Mental Health are a Dangerous Ruse

We must admit that there is no way to understand how someone can have such a low view of human life to commit mass violence against others. This level of violence and evil is, and should be, unimaginable. These feelings of outrage and disgust that we are experiencing in the aftermath of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are useful in how they can motivate us to do something as a society when faced with such horrible actions. Such violence as we have seen that can indiscriminately take the lives of other human beings leaves us speechless.

However, to casually describe such actions as the work of a “crazy person,” or proclaim that the simplest response is to address “mental illness,” is nothing less than an attempt to abrogate any responsibility from our own collective actions, or inaction, onto an illness we can only treat, but not cure.

Our society holds a powerful stigma against those, like myself, who have been diagnosed with a mental illness. We fear mental illness on a primal level. It scares us to think that there are influences in the world that can capture our thoughts and actions without our consent. Mental health is a mysterious thing. It happens in the recesses of our mind, a mysterious place in itself. 

We all experience weird thoughts that come unbidden.

We all experience those moments where thinking just will not end, keeping us awake with trivialities.

Because these experiences are so universal, we find ways to cope and respond. Many find some form of meditation, even though we may not call it that. Counting sheep, doodling, sitting in silence, yoga, or breathing techniques are all a form of meditation to try and refocus our minds. In our Christian communities, prayer and Scripture are themselves forms of meditation. They buoy our sense of connection to God and help calm us as we confront the uncertainties of life. 

Sometimes, with good intentions, our communities can present unhelpful responses to our suffering. I remember being told to “have more faith,” when I felt depressed, questioning my calling, my place in the world, or my own self-worth. I remember trying so hard to lean into those words and trust God in bringing me through those places. When it did not happen, my depression got even worse. 

Why would God ignore me?

If I am supposed to be called to be a minister, shouldn’t God respond to my prayers?

It turns out, that there were ways to cope with my mental illness. Therapy has been the miracle I always prayed for. For others, they need the intervention provided by prescribed medications on top of their times in therapy. For me, that work is some of the most terrifying. You have to look inside and confront the dark places that scare us. Thankfully, therapy means you do not have to do it alone, and that the person walking with you, to whom you are telling your most intimate secrets, must keep your trust. They will never tell a soul what you said, unless compelled by a court order.

This brings us back to a conversation around gun reform. Currently, our social discussion of how to respond to horrific gun violence has been to enact reforms around treatment for mental illness. As I said above, it is unconscionable to us that someone can commit such a horrific act of violence like we have seen in Las Vegas, Parkland, FL, Sutherland Springs, TX, San Bernardino, CA, or Newtown, CT. Pundits and politicians will typically call the gunman “unbalanced,” “disturbed,” or “crazy” as they attempt to express a narrative for what is happening around us. For some, it is an attempt to compassionately address the suffering of perpetrators. For others, it is an attempt to shift the focus of conversation away from restrictions on firearms access.

For both, this is a much more complex conversation than anyone recognizes.

In truth, it can create more victims than it helps.

The complexity of addressing mental illness revolves around transparency. HIPAA (Health Information Portability and Accountability Act) created a system to protect all sensitive information concerning a patient’s various diagnoses. While creating a secure system for that information to be transferred between providers (such as primary care and specialists), protections were put in place so that outside actors (pharmaceutical companies, employers, and thieves) could not access your sensitive information. Included in that collection of protected information is any mental healthcare you have received. All this information is protected by law, can only be accessed by you or your doctors, and is not released without a specific court order.

In order for reforms around mental health to help prevent future gun violence, obtaining information in order to prevent potentially violent people with mental illness from accessing firearms would require an overhaul of the privacy protections afforded to individuals around their health information. Either that, or we would have to utilize the court system to obtain orders for public release of a lot of people’s mental health records. I want to acknowledge that there is a possible slippery slope argument to be made that a future could exist where no one’s health information is private, but I also want to acknowledge that such an argument is a logical fallacy and will not help us in a real debate. Needless to say, this kind of reform is incredibly complicated.

Likewise, the conversation itself is problematic because it does not address the inherent social stigma that surrounds mental illness. The current predilection for calling mass shooters some form of mentally ill by using slang terms is unhelpful. By characterizing people who commit gun violence (mass shootings included) as mentally ill, we perpetuate the stigma that people with mental illness are inherently violent. In fact, research shows that this is opposite to our reality. The end result, most likely, would be that the level of gun violence we see would not be reduced by laws targeting mental illness. Instead, more people would forego any form of treatment for their mental illness, putting them in more danger of harming themselves. 

I know, from first-hand experience, that mental illness can powerfully alter life’s trajectory. Likewise, mental illness brings with it the possibility that the person most likely to become the victim of violence is me, not someone else. Therefore, it would behoove me to seek treatment for my own well-being which requires me to have sympathy for myself. In fact, it is sympathy for myself, and empathy from my therapist, that has been the most beneficial in my own journey towards wholeness.

These proposals are not based in empathy, but fear.

Creating laws that are based in our collective fear of mental illness is the opposite of empathy.

It will only push people like me further away from the connections I need to thrive.

My Story of Guns

Over the past week or so, I have said a lot of things about firearms, and our social relationship to them. I believe it is pretty clear and obvious where I stand on the issue, though I have not gone to the lengths of laying out my personal policy hopes. I am not going to do that here, either. Before I could ever go to those lengths, I think I should tell you my story. At times, I have mentioned parts of it, I have teased that I was once on the other side of the conversation, but I have not given the full account of how I have arrived where I am.

It was not all that long ago that I owned firearms. While I grew up in a small town, and did some hunting, I was never much of the sportsman. I enjoy being outside, and I enjoy seeing and experiencing the wonder of God’s Creation while camping. I know how to hunt, and can do so when either I am invited or if I were forced to. However, it is not a passion where I choose to spend my time and finances. 

Because of that, most of the firearms I owned were handguns. I bought them because at that time I believed I needed them to protect myself. I internalized all the narratives of how police do not stop crime, but only show up after it has occurred; that if I were to find myself in a situation where someone wanted to take my life, I would be the only resource I had to defend it. I went and took the class, got the background check, submitted the fees, and received my concealed carry permit. I had all the gear I would need. I spent my money on a good holster and belt, carried a spare magazine, and focused my senses into “the combat mindset”

It was partially because of that mindset, however, that I finally decided to disarm myself. 

I found myself seeing the world through a set of lenses the did not match the Gospel.

For those who are unaware, the combat mindset is the most important part of being effective in armed self-defense. You can have a gun, and be a good shot, but if you don’t have your mind in the right place, you will be caught unawares, and unable to defend yourself. Or, so the philosophy goes. It is the mindset, more than any skill, that separates the sheep from the sheepdog in the eyes of concealed carry enthusiasts. It is a tool that can not be purchased, and requires constant attention.

The combat mindset is a set of conditions that one must interact with on a constant basis. It starts with the premise that active awareness is what separates people capable of effective defense from those who become victims of violence. The firearms writer and instructor, Jeff Cooper, adapted it from the United States Marine Corps, and applied it to everyday life. There are four stages denoted by colors, and if you want a full explanation, you can type the term into google where pages of results, including videos, will be presented to you. I would just like to focus on why I believe that mindset does not cohere to the Gospel.

When I lived by the mindset, getting my mind focused was part of my morning routine. In order to fully capture the idea that, “I might have to shoot someone today,” I had to meditate. It was not a natural state for me to walk though life like that. I am someone who loves people and finds great joy in meeting new people. It is one of the qualities that others notice in me, and it is one of the qualities that I like about myself.

I like being known as a friendly person.

When I lived by the mindset, I would not have described myself as a friendly person. It is not to say that I was angry or hateful, but I did not engage with people as freely as before or since I stopped carrying a gun. In the mindset, you are meant to see strangers in the world as possible aggressors, measuring up and assessing the possible threats constantly. Your inner monologue describes others as “targets” because it is easier to shoot a target than a person. It weighs the value of the lives around you, and your life is always the most valuable. 

It is an inherently self-centered philosophy.

Therefore, it is an inherently Non-Gospel ideology.

I stopped carrying a gun, in part, because I realized that I was beginning to see targets, and not human beings. People were no longer created in the image of God, to me, but instead possible opponents that might have to be put to death. It was isolating and lonely for me to see the world through such a lens. I thought I was the only real thing around, except for those few who I actually had relationships with. But that was a problem because I was not creating any new relationships because I did not know any actual people. I was just interacting with “targets.”

I finally grew too lonely.

I finally realized I was no longer human myself.

In Colossians, Paul says that the fullness of God dwelt in Christ, bodily, and that when we were raised in baptism, we were raised in Christ. I take this to mean that when we relate to one another, we are, in essence, relating directly to God as well. Maybe it is what is meant when the Quakers speak of Inner Light. But when I was trapped in an ideology that caused me to see the world as potential threats instead of as image bearers of God, I was also suppressing that same image inside myself. I was not living as I was created to live, but instead allowing myself to be captive to a philosophy created by someone else. 

It is for this very reason that I have been so vocal these last few days. It is not just the violence and death created by a culture that worships and idolizes firearms. It is not just the infection of the passion of teenagers who after surviving horror decided enough is enough. It I not just the horrible things being claimed as a part of God that have no business in God’s Church. Though, it should be noted that all of things exist and I recognize them in myself. 

My main motivation is that I believe gun culture makes us less human, and not more.

I certainly was.

This Is What Theology Looks Like

In the early and middle parts of the twentieth century, there were numerous professional theologians who graced the covers of national magazines. Their voices were regularly sought out to discuss the condition and future of society because they were seen as public voices who spoke not only wisdom, but carried with them the voice of large communities. It is one of the reasons that in the wake of the death of the Rev. Billy Graham that all of the retrospectives highlight his relationships with presidents. These men, and they were mostly if not all men, were considered intellectual participants in our national dialogue.

Today, many tend to mourn what they perceive as a lack of public theology. There is a recognition that the Church has ceded the ground in our public discourse and that theology is no longer done in public. Theologians are barred from the room where the conversation of our society is taking place, and we are all the poorer for it. You will never see another Reinhold Niebuhr on the cover of Time Magazine, and you will never find another MLK leading a national movement for justice. It would seem that theology is dead, as far as our national discourse is concerned. 

This is not true, however.

Theology is not just an academic discipline, though there are people, like myself, who have academic degrees in it.

Theology is what we do when we talk about God. 

Anyone can do that, even if they don’t know the fancy terms.

While we could also discuss that there are public voices for theology, like Russell Moore, Robert Jeffress, and Franklin Graham, there are others doing theology in public on a daily basis that I would like to address in this post. Yesterday, at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Wayne LaPierre Jr., executive vice-president of the NRA, did theology from the podium. Most probably do not consider it theology, but that is exactly what it was. He may not have talked about God’s providence, the condition of humanity, or his conception of Christology, his words were nothing other than theological.

During his speech, Mr. LaPierre, said that the right to own a firearm was not created by humans, but ordained by God and part of our American birthright.

That is a theological statement.

Such words imply that not only God’s preference for firearms, but a national preference of America over other countries. 

To unpack a bit, the theological perspective of Mr. LaPierre is that God likes guns, and God wants you to have a gun. This not an implication of his words, but instead a direct application. He isn’t trying to rhetorically insert a theological perspective into his speech, but evoke a religious response concerning the right to own a firearm. That is what theology does. Spoken in public, it calls us towards the work of God in the world. And in that light, Wayne LaPierre is doing theology in public.

Theologies, though, are not prescriptions for how we are to work in the world, though they are often used as such. Theologies, because there are many, are actually descriptions of how we believe God is working in the world. They were created by human beings, and they represent the perspectives of their creators. Finite, fallible human beings have always attempted to understand their infinite God, and when they try to explain that in public, it becomes theology. When we think theology comes down from heaven is when we begin to have some problems.

Theology in public is powerful. Mr. LaPierre knows that.

We know it is powerful because every political speech ends with some version of, “God bless you, and God bless the United States.” If Mr. LaPierre did not believe that people would respond to references to God, he would not have included them in his speech. But we must contend with the fact that there is more than one theology in our public sphere. Some of those theologies directly rebut the position of the NRA.

Mr. LaPierre is expressing a theology that lacks in Biblical interaction. 

When Jesus was to be arrested, Peter attempted to defend him with his sword. After cutting off a Temple guard’s ear, Jesus tells him, “He who lives by the sword will die by it.”

The Old Testament prophets had a hope for a world reconciled to God where the people would, “beat their swords into plow shares, and their spears into pruning hooks.”

It should be noted that Scripture often shifts our focus towards talking about the end times, or eschatology. Some will instantly think, “We will never have that world of plow shares and pruning hooks until Jesus returns.” I’m not going to re-litigate a theological discussion I have written about before. What I will say, however, is that we need to recognize that theology is being done in public.

Wayne LaPierre did it yesterday. 

Someone is going to do it tomorrow.

What we need is more theology in public and private. We need to see that none of these theologies should be lifted up to the same level of importance as God…or to the Bible. We made those theologies, just like we made those guns. We can change those theologies. While there are, of course, conversations to be had concerning orthodoxy, we are not trapped into a theology.

Theology is not monolithic.

Theology is for everyone.

You Are Right, The World Needs Jesus

I hear your words, and I see what you write. You, like all of us, are trying to cope with the deep pain and suffering that seems all too commonplace in our society. More people are dead with no good explanation, and as we are trying to have a collective moment of deciding where to go from here, you want to participate. There are many voices, all talking about different possible futures, so your voice is welcome. There should be no limits to who gets to participate in how our society forms its tomorrow.

It is good that you are speaking.

I want you to speak.

You offer that the real problem is that the Gospel is lacking. You recognize that the Church is not as prominent in our culture as it once was. Attendance is down. Churches are closing. Money is tight. We are graduating seminarians into a world where there are not ministries for them to serve. It does not look good for the future of the Church in America. I get your apprehension of what the future may hold.

To address our collective pain, you offer that what we really need is more Gospel. I hear you when you say, “Evil is real presence in this world, and only the Gospel can correct that,” or, “This kind of evil can only be corrected with the return of Jesus. Until that happens, nothing will change.”

And you know what? I agree with you.

I am a believer in the redeeming work of Jesus, and the healing power of God’s grace. I have staked my life and my financial future on them. You are absolutely correct that these things make a real difference in the world. I defend my faith with all the strength I have because I believe it is life giving. I have seen how God can make people whole, and can change the world for the better.

But do not let this belief in the healing power of the Gospel be an excuse to do nothing.

I get that there is fear about how to address our collective future, and I agree that it can be difficult to wade into the controversial waters of gun control. While I affirm that the world would be better with more Gospel and not less, pushing off any attempt at social correction in preference for an eschatological reset is not the answer. Such sentiments sound as a way to wrap your unwillingness to confront social injustice in Jesus and bury it beneath the alter of indifference.

That is not a Christ-like response.

When Jesus was confronted with the woman caught in adultery, his response was not to as for her to make a personal commitment to Christ.

He didn’t walk past the leper or the man born blind because disease is just a condition of a depraved Creation.

He didn’t leave Lazarus in the tomb for the Second Coming.

Maybe it is because we have developed a new definition of the Gospel that focuses on prayers and decisions instead of action. We have decided that is more important for people to walk the aisle and be baptized in order to put money in our offering plates than to go out and work for “the Kingdom come.”

You are right that we need more Jesus in the world. It does make a difference in people’s lives, everyday. It was the Social Gospelers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that brought us the Progressive Era of the 1930s-1940s, giving us Social Security so the elderly would not live in poverty. It was the Gospel which motivated Dr. King to work tirelessly, until he was assassinated, to help not only African-Americans, but all Americans see a world of justice and equality. 

While you are right that we need more Gospel, I will not accept such a Gospel that allows inaction.

Both Isaiah and Micah have the image of “swords into plowshare and their spears into pruning hooks.” There is something about these images from the prophets we must capture. It is the people themselves who lay down their arms. God doesn’t take them away. In those prophecies, when people come to God, they are the ones who destroy their weapons.

So, I still agree.

We need more Gospel.

We need one with enough power to put us to work.

You Were Right, It Is A Tool

A letter to those who coached me about guns:

You said it to me so many times. Whenever someone would advocate for more gun control, it was right there on the tip of your tongue. “A gun is just a tool. If we regulate that, we have to regulate hammers or axes.” Nevermind that some tools are regulated, like knives, welding equipment, blow torches, or spray paint. I know what you meant. You meant that the gun is just an instrument, and therefore not the problem. The gun was made by human beings to help us do things easier. We are the great tool makers after all. When we have a task to perform, we make tools so those tasks will be easier. Inherently, a tool has no inclination towards good or evil. It is but an inanimate object with the only value that which we imprint upon it.

And you said this to me often. You told me that when I had reservations about owning them. So, I took your rationale and I bought some tools for myself. And because certain tools are created for certain jobs, I bought different kinds. I had them for hunting birds, deer, and protecting myself. Because I believed you when you told me it was a tool, I even went the step of keeping my tools with me at all times, cause you never know when the job will come along where I will need that tool. Like the lug wrench I keep in my vehicle when I have to change a flat, or the screwdrivers to fix a door, I made sure my tools were all in working order. And because using the tool is a task that you have to learn, I practiced using them. Often, I did that with you because it was you who introduced me to those tools.

Though I was never a professional who used his tools on a daily basis, I was pretty good with my tools. Like the friend who can help you change out the light fixture, or do some minor car repair, I was the shade tree tool guy. My skills would do in a pinch cause I knew what I was doing with those tools. I knew who to clean them, care for them, and when I practiced, I punched the centers out f a lot of targets with those tools, and could bring down a lot of birds and other game. I was even the one you started to call when you thought about getting new tools for yourself. The friends who you bounced ideas off of to make sure you weren’t wasting your money on those tools.

You were right. I concede that the gun is just another tool, built to make the work of humans easier.

But, the work is different. A gun wasn’t made to build a house like a hammer. It wasn’t made to fix broken machines like a wrench.

The work of a gun is to kill. And if that is your work, it is the right tool for the job.

No other tool can run up the death toll like we have seen in just the first two months of 2018 like a gun. It should be a testament to the tool makers for no other tool is as effective at its job as a gun. I have seen lots of people miss nails with their hammer, or ruin screws with their screwdrivers. But no one who is wanting to kill is ineffective when they have a gun. Sure, sometimes they might miss their target, but when they hit, the job is done. 

There is no tool as effective at its job, nor dispassionate. 

These tools with no inherent good or evil don’t care where they do their work. They just do it with gusto. The list of animals hunted to extinction shows the potency of this tools work. I’m sure if you could find a rhino to tell you the story, they would let you know just how effective that tool has been. Though, you might want to hurry. I hear there are not many left to give such discerning details. 

If you can’t find one, why don’t you ask the students who have attending one of the 19 schools where this tool has made its presence known. Or you could ask the people of Las Vegas, or Charleston, or Virginia Tech…you know what I mean. You probably don’t need to ask though, cause you know how effective a tool it is.

You were right that the gun is nothing more than a tool. A dispassionate dispenser of the work of death. That is what it was made for, and it is very good at its job. 

So, I understand why you don’t like it when people start talking about “gun control.” Those ignoramuses are stupidly put restrictions on tools. It is not the tools fault that they are good at what they do.

That being the case, what if we started calling it “death control?” You see, I agree that it is a tool, and it is silly to regulate tools. Instead, why don’t we regulate the work. We just don’t want more people to die, and so what if we proposed omnibus policies that helped curb the harsh reality that people die needlessly in this country?

We wouldn’t be talking about the tools anymore.

We would be focused on the job.