A Second Chance

Gun violence in America is more than our concern over mass shootings and the more than 8000 homicides that occur each year. The following statistics point us to the sobering subject of suicide and its correlation to guns.  

·         Over 36,000 people in the US die by suicide each year.

·         Of US suicides, over half are caused by guns

·         The Brady Campaign reports that guns are used in 20,000 suicides each year

·         Suicide is the 10^th leading cause of death in the US

·         Every day approximately 100 Americans take their own life

·         Ninety percent of all people who die by suicide have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder

·         There are four male suicides for every female suicide

In a study written by the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, they say:

Research shows that a gun in the home makes a suicide three times more likely than for homes without guns. There are few reasons why the presence of a gun in the home is a risk factor for suicide. First is the surprising impulsivity of many suicide attempts. Guns are also so much more lethal than other methods. Most people who survive a suicide attempt do not go on to die by suicide. But because guns are so effective, only one in 10 people who attempt suicide by a gun get that second chance.  

Redemption and the opportunity to start anew are at the core of Christian faith. For 20,000 Americans each year, that is not possible.  

1968

I recently read Tom Brokaw’s book, “Boom,” which looks at the tumultuous 1960s and the cultural fault lines that emerged in the US. The epicenter was 1968. Both Martin Luther King and presidential candidate, Robert Kennedy, were shot and killed in the spring and summer of 1968.

Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that it was 1968 when the Presbyterian Church began voicing concerns about guns and gun violence. Some will be surprised that it was the “old southern church” of Presbyterians that first clamored. The Presbyterian Church US petitioned Congress to enact legislation “without delay” to control the sale and possession of firearms of all kinds.  

The church could see the storm clouds gathering. The signs were evident that American society was headed for a crisis.

In 1989 a reunited Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) urged strong legislation to ban the private ownership of destructive automatic weapons such as AK-47 assault rifles, Uzis and all paramilitary weapons, whether domestic or imported.

In 1994 a federal assault weapons ban was signed into law! The game changer?  Jim Brady and his wife. Sarah.  In 1981, Jim Brady, the White House press secretary, was shot in an assassination attempt aimed at President Reagan. Brady was permanently disabled. The Brady's turned their tragedy into a movement to ban assault weapons.

In 2004, the U.S. Congress permitted the assault weapons ban to expire….without a vote.

The church has voiced its concerns over guns and gun violence for 50 years. We are not alone. The United Methodist, the United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, The Lutheran Church and the National Council of Churches have issued various and bold statements calling for stricter gun laws, banning assault weapons, prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons and other sensible regulations.

Which is to say American Christian churches have been thinking and praying about this for a long time.

I once visited the St. Nicholas Church in Leipzig, in the former East Germany. I began to learn the story of how Christians gathered and prayed for freedom in that church for forty years during the oppressive rule of the Communist government. However, a movement of prayer was rekindled in the spring of 1989 and that movement grew.  On October 9 of that year, 70,000 people gathered inside and outside the church armed with candles and prayers. Many feared a violent crackdown from Communist officials. However, the police were frozen by the presence of 70,000 Christians praying and carrying candles. Exactly a month later, November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall collapsed, signaling the end of a repressive government and the beginnings of German reunification.  

Sometimes it takes a long time and a lot of prayer for people to act….and for change to occur.

I Did Not Expect to Encounter John Calvin

I did not expect to encounter John Calvin in my journey to understand gun violence.

Calvin was the first systematic theologian of Protestant thinking. In the 1500s, he was a university student in Paris when he came across the radical reforming ideas of Martin Luther. Trained in the classics and in law, he began to study Greek and the Bible. With a lawyer’s mind, he developed an orderly, rational, and coherent account of the doctrines of the Christian faith….i.e, a systematic theology. It was expanded and revised several times and became a standard for Protestant and Christian thinking for centuries. [i]

Where do I encounter Calvin in the gun violence debate? Calvin believed that God worked through governments to bring order to society, that governments prevent society from descending into chaos. He considered civil authorities to be ordained by God to protect an innocent public against the terror of mob rule or individual selfishness.[ii]

Calvin applied Biblical principles to the ordering of a civil society. Commenting on one of the 10 Commandments, “You shall not Kill,” he wrote:

The purpose of this commandment is, that since the Lord has bound the whole human race by a kind of unity, the safety of all ought to be considered as entrusted to each. In general, therefore, all violence and injustice, and every kind of harm from which our neighbor’s body suffers is prohibited. Accordingly, we are required faithfully to do what in us lies to defend the life of our neighbor, to promote whatever tends to his tranquility, to be vigilant in warding off harm, and when danger comes, to assist in removing it.[iii]

I keep re-reading Calvin’s words. From the 16^th century he articulates ideas that resonate with my grappling of the role of government and the responsibility we Christians have for our world.

Why is this important to me? Because trying to understand what it means to be a Christian in the gun debate, requires critical thinking and the application of Biblical stories and truths to our life and our life in society. Systematic theology is a tool that can help us (Christians) form our thinking, believing and acting.

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[i] Calvin’s systematic theology is titled Institutes of the Christian Religion

[ii] Gun Violence, Gospel Values: Mobilizing in Response to God’s Call, Presbyterian Church (USA) 2011

[iii] John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book II, Chapter VIII

Not A Call To Arms But Community

I continue to draw from the faith community to help me see the issue of  gun violence through the lens of faith. I’m resisting voices that want to see this as a political issue or the latest conflict in America’s culture war. I have edited/adapted this from the PCUSA’s report, Gun Violence, Gospel Values.  

(Jesus) reprimanded Peter for first grabbing a weapon in his defense. “For all who live by the sword will die by the sword” as in proverb form (Matt.26:52b). If weapons become the basis of your social relations, they will kill you. If preserving your guns has become more important than the safety of thousands of other people, then weapons have become your idol, in diametric opposition to the vision of a city that is a joy, where children and old people live out their years, and the weeping of grief-stricken mothers is no longer heard.

Let us be clear: this is not a call to arms but to community. There is a direct connection… between God’s intentions, the prophets’ visions, Jesus’ teaching, and the implications for our own actions.

The church is not as disturbed with the legitimate possession and use of hunting rifles, shotguns, and sport shooting guns, but we are categorically opposed to the poor regulation and easy flow of guns that are manufactured to kill efficiently human beings.

Statistics and Original Sin

Statistics are not always accurate. There are different criteria surrounding how statistics are gathered and the sources used. So I am wary when a report says, “the price jumped 125% over the last three years.”

That said, the statistics for gun homicides (murders) in our country and state are sobering no matter how you look at them. Though the same annual totals are not always available, here is what I found about the number of gun murders:  

·       There were 8122 in the US in 2014.

·       In North Carolina there were 412.

·       In Great Britain there were between 50 and 60 in 2014. 

      ·       In Canada there were 172 in 2012.

Of course, the populations vary. The population is roughly 320 million in the US, 65 million in the UK, 36 million in Canada and 10 million in North Carolina. Though the years and populations differ, the difference between gun homicides is stark, sobering and depressing when you compare the US and NC numbers to those countries with whom we share a similar culture…even when translated into per capita.

Are we Americans more violent than Brits or Canadians? Or in theological terms, are we more sinful? I mean, if the measure of sinfulness is correlated with gun murder rates, one could say that Americans are at least 100 times more sinful that Brits or Canadians.

I don’t buy it.

Presbyterians come from a theological tradition that understands original sin and a sinful human nature as basic to all men and women. Though we humans like to think that we are basically good, Christian theology says we are selfish and self-centered, flawed and prone to sin. Our sinfulness is inescapable and universal…. which is why grace, God’s grace, is so important to our understanding of faith. Grace depends on God’s goodness, not our own.

Are Americans more sinful than Brits or Canadians? Of course not. Do we have a more violent nature? I’d argue not. Rather, we are all prone to sin and selfishness.

Then how do we account for the startling contrast in gun murders when we compare the US and NC to Canada and the UK?

I think it’s clear: the difference is in the availability of guns and the difference in gun laws.

We Americans have a long history of rugged individualism and a propensity to see freedom through the lens of individual rights. But as a Christian, is my freedom primarily based on my individual rights? What about “the common good?”

When the gun debate gets stuck on individual rights, I want to ask about the individual rights of the students and teachers who died in Parkland. Didn’t they have an individual right to live? Or as our founding fathers proclaimed, an "inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Is This a Movement?

Is this a movement?

All week I have been following the teenage students from Parkland who are expressing their sorrow, fear and anger. I watched several students interviewed by a CBS reporter. I saw others speaking at a rally in Parkland. 100 Parkland students took a 4 ½ hour bus trip to Tallahassee and the Florida legislature where they tried to meet (mostly unsuccessfully) with lawmakers and make their voices known. A group of 20 (students and parents from Parkland) met with President Trump in what was called a “listening session.” A packed town hall meeting broadcast by CNN revealed poignant audience questions directed at a panel that included the Parkland sheriff and a spokeswoman from the National Rifle Association.

In all of this I hear a common theme: the Parkland students, who survived this shooting rampage, want the madness to stop; they want to lead the change that adults have been unable or unwilling to accomplish. The raw emotions, their youthful idealism and passionate determination is startling and refreshing. It has been generations since college students were the energy behind a protest movement against the Vietnam War. I am not sure that I have ever seen high school kids on the front lines of such things.

But it makes sense. In Vietnam, it was the college-age students who were putting their lives at risk in Southeast Asia. Today, it is the high school kids who feel that their lives are the most vulnerable…who wonder if one of their mentally unstable, depressed, loner, violent, fellow students will become unhinged and roam the school halls with an AR15.

Is it a movement? Is it a sustainable movement?

Some movements fizzle out. Other movements that begin with promise don’t lead to the intended hopes….such as the Arab Spring.

But some movements have spirit and others have the Holy Spirit. The civil rights movement led by a preacher, Martin Luther King, became a moral and spiritual movement. “Am I my brother and sister’s keeper?” And after the resurrection of Jesus, a small band of followers with no religious or political clout, began a movement which became the Christian church. 

Is this a moral and spiritual movement? Will we, in the Christian community, see it as such?