I tell people my position on life is simple: it's precious; we should protect it. Don't kill. Don't do things that might endanger the lives of people. Be willing to give up your own life rather than take the life on another. The what ifs and the maybes are simply unlikely to matter in my life or yours. Thought experiments are far less important than real people - even enemies and those whose actions might make it harder to love and protect their lives.
Our typical answer to the problem of violence and killing is to make more laws. I'm not opposed to laws, especially when your job is to make them. A Congress doesn't do any good if it sits on its hands. Maybe you're one of those who'd rather they do nothing - which is fine by me - but then let's disband the system rather than stacking it with gridlock.
I don't believe laws will solve anything, though. Forcing people to do something will only result in rebellion. Radical freedom is the way to go. Some call it anarchy - where a society rises and falls on the health and strength of relationships between people. That's a scary proposition, but it's what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about (I wrote about this the other day). When it comes to guns and violence, you can't outlaw them with integrity - as I tweeted after the Las Vegas massacre, who would enforce a ban on guns?
We've got to get beyond the notion than power and control are the way to run the world. If you want to stop something from happening, you need to stop doing it and let your example be the evidence for others to see and follow. Jesus' solution to violence was to not be violent. His solution for the abuse of power was not to use it. His very words were to take that slap in the face and then turn your cheek for another. If it takes your death, my death, to condemn the violence of another - so be it. A violent response to violence justifies the violence.
My denomination, the Church of the Nazarene, was founded on some basic principles - one of them, strangely and tangentially enough, was the prohibition of alcohol. Many early Nazarenes worked among the poor - drunks and prostitutes, among others - and knew firsthand the dangerous of alcohol. Many of them were caught up in the prohibitionist movement - a movement so forceful and persuasive that 2/3rds of the US House and Senate (with vast majorities in both parties) along with the legislatures of 46 states approved an amendment to the Constitution to that effect.
It was ultimately a practical failure and later repealed with another, similarly overwhelming series of votes - but the root causes of alcohol prohibition remained dominant in the Church of the Nazarene. My forefathers and foremothers saw the perils of alcohol use - not for every individual, of course, but for society as a whole - and moved strongly and willingly to abstain in solidarity and out of love for those hurt by alcohol.
It's still an issue for our denomination. Personally, I would love for us to have maintained the historic position - that we're simply a people who choose not to drink out of love for others. Christians can certainly make different choices and be just as obedient and faithful as us, but the Church of the Nazarene is a place where we don't - not because it's against the rules, but because we've made a particular choice.
We'd be a lot smaller if that were the case. At some point along the way we decided being bigger was better and went a little "don't ask, don't tell" on the alcohol thing. So now, we've got a lot of faithful Christians who choose to love and serve God and neighbor while also drinking responsibly from time to time that call themselves Nazarenes. And we've welcomed them into membership and ordained them and I certainly wouldn't want us to get rid of them.
Personally, I'd love for us to be clear and united and small - but we're not - at least on this issue - so we move forward together and in faith. We maintain our position of abstinence, because that's who we are. I hope we can do it with grace and freedom - not making rules, but choosing to abstain out of love for our brothers and sisters. I even authored a change to our official statement to that effect last summer - it wasn't passed, but it wasn't killed either. I have hope.
The key, I think, is the emphasis on freedom and grace. Prohibition is a bad idea. It's why laws will only ever control "bad" behavior and never eradicate it. People bristle at being told what to do. The Church of the Nazarene calls its members to abstain from alcohol - with lots of good, sound, biblical and theological support and a grand historic narrative that stems from our profound belief in self-giving love.
We do the same thing in other areas as well. Gambling is a big one. Maybe one I can speak to better, because I enjoy it. I'm an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene, so, for integrity's sake, my gambling days were over a long time ago - and were never much to begin with, because I'm inherently risk-averse and incredibly cheap. Still, a good poker game is a lot of fun. We abstain - and I join in - not because there's something wrong with gambling in the abstract, but because there's no real way to disconnect my actions from the larger gambling environment that ruins families and destroys lives.
We might say "there's nothing wrong with alcohol or gambling; it's the addiction that'll ruin you," and that's a true statement, but there's no such thing as the abstract in the real world. The five bucks my friend wins off me might end up being lost to a lottery or a casino when he's having fun over the weekend - that money used to entice the gambling of someone else who can't afford it or can't stop. As much as we third or fourth or fifth generation Nazarenes like to talk about the over-eager prohibitions of our past (which included, officially, movies, dancing, mixed-bathing, and circuses - along with unofficial prohibitions on jewelry, playing cards, and, sometimes, wearing the color red, among others) - the logic and the theology are sound.
We're called to give up good things that might harm others. I've spent several weeks studying, teaching, and preaching from Romans 14, and I've yet to figure out exactly where the line is - how much should I be willing to sacrifice for the good of others? I don't know the limit of my sacrifice, but I know there was no limit to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and I'm certainly not better than him.
All this to say - whatever the lawmakers decide about gun laws (or alcohol or gambling) is their business - but what I'd like to do is call my fellow Christians, and especially my fellow Nazarenes, to just give up the guns - not because of some rule against them or even because they're bad on their own, but simply because our society can't handle guns responsibly and we're connected to that, whether we like it or not.
I'm not going to make it a campaign or a crusade and I won't (or at least it's not my intention to) shame anyone. People who make a different choice than me should have the same grace we show to people who make different choices about gambling or alcohol or anything else we tend to avoid. I'm just saying, for me, and I hope for others, this is an issue that's taking on a different tone.
It's a bit tricky for me, since I've never been a gun guy and don't own any. I do think, though, that hunting for food is a near universal good - something we should have more of, not less. I believe deeply we'd all be better off getting our meat at the end of a gun than out of a slaughterhouse. As much as I'm not a gun guy, the loss of that positive indeed feels like a sacrifice. I don't think guns are bad - any more than I think alcohol is bad (or gambling or marijuana or movies or the NFL, for that matter).
We draw lines all the time about when to do things responsibly and with limits and when to avoid them altogether. We make choices about our health and habits. For Nazarenes, we've sworn off gambling and alcohol for a long time. I'd like to suggest we add guns to that list - not maniacally or forcefully or with shame, but of our own free will, out of love for our neighbor.
Laws can control behavior, but they cannot eradicate problems - only sacrificial love can do that. I'm not opposed to the former, but I'm deeply committed to the latter. In fact I think it may be the only truly gospel means of responding to the tragedy of gun violence in all its forms: senseless murder, police shootings, war and whatever else we do to each other.
It may be more than we "should" have to sacrifice, but the world certainly doesn't work the way it "should," and there are no limits to what we're called to sacrifice out of love for each other.
Maybe it's as simple as our difficult relationship with the word faith. Is it simply something we claim? Do we say the words, make intellectual assent, choose to join - is that all it takes?
Yes and no.
Certainly, being willing to claim Christianity with a gun to your head speaks to the importance of that association. Being identified as a Christian was really important to these people. I can't even begin to imagine the difficulty of that decision. I remember, as a child, being terrified that this might someday be a reality for me. I'm sure it wasn't constant, but it seemed like a constant challenge from people in the church - "is your faith strong enough to stand up to torture." I remember spending significant adolescent time worried about this (Lord, help us be better). I was worried mostly because I was pretty sure I'd wuss out. Now, as an adult, I don't worry. I know I'd wuss out and deny Christ. I'm not proud of it - but if all it took were saying a couple words to save my life - I'm pretty sure I'd say them (and I'm confident God would forgive me).
But it's not about the words, right? That's the whole point.
In Roman times, no magistrate would have to ask the Christians if they were Christian. Being a Christian was a very defined lifestyle - it was obvious to anyone who saw you interacting (or not interacting) in society. Christians did things differently. People knew it. When Christians were being killed, it wasn't for some statement they made or idea they professed; it wasn't even an important identity they assumed - it was a life they lead, choices they made. The original Christian martyrs were killed for a long period of faithfulness over time that rubbed against what was expected in society.
Yes, there might be a broad dictionary definition of "martyr" that includes this occurrence in Oregon, but it's a definition lacking real distinction and context.
Those who died in this most recent shooting certainly died because their Christian identity was important to them, but it wasn't martyrdom, it wasn't a religious killing. The shooter had no way of knowing the faith of these people, he could only ask how they identified. These people certainly showed more courage than I'd be able to muster in that situation and I hope they all died with the confidence of knowing God's peace and love, but this simply wasn't a religious statement. This was the terrible action of a sick man who'd clearly been hurt by Christians in his life.
We could say these victims died not for their faith, but for the lack of faith shown by others.
It doesn't undermine the faith of those who died - I don't know then anymore than the gunman did, so it's impossible to even speculate. It doesn't put into doubt their faith claims or the value of their lives. It doesn't even reduce the impact of such courageous testimony. I'm just not sure it qualifies as martyrdom. Martyrdom takes more than a moment.
The priest who's gunned down by gang members because he's pulling their runners off the streets and into afterschool programs is a martyr. The woman, beaten and killed for helping prostitutes to freedom is a martyr. Their words might be the impetus for the trigger to be pulled, but it was their actions that got them killed.
The other element that seems important is society's response. A martyr's death is typically cause for celebration or indifference among the general population. A martyr doesn't die to collective horror. Christians were martyred as entertainment in Rome, people bought tickets to cheer as they died. Many martyrs toil in obscurity around the world, giving their lives for a moment of solace amongst the suffering of the world's poor.
When that gunman opened fire on the Sikh temple, it wasn't because of the faith of the adherents. They died because some guy confused them with Muslims. Even if they'd been actual Muslims, it still wouldn't have been a death for their faith, but a death because someone else, somewhere else represented their faith in ways they wouldn't agree with.
If some Roman were hauled before the authorities by mistake - he'd be shouting at the top of his lungs, "I'm not a Christian," but those words certainly aren't enough. He'd have to prove his identity and he'd do it by pointing to his actions. This is what I do because I'm not one of those Christians. He'd get off, if he got off, because he proved his life looked differently than the Christian lives they were out to end.
Peter Rollins has a great, harrowing short story in his book, The Orthodox Heretic, where a man is acquitted of being a Christian and robbed of martyrdom despite his admission and attempts to prove his faithfulness. He's acquitted because his lifestyle doesn't show anything but church attendance and Bible reading. There's no evidence of a specifically Christian lifestyle.
What if the first person asked in Oregon hadn't been a Christian, but thought saying "yes," would save his life? Would that claim have made him a Christian? Likewise, what if the second person asked, knowing what answer meant life, had said, "no," despite a long life of faith and Christian action, would it have somehow invalidated her claim to Christ?
There's got to be something more.
This shouldn't discount the tragedy of events, but it, perhaps, should be an avenue of challenge for Christians. It does indeed take an incredible amount of courage to claim Christ, knowing it could mean your immediate death - in some ways, though, it takes as much, if not more, courage to live out your faith over the course of decades - to love the unlovable, to be on the side of the rejected, to move against culture and be labeled an oddball.
I'm not sure I have the courage to do either one. I do, know, though, I wouldn't want to be known as a martyr if I happen to die for the words that I say (or write). We need to be careful about how and when we use words like "martyr," because there really are people in this world who continue to face the kind of situation first century Christians faced - where their actions equate to a death sentence - their whole life is lived in danger.
We live in a world, specifically in a culture, that's become increasingly obsessed with masking political maneuverings in religious language. The evangelical subculture seems even more bent on using the language of religious war. We really need to push back against it, naming an condemning power games cloaked in religious language.
A shooting, like Columbine, like the one in Oregon, is tragic. It is a senseless loss of human life, a great tragedy for those families who lost loved ones and for the community and nation as a whole. It's a detriment to creation and something that should spur us to live differently. I'm just not comfortable calling it martyrdom. Making it religious seems almost a distraction from the realities involved. Let's call all killing tragedy and work to prevent it moving forward.
Intellectually we know most people don't deserve to die - certainly no children do. But an intellectual commitment to the value of human life doesn't engage our emotions when hundreds of thousands of children die everyday of hunger, malnutrition, and preventable diseases. Those deaths are tragedies, we know it, but we don't react the same way.
I've been trying to figure out the connection between our visceral reaction to such traumatic events and my hesitancy to intrude on the pain and grief of the people who actually knew and loved these kids.
In the end, I think, we connect to these tragedies because we know children like them. We see their faces on TV and we know children who look like them. We know children in first grade or fifth grade. We know children we substitute for the deceased in our heads and it creates an emotional reaction.
We care about these kids who are complete strangers to us because we think about losing kids who aren't strangers. We empathize.
Instead, however, of inserting ourselves into the tragedy of others, spending the day on the couch watching coverage, and whatever else we do, I think we should spend that effort engaging with the kids we're actually upset about, the ones we think about losing, the ones that connect us emotionally to the unknowns who've actually died.
I've been thinking about that this week and then I came across this article from my old stomping grounds. Sister Berta is a hero - an inspiration to many of us who spent time working with kids in Kansas City. I think she gets it. We need to react to terrible tragedies, yes with empathy, but also with a renewed conviction to engage with the kids around us.
It seems strangely appropriate this time of year to think and talk (and do) some good in the lives of our kids, the kids around us, and the kids who should be around us more.
Even as I write this, the details are unclear. It appears the shooting involved an ongoing custody battle and the shooter knew and chose the victims purposely.
I hate to admit, but that made me feel better, somehow. Learning that the man had a reason to do what he did, to kill, somehow made it seem easier to handle or explain or deal with emotionally. I'm not sure it should be that way. Shouldn't we be shocked and saddened at the loss of life and not immediately ask why? Have such killings become so accepted, so commonplace that we take the actual loss of life for granted and fixate on the justification (even if it's poor justification)?
As a follower of Christ's way, I am committed to non-violence and I've intentionally sought to foster practices that shape me and my reactions in that direction. Thankfully I live in a place where violence is not even an occasional occurrence. It's not as though I have ample opportunity to exercise my alternative responses. What I've settled for is an attempt to expand my gospel imagination. In what new or different ways could I handle such a situation. What is the gospel approach, the non-violent response here?
Sadly, there have been ample opportunities over the years, and especially in recent months, to think about the tragedy of encountering violence. I won't pretend to be an expert or even a novice; so many people in this world respond to violence every day - and do so with more humility, grace, and commitment than I could ever muster. Still, I think the exercise worthwhile.
When we thought the worst, that this shooting in Wilmington was random, an act meant to instill fear, it was more confusing. In cases of targeted killing or specific threats, it's at least easier to imagine how one might respond. If the shooter is angry or upset or sad or depressed, but not at you, there's room for loving intervention. It may not be likely, but it's within the realm of our imagination. Perhaps there is someway to connect with this person, beloved of God, who is angry enough to take life.
When there are indiscriminate bullets flying at anything that moves, that response becomes less likely to result in peace. I am amazed at how paralyzing it can be to encounter a situation where neither fight nor flight is a morally acceptable response. I've never even been close to such a scenario, but even the thought of it this morning created intense anxiety.
Ultimately, the logical, theological side of me says this is the result of living in a broken world. There are violent and destructive acts which are truly senseless. There just may not be an answer. I appeal to the notion that Jesus always knew the right thing to say or do. On countless occasions he disarmed hostile crowds with incredibly creative responses the likes of which I could never hope to imagine. But then I realize, despite all of these effective, non-violent responses, even Christ didn't solve the last conflict. He ended up on a cross.
Still, it sits wrong deep inside that I lack the imaginative and creative abilities to solve (or even attempt to solve) such problems in the world, problems that seem so fundamental to God's redemptive work in which we've been invited to join. Then again, the taking of life is supposed to sit wrong with us. That's what drives this longing for non-violent response in the first place. Death is not a solution to death, nor killing to killing.
In the end, all violence is senseless. It doesn't have to happen. But it does happen. Our attempts to make sense out of the senseless really distract us from the opportunity to breathe life into lifeless situations. The only response to violence is love. Comfort the hurting. Pray for the aggrieved. Refuse to accept such violence as simply the way the world works.
That being said, I find it more than bit troubling how the world so easily claims this tragedy as it's own. Of course every death is a tragedy and the death of children even moreso because we recognize the loss of what could be. I don't have any problem expressing remorse and voicing the reality of the injustice and evil of an act like the killing of kindergarten students in Connecticut this week. I don't think we should ignore it.
I do think we should have firm and sensible boundaries. A Facebook meme with a lengthy quote attributed to the actor, Morgan Freeman, made the rounds in the wake of the tragedy - it expressed a desire for us to stop focusing so much on these mass killings - making the perpetrators defacto celebrities and perhaps incidently inciting more. I'm not just talking about the media - after all journalism, as tasteless and exhausting as it can be sometimes, is an important service. I don't think we need 24 hour coverage. I don't think we need interviews with little children who just escaped such a terror or a high school classmate of the shooter. They do it for ratings and because we have this inherent desire to know.
I'm not sure it's good for us to have that need satisfied.
I'll just say I don't understand how so many people find a tragedy like this makes them think more about their own children. I saw all the Facebook posts of people hugging their children. I've tried to figure out what mindset brings people to those posts - my only answers are unkind and likely untrue; I won't share them here. I do have a child now, one I love quite a bit - but I don't find myself more in love, more sentimental or more anything in the wake of this tragedy. One thing I do resonate with - I can't even imagine losing her.
I think that's what bothers me most. Those who haven't lost children really can't identify - we'd like to think we can, we'd like to think we have something to offer besides prayers and condolences. We don't. We're helpless and we're disconnected and we don't like it.
I think it's entirely appropriate for the President to stand up and acknowledge the tragedy and loss - to pledge the nation's support. I don't think it's appropriate for him to show up. It's not a national tragedy. It's a very localized tragedy in a small Connecticut town, specifically for 27 families and those who are a part of their lives. It is certainly evidence of a troubling national epidemic, but it shouldn't be treated as part of a larger problem. That's a disservice to those in mourning.
Certainly there are things we can do to help - but its a general help, not a specific one. There's absolutely nothing we can do for these families but allow them time and space to mourn. We can have those discussions of gun safety and the mental health process - we can work to shape our society into one where things like this occur less.
I also think we can leave the grieving to grieve. I am not saying we abandon the families of the dead - not at all. But we can't mourn with those who mourn when we have no connection to them. Ninety-nine percent of us don't have any connection to these deaths - allow those who do to represent us in comfort.
We want to express outrage - to feel like we have some power over the evil in our world. These are good honest responses, but sometimes focusing on a problem from which we're disconnected keeps us from addressing similar problems in our own communities. In 2011, more than 14 children were killed by guns every day of the year, just in the US. The number rises precipitously when the age goes to 18. 40,000 children die of starvation in the world every year. Nearly a dozen kids are killed by their own parents every day as a result of abuse or neglect.
I suspect, more than better gun laws or improved mental health services, we're most likely to prevent things like this from happening by being present and available to suffering in our own neighborhoods and communities.
If you need to hug your children extra, please do so. If you need conversation in your workplace or congregation or around the dinner table to help deal with the trauma, by all means have it. I am not trying to diminish your response or the tragedy that has happened, I just hope to remember, for myself if no one else, that pain and tragedy exist all around us. Our society has gotten pretty good at hiding it, which is why these times it smashes out into the open trouble us so deeply.
I'm not upset, necessarily, with what's being done. The desire and urge to help those far away from us is righteous and positive. At the same time, it's difficult to stomach in a culture where everyone and everything seems kept at arms length.
We have grandiose ambitions and we live in a super-sized world. We want massive solutions to massive problems - when likely the most effective course of action is, once again, to love your neighbor.
That's when things get messy. That's exactly what the people of Newtown, Connecticut are discovering in the wake of this terrible event. For me, at least, it seems disrespectful to assume I can have some part in that from far away. As much as I desire to comfort and solve. I just can't - not as a stranger hundred of miles away.
I'd like to hope (I am an optimist beneath all these contrarian ideas) that the legacy of this disaster could be a renewed sense of community around the country and perhaps the world. That we could find, on the other side of this loss, pain, and confusion, a sense of community and connection - some small piece of the relational world in which God created us to live.
I have to embrace my place, my town, my people - to own my pain and the pain around me. This just doesn't work from a distance.
I still can't get my head around people excited to see a stadium getting shot up having to endure the real terror of being shot at mercilessly in a dark theater. I understand we have a cognitive disconnect between pretend and real - and I affirm the need for art to depict violence as a way for us to process and deal with violence in healthy ways.
I'm struggling with the ways in which we process such art. Shane Claiborne wrote a great response on the Huffington Post about society's treatment of violence. One of his major themes (and one I've been on board with for a while) is that even those who believe violence is necessary in the world, still need to call it evil.
Violence is devastating, for the perpetrator and the victim. This is true whether its socially acceptable violence - like that on a battlefield, a home invasion, an execution chamber, or a schoolyard fight - or whether it's senseless, universally condemned violence - like rape, torture, or the shootings in Aurora. Violence hurts and mars people.
How does this apply to art, specifically to movies? First of all we have to be careful how violence is portrayed. Are we going to movies to be excited by violence or to be horrified by it? Directors have to take this into account as well. I suspect Christopher Nolan wanted people to resonate with scenes of violent terror at the football stadium in the Dark Knight Rises. He would like for people to think about what it means to be in that situation and to suffer in that way. Does his depiction on the screen make it easier for that to happen, or does it play into our morbid fascination with blowing things up?
Wouldn't action movies immediately become horror movies once we can empathize with the nameless, faceless characters in the crowd. Isn't that what makes a horror movie - we can see ourselves in the place of the characters on the screen? SAW is scary not only because of it's disturbing violence, but because it's personal - the torture victims are regular people.
Likely few of the victims in Aurora, or their families, will ever be able to watch Nolan's film without terrible memories. And while I would never want any movie connected with this kind of real violence, I think it would be more appropriate for us to connect with characters who are suffering rather than highlight the explosions and make the victims faceless, nameless.
To properly convey the message, a sex scene should not be arousing, it should be uncomfortable; the viewer is intruding on a private moment between two people. We shouldn't want to watch (there's a perfect example of this in Enemy at the Gates). In the same way, a violent sequence shouldn't excite us, it should scare us, or at least make us uncomfortable - we're witnesses the death and injury of real people in senseless ways, we should be able to identify more with the characters and less with ourselves.
This isn't a condemnation of explosions - they've been used effectively in movies almost to cliche - warehouses and tanker trucks, etc (the recent - and crude - 21 Jump Street made fun of these cliches in very humorous ways). There's something to be said for the bad guys getting blown up in the end (someone once said, "those who live by the sword, die by the sword").
I'm speaking specifically about how senseless violence is portrayed on the screen. Every piece of art is an attempt to manipulate the viewer's emotions for the sake of communicating a message. We have to be careful about what art we view and be conscious of how it affects us. Artists also have a responsibility to maintain focus on the message. In this day and age, it's easy to slip in gratuitousness because it breeds publicity and popularity.
I hope some of the good that God brings from tragedy, in this case, is a real re-examination of film as art and its connection to violence.
