We are writing to acknowledge and lament yesterday’s mass shooting. This one taking the lives of young children and their teachers in Texas.
As we dropped our kids off at school this morning, the disease of gun violence felt especially haunting and horrific. No parents should have to experience what happened yesterday nor should all the rest of us parents feel the palpable fear of “what if it’s our kids next?”
We are sick. With Covid, yes, but guns and violence and loneliness and weak politicians and a Christianity that has had very little to say about it.
In these moments, we often hear the refrain, “Guns don’t kill people. People do.” Yes, that’s true. But that’s also far too simplistic and dismissive.
While people (usually very ill) do pull the trigger, people also determine who has the right to acquire a weapon like the AR15 that swept through those Texas classrooms. People determine the process that is required for a citizen of the United States to be eligible to own a gun in the first place.
In this moment, we need to ask some hard questions about our understanding of freedom. Is it more important to protect the “freedom” of buying an AR15 or offering every parent in this country the freedom to send their kids to school without fearing they’ll return in a body bag?
When Jesus was about to be arrested in Jerusalem before his eventual crucifixion at the hands of an unjust State, Peter pulled out his sword and cut off the ear of one of the servants of the High Priest. Jesus quickly responded, “No more of this!” He then healed the man’s ear.
In the words of the second century Early Church father, Tertullian, “In disarming Peter, Christ disarms all Christians.”
Non-violence was normative for the Early Church in their understanding of what it meant to follow Jesus.
Christians have since spent 1600 years (since the time of St. Augustine) debating the merits of Just War, Pacifism and the role of violence in relation to our Christian witness. While we respect the nuance of these arguments, there are no merits to unchecked weapons of war in the hands of our general population.
When we endorse that version of “freedom,” we are choosing to prioritize being American over being Christian.
So, we lament and cry and pray and think AND advocate and have hard conversations and examine our own apathy and leverage whatever power we have (in our pews, on our streets and with our votes) to undo the broken systems that are breaking innocent people.
Like these kiddos.
Lord, have mercy. And, may the peace of Christ reign in the midst of all the violence.
The Global Immersion Team
P.S. You are invited to join us for a 20-minute time of contemplation, prayer and lament tomorrow morning at 7amPST during our Daily Prayers. (Register for zoom details here) This is an open session that happens three times a week and we will dedicate tomorrow’s session to focus on this mass shooting. Please come as you are and don’t feel pressure to turn on your screen if you’d like to simply listen in.