![]() To the best of my knowledge, Jesus never walked around with a sword tucked in his belt, swinging it at those who threatened him. Maybe our ability to think creatively and outside of how John Wayne, Rambo, and 007 have taught us to deal with people who don’t like us has been dumbed down and dissolved to the point that we can’t even begin to consider how actually showing love to those who threaten us could transform the world. He taught us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. ![]() He taught us what it means to stand within the world but not be of the world. Jesus creatively demonstrated what non-violence can look like in the face of a violent world. ![]() It’s particularly troubling when it comes at the expense of the common good and when the desire to be able to personally have guns seems greater than the desire for peace and safety. This fierce defense of the right to walk around locked and loaded is deeply troubling to me. In my social media feed I see Christians posting that they will die for the right to tuck their AK-47 in at night. Why is it, I wonder, that Christians are some of the loudest and first to respond with a posture defensive of gun rights and with a refusal to even consider that our excessive amount of guns might be a significant part of the problem? Why aren’t Christians instead the loudest and first to respond in a posture that is fiercely defensive of the sacredness of human life and the many lives that absorb the bullets that crush bones, splinter veins, and stop hearts with the simple pull of a trigger? Why is there such a resistance to considering that maybe we’re contributing to the culture of violence in our fierce calls to protect the personal right to carry the sort of guns that would never be used to hunt a deer over what might actually be best for humanity? Is it possible we love our weapons more than we love our people? Is it possible that this love of guns and commitment to making sure we can always have as much firepower in our hands as we want reveals that there is a spiritual problem driving gun violence in America and we ourselves are at the heart of that problem? And AGAIN, many Christian folks responded to those calls saying the same thing I hear them say after every school shooting in the United States: they express horror and anger that people would call for accountability and change before the blood had even been hosed down from the walls, and that the only appropriate response in the moment is “thoughts and prayers.” These are typically the same Christians who fiercely defend gun rights. These heart-stopping images were still fresh and stuck in our eyes when the threats came against my own children.Īs we all took in the devastation of that day, my social media was a stream of people AGAIN calling for meaningful gun legislation. Spaces that were supposed to be the connecting veins between biology and algebra, English and art, with a flow of laughter and innocence moving through them, were now blood-stained. On Tuesday, November 30, just one week prior to the threats received by our school, I watched aerial footage of children in Oxford, Michigan, hurling themselves through classroom windows and swarming like an army of ants across the school grounds, seeking safety during yet another mass school schooling. No one ever believes it could happen to them, in the safety of their communal gathering spaces-places intended to nurture light and life, until they find themselves sitting at a graveside, lowering the mangled flesh of a loved one six feet under. We’ve seen over and over again the way egregious violence can quickly spin communities into a downward spiral of grief and trauma. This is not the world I want for my kids. Four months later, I’m just as angry and frustrated. Violence as they laugh, swing and slide on playgrounds. I have waited a few months to write this, to be sure I’m not just writing out of anger and frustration alone. Violence against children as they sit at desks taking notes. Wondering how it was even possible that in Zeeland, Michigan, our kids would not be going to school the next morning due to threats of violence. This was followed by group chats from friends in a long train of dinging notifications as everyone threw down their questions and concerns, wondering what we’re doing wrong in this country that violence and threats of violence has become so commonplace. Emails buzzing, calls ringing, texts pinging. The news slammed my phone on Monday, December 6, 2021.
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