An article in last Wednesday’s Review contained reactions by elected officials to the attempted assassination of former president, and present candidate, Donald Trump.
I decided it would be interesting to have the nine pastors in town respond to the event by viewing it through the lens of their Christian faith, so I emailed all of them, asking for their response and emailed them again with the same request on Friday.
None of them responded. Zero. That puzzled me, because I know all of them and in private and off the record, they will wax eloquent on almost any topic where they are able to apply their faith to current events.
As I pondered what was, or wasn’t, going on. I recalled a similar situation when I asked a business owner to respond to the race for president. The reason he gave for declining was that he was afraid. He did not want to put himself, his employees or his property in danger of being harmed.
In the absence of any explanation by our local clergy, I have to imagine they shared that business owner’s concern.
Better, these days, to keep your thoughts to yourself.
But, fool that I am, decided to take the baton and run with it. I myself am ordained and have a Doctor of Ministry degree, so give me permission to speak, at least conditionally for the church leaders in town.
Prayer: Dick Durbin was quoted by the Review as saying his thoughts were with everyone affected by the shooting. That’s the socially-accepted response to tragedy in our increasingly secular society.
Church-going folks are still comfortable saying that their prayers are with victims of violence, believing that a power greater than ourselves is a player in what goes on in life.
Motive: Law enforcement authorities, the last I heard, are still trying to figure out a motive. Usually what they look for are psychological factors like being bullied, or parental abuse, or depression to explain why someone like Thomas Matthew Crooks, a recent high school graduate, would try to kill the former president.
Religious people acknowledge that those factors may help explain why Crooks behaved the way he did, but they see another factor at work which is sin and evil. The way Native Americans describe that reality is that, in each of us, there is a good wolf and a bad wolf. To switch metaphors back to the Bible, it’s when we stop orienting our lives toward God that evil starts to control us.
Gun Violence: There is a great spiritual irony in the fact that a pro-gun candidate narrowly escaped being killed by a legally purchased assault rifle.
But, to be fair, Christians have been ambivalent about violence for the last 1,700 years.
Part of the conundrum for Christians is that, in the Hebrew half of their Bible (aka Old Testament), God is often portrayed as acting very violently, e.g. killing all the first-born children of the Egyptians who had enslaved the people of Israel, while in the second half (aka New Testament) Jesus has more in common with a Hindu named Gandhi than with Evangelical NRA members.
On top of that, for the first 300 years of the Christian church most followers of Jesus were pacifists just like the religious leader they followed.
But then in 313, the Roman Emperor named Constantine not only ended the persecution of Christians but, as a new convert, made the religion legal and Christians ended up in charge and wielding political power.
While they were a minority, maintaining order in society wasn’t their problem. But now that they were in charge they realized that, to keep order in society, they would have to sometimes use force against bad actors.
On top of that they felt compelled to defend their country from enemies, like Ukraine when Putin’s Russia invaded.
Call that historical turning point the end of innocence.
Christians developed what is called the “Just War Theory,” which outlined when it was acceptable to use lethal force to protect society.
Except for denominations like the Quakers, most Christians now acknowledge that killing people is sometimes necessary, even acceptable, and under what conditions.
The question these days is not if gun violence is permitted but under what circumstances.
All of the pastors in town fall right of center on the political spectrum. The last time I was at Living Word, I saw an Israeli flag along with an American flag on the stage. One pastor in town carries a handgun. A couple have voted for Trump. All are supporters of the Second Amendment right to bear arms as interpreted by the NRA.
The irony is that when it comes to abortion the clergy in Forest Park are pro-life, but when it comes to guns they tend to be pro-choice.