Another mass shooting, this one at a Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. Nine innocents dead. Seven wounded.
At church yesterday a friend expressed pure exasperation. “It’s happened again!” she sighed. For her, the Oregon shooting was deeply personal. Three years ago a dear friend and his two daughters had been among the moviegoers at the Century 16 theater in Aurora, CO. When James Holmes started shooting into the crowd the friend commanded his kids to run and get out. They survived. He did not. Now the daughters of 51 year old Gordon Cowden struggle to deal with the terrible loss of their dad and the incredible trauma of this senseless act of violence.
After a time these unspeakable tragedies seem to blend together, converging like bubbling tributaries of pure evil into a rising river of brackish wickedness flowing through the heartland of America . So Roseburg, Charleston, Sandy Hook, Aurora, Blacksburg, Columbine and a dozen or more other locales where mass shootings have taken place are coupled together as sad stanzas in a seemingly endless song of heartbreak and loss.
Some say we will only put an end to these tragedies when we have stronger gun laws. Others say we will deter them when more people have guns. The confluence of politics and law sparks sharp debate about regulation vs. constitutional right. Then there is the issue of mental health and how to provide services and help to those who are prone to violence.
I don’t pretend to know the answer. As Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post recently pointed out, the dilemma for policy makers is figuring out what is actually possible to accomplish. Given the political landscape of the day on the one hand and the Second Amendment questions on the other, there is simply no easy fix.
Speaking not as a politician but as a Christian, it is my belief that the Church must become brave enough to recover its voice in addressing the issue of violence. All around us violence is celebrated – in TV shows, movies, video games, music…even political discourse and religious teaching. The myth of redemptive violence underlies our society’s belief in capital punishment, some of our churches’ damnation of others to hell, and our personal belief that taking revenge on those who hurt us will bring healing. Add it all together and it seems as if we embrace violence as an American virtue. We may think of it as “good” or “justified” or “necessary” violence. But it is violence nonetheless. And we lift up those who practice it as heroes.
Perhaps it is not surprising then that so many of those who carry out these mass shootings and other acts of violence are seeking to “go out in a blaze of glory” and somehow achieve fame.
What does the Christian Faith say about violence? How does the Gospel challenge our ideas about how to relate with others? What Christian values of peacemaking must we nurture in our children – and ourselves? Does following Jesus have anything to do with making the world a peaceable planet?
I’m not saying that Christians should abandon seeking political solutions to this terrible problem. By all means we Christians should be fully engaged in politics.
But there is a big difference between legislating gun rights and changing hearts.
I believe we need both.
How do YOU see it?
I am not a US citizen and I have never understood the obsession most Americans have with the 2nd Amendment which I believe was originally intended as a mechanism for citizens to protect themselves from the British.
There is much that I admire about the USA and I am enjoying the hospitality of your country at the moment while on holiday in Hawaii, but tragedies like the one you comment on are, in my opinion, the result of easy access to guns.
Where I come from we have a cultural heritage and values not unlike yours. What we do not have is a society that appears to be under siege and believes that the solution is ‘down the end of a barrel’.
Christians must get involved in politics. That is a part of spreading the good news as well as being good citizens. There is no point in sitting in a holy huddle when there are issues to be resolved.
I’m conservative politically, but on the issue of having a safe community I’m all for gun control alongside other programmes that meet the needs of others.
Look at Australia and New Zealand, mass shootings are a rarity. In NZ I can only recall one in my lifetime.