If anything positive can be said to
have resulted from the massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, it may be that it has
generated a national discussion about gun control that seems to have more
seriousness and staying power than that which followed other recent mass
shootings. President Obama has set forth
a concrete plan to address the issue, a combination of actions that can be
taken immediately via executive order and legislative proposals which will
require action by Congress. Vigorous
discussion is taking place in the news media and social networks. One can only hope that reasonable and
effective regulations will eventually be put in place as one step in efforts to
reduce the slaughter.
It is not my purpose here to rehash
the hundreds of arguments that are being made for and against the President’s
plan. Instead, I want to invite
reflection on our attitudes toward violence.
For purposes of this discussion, I will focus on physical violence,
while recognizing that verbal violence can also do substantial harm.
There is no escaping the fact that
violence has been a significant component of our national narrative. Our story of origins includes both the
written Declaration of Independence and the bloody war that began at Lexington
with “the shot heard round the world.”
While Manhattan may have been “purchased” for 60 Dutch guilders (roughly
$24.00 US Dollars in mid-nineteenth century currency; about $950.00 today),
most of the land acquired by European settlers from Native Americans was taken
by force, often accompanied by a bloodbath.
The violence of the slave trade secured economic stability for a number
of states until the brutality of the plantation system was ended by a horribly
brutal civil war.
Other examples abound. The inescapable truth is that we as a nation
believe in the efficacy of violence.
This was stated quite succinctly by the NRA’s executive VP Wayne
LaPierre during a speech delivered a week after the Sandy Hook shootings: “The
only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” To this way of thinking negotiation,
prevention, and non-violent resistance are all ineffective. The only way to solve a conflict is through
the use of bigger and better force.
National policies reflect this
belief. For each of the past five years
Amnesty International has listed the United States among the top five nations
in the world in number of executions performed.
We share that “honor” with China and Iran. No other G7 country executes criminals, and
among the 58 countries that retain the death penalty in law and practice, the
only other fully developed and industrialized one on the list is Japan. Though trends are down from a high of 80%,
recorded in the mid-nineties, of U.S. citizens in favor of the death penalty,
recent Gallup polling still shows a majority 61% who favor execution for
convicted murderers.
We also lead in arming the
world. Military expenditures in the U.S.
account for 41% of the world’s total, more than twice that of the next four
countries combined. After several years
of depressed global arms sales because of economic downturn, U.S. overseas arms
sales skyrocketed in 2011 to $66.3 billion, representing nearly 80% of the
total global market. In recent years it
has become increasingly common to discover that both sides in a regional
conflict are armed with U.S.-made weapons.
When those of us who are Christian
turn to the Bible for guidance in dealing with violence, we find very mixed
messages. God as understood by the early
Hebrew people was quite willing both to use and to command widespread violence. In the story of the great flood, God is
depicted as wiping out virtually all of humankind, along with most creatures of
the land and air. God is said to engage
in wholesale slaughter both in the destruction of the cities of Sodom and
Gomorrah, and in the killing of Egyptian firstborn during Moses’ struggle with
Pharaoh to liberate the Hebrew slaves.
Under the leadership of Joshua, the migrant tribes of Israel are
commanded to commit genocide as they occupy the promised land.
Once the Hebrews settled in the
Jordan valley, a system of animal and grain sacrifice was established as the
primary mode of worship. There are a few
hints in the texts, primarily the story of Jephthah’s daughter (Judges
11:29-40) and the almost-sacrifice of the young Isaac (Genesis 22:1-19), that
animal sacrifice had replaced an earlier practice of human sacrifice. Indeed, the story of Isaac can be read as an
indication of growing awareness that human sacrifice is not necessarily God’s
will. Violence against animals, however,
remained an integral part of worship up to the time of the fall of Jerusalem in
70 C.E.
On the other hand, there are
indications that another understanding of God’s will was developing at least by
the time of the Davidic kingdom. In I
Chronicles 22:7-8 we read:
David said to
Solomon, “My son, I had planned to build a house to the name of the Lord my
God. But the word of the Lord came to me
saying, ‘You have shed much blood and have waged great wars; you shall not
build a house to my name, because you have shed so much blood in my sight on
the earth.’”
Here we see the privilege of building
the first temple being awarded to Solomon, David’s son and a man of peace,
rather than to David, whose consolidation of the kingdom was accomplished
through war and bloodshed.
A hoped-for and coming Prince of
Peace became a recurring theme in the prophetic writings. Isaiah 9:7 describes this coming ruler thus: “His
authority shall grow continually, and there shall be endless peace for the
throne of David and his kingdom.” The
tension between the ideal of the warrior king and the longing for everlasting
peace can be found throughout the Hebrew Scriptures.
In the Christian Scriptures, the teachings
of Jesus firmly counter the valuing of violence as a preferred method of
problem solving. He consistently
preached non-violent resistance to oppression, and love of God, self, neighbor,
and enemy as the right way to be in the world.
The few passages where he appears to advocate violence, such as Matthew
10:34-38: “Do not think that I come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come
to bring peace, but a sword; etc.” should be read as descriptive rather than as
prescriptive. That is, Jesus is warning
his listeners of the inevitable consequences that they should expect if they
choose to follow him. He is not saying
that such an outcome is his intention.
The fact of Jesus’ crucifixion ran
contrary to popular belief about the anticipated Messiah. His followers struggled to understand and
explain these events. In doing so, many
employed the language and imagery of the sacrificial system with which they
were familiar. Christian scholars and
teachers have, for two millennia, wrestled with the question of the atonement:
In what way does Jesus’ life, teachings, death, and resurrection save humanity
and accomplish reconciliation with God? The
book “Saving Power: Theories of Atonement and Forms of the Church” by Peter
Schmiechen, President Emeritus of Lancaster Theological Seminary, describes and
examines in detail a dozen such theories that are a part of Christian thinking.
One of these theories, usually termed
“penal substitution,” in the past century and a half has come to dominate
teaching about salvation in a large number of U.S. churches. This theory maintains that Jesus’ torture and
death were required because the shedding of blood of a pure sacrifice was the
only way to satisfy God’s demand for justice.
The theological reasoning is quite complex. The practical consequence is that in popular
devotion the events of Good Friday have become the nearly exclusive focus of
the story of salvation, with Jesus’ life and teachings, and indeed even the
resurrection, receiving much less attention.
The 2004 Mel Gibson film “The Passion of the Christ” illustrated this
emphasis on the torture and death of Jesus in such grotesque detail that some
critics decried it as pornography.
Walter Wink, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer,
and other theologians deeply concerned with the practice of non-violence have
referred to this way of thinking as “the myth of redemptive violence.” If violence is required to save us from
violence, then the cycle is never-ending.
Every assault is countered by a response of equal or greater
deadliness. Escalation of violence
becomes inevitable, all in the name of saving ourselves, our families, our
nation.
If we are serious about reducing the
number of shootings, if we honestly want to lower the level of violence in our
society, then we need to take a hard look at what we believe about the
usefulness of violent action. We could
begin with the question often asked about the support for the death penalty: “Why
do we kill someone who has killed someone to show that killing someone is
wrong?” And we who are Christian need to
examine our theology. Have we adopted a
theory of salvation that emphasizes torture and violence over the teachings of
Jesus on how to live a non-violent life in the love of God?
We are a nation that believes in
violence. Our national narratives illustrate
it. Our national policies demonstrate
it. For some of those of us who are Christian,
our theology supports it. The strictest
possible gun control will not do much to make our society safer until we change
that belief. For the sake of children
today and of generations to come, are we willing to try?
Recommended for further reading:
Schmiechen,
Peter, “Saving Power: Theories of Atonement and Forms of the Church,” Wm. B.
Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2005. ISBN
0-8028-2985-6
Nelson-Pallmeyer,
Jack, “Is Religion Killing Us? Violence in the Bible and the Quran,” Trinity
Press International, 2003. ISBN
1-56338-408-6
Wink,
Walter, “Engaging the Powers: Discernment and Resistance in a World of
Domination,” Fortress Press, 1992. ISBN 0-8006-2646-X
Parker,
Rebecca Ann and Rita Nakashima Brock, “Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded
Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire,” Beacon Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8070-6750-5
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