The Privilege to Bear Arms

 

Written July 2022

Yesterday was the Fourth of July. It was a beautiful day here. We watched a boat parade along the lake – mostly large, electric pontoon boats festooned in bunting and American flags. One had rubber blow up eagles in the front and a blow up Uncle Sam in the back. On the Fourth we are all patriots, or so it seems. The sounds of fireworks going off all day make animals cringe under furniture and made me think of the sounds living in a war torn land – but of course we are not. This is America, land of the free, and we celebrate our freedom by making the sounds of war pretty with sparkling color, once it’s dark. For the rest of the day it’s just the sound of simulated gun fire we seem to enjoy.  And, of course, in the midst of all this, someone took a real gun into a parade and killed several people. Happy Birthday America.

We had a discussion about gun rights, 2^nd Amendment. An acquaintance had posted something on Facebook about their right to carry a hidden weapon into Target. It doesn’t cause the non-carrying people any harm, and if gunmen comes in with evil intent, it’ll save them. And if that non-carrying, anti-gun person says anything to the gun carrier – well, they will be reminded that via the Second Amendment, carrying that gun is their right as an American, and don’t you dare try to take that away from me.

Another person was talking about all the guns they proudly owned, and just let “them” try and come on our property to take them.  Let who? The police. Why would the police be coming on your property? To take my guns. They are going to, you know.  Why would I know that? Because these anti-gun people are going to try to get all our guns removed, but we are prepared, we won’t let them. It’s our Second Amendment right.

“The right to bear arms”. Some people chose to respect that right, and others love to flaunt it and a few abuse it. But regardless, every single day you read of someone using their “right” to kill fellow Americans. Angry, frustrated, probably in many cases, mentally ill people abusing their “right” and taking the lives of others. Why can’t we see that to the rest of the free world this is a crazy, American puzzle? Why do we so willingly arm our people to kill our people? Why can an 18 year old buy a semi-automatic weapon, walk into an elementary school and kill second graders? Only in America.

I think we have lost sight of what any of our Bill of Rights really mean. We have confused privileges, opportunities, with some type of biblical right to do whatever we want.  All of the freedoms stated in those first 10 Amendments have limitations, or did have. We limit freedom of speech – some hate speech is even prohibited, but certainly we can’t yell “fire” in a crowded space – or other harmful utterances. I doubt very much our founding fathers meant for us to have unlimited gun rights, particularly if we arrived at a place where we had better civil protection (police), and certainly they never imagined the evolution of the gun. I also don’t think they would be impressed with those standing on their “right” as a reason not to limit what guns can be placed in the hands of troubled 18 year olds – or 50 year olds.

I think of the young man who brought a gun to a protest last year. Why bring a gun? Well, it’s his right. OK, so he brings the gun to the protest because it’s his right to carry it – but that assumes he thought there would be trouble a gun could help him handle. And, it did. Someone is dead and the young man was found innocent at his trial because he believed he was “protecting himself”. Certainly he was met by a riled up crowd. But they didn’t have guns, he did. And he used lethal force to meet their hands and fists and sticks. It’s his “right” isn’t it?  But if he had not brought a gun across state lines to that protest. If he’d decided that there are better ways to show your disagreement of what they were protesting, there would have been no death.

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” Well, yes. You don’t see deer packing heat to protect themselves. But it’ people carrying guns who kill people. Take the gun away and there will be a lot fewer people killed. Certainly people die of knife wounds, and fists, and feet and whatever else has been imagined, but if you walk into an elementary school with a knife and hands and feet you won’t kill a roomful of children before you are brought down. A lot less people would die.

But, no, our “right to bear arms” trumps those children, and all the other people killed by gun violence through the years. Mrs. Winchester was haunted by the ghosts of all the people her family’s guns had killed. She tried to make amends by giving the ghosts a place to live, or find them rest. And maybe she was a little wacky. The main point is she was haunted by the power of the weapon her husband’s family had created and spent her fortune trying to distance herself. What are we doing?  A lot of rhetoric, but children and parade goers are still dying. What an American legacy.

 

July 2023

For the few months of this year we had more shootings than we had days (CNN recently reported 400 by mid-July). Obviously, since I wrote this, things are not getting better. In countries with stricter gun laws, where gun ownership is seen as a privilege, not a right, there are considerably fewer mass deaths. And after each incident here there is talk of doing something – but very little action. I wonder what Jesus would say about all this?

The Loss of Roe V Wade

 

Written June 2022

Roe versus Wade was just shot down by the Supreme Court, a court President Trump was able to stock with conservative judges, with more appointees than most presidents ever see. The outspoken Christian right voted for Trump with this goal in view. And they are celebrating their calculated victory. They won, abortion is no longer the law of the land, left in the hands of individual states, many of whom had bills on hand to totally abolish the act of abortion in their state.  How can this not be God’s will? Look how it all fell into place.

Certainly, I find abortion repugnant. I cannot think of a reason why I would have chosen to have one, especially with adoption so much a part of my family. But as certain as I am that I would not have chosen abortion for myself, I cannot understand why I should stop someone else from having one. What purpose would I have> Saving the unborn? But saving them for what, a life of being unwanted, a life of poverty?  And what business is it of mine if my neighbor decides to cheat on a test, steal paper from work, punch out an adversary or have an abortion. I am not their keeper.

Do the anti-abortionists believe that they are somehow adding points towards their salvation? Do they think that they are making the world a better place for God? Ushering the return of Christ? Do they imagine that young women will turn in droves towards the church as a result of this loving act?  I had a phone call years ago from an anti-abortionist group asking me what I felt for the millions of babies being killed. I said I believed God had those babies in heaven, and I was concerned about the millions of women who felt compelled to that extremity. Who is concerned about them? What provisions have been made by these celebrating groups, for the women who can no longer get an abortion, who might even be tried for murder?

Legislating morality hasn’t ever really worked. People still murder and burglarize and defraud. And even harsh penalties (three strikes, death penalty) haven’t kept people from continuing to break those laws. How do we suppose making abortion illegal will actually stop abortions? We are all sinners. Our best accomplishment is sin. Our entire character leans toward sin. Tell us to not do something and we reach toward it. Sure, we can withstand some temptations, but we all have our weakness. We all still bend toward sin, even if it’s just thoroughly judging others, or putting up obstacles that keep them from meeting the Lord.

My students believe that America is still a theistic country, even though none of them are theistic, nor their parents or very few people they know. They believe this because of the power the Christian Right seems to wield. They have had front row seats watching the Roe Versus Wade decommissioning. And they ask, what next? LGBQ+ rights? Birth control?  They see Christians as being intolerant of their rights, of enforcing “Christian” rules on non-believers. Where is the equity in that? And when in history did it ever even work, to mandate everyone behave as Christian, if not agree to become one?  America was born out of people seeking to have freedom from a state church, to worship, or not, as they deemed fit, not as the state imposed it.  And yet, here we are today, having the religious right impose their beliefs on everyone else.

Jesus seemed unconcerned about the Roman rule or laws in His day. He was more concerned with legalistic Jews keeping people from knowing God, setting up false barriers and multitudes of laws that made it seem impossible to please God. Jesus blew holes in all those laws. Not that God’s laws were bad, just impossible to live, and when humans piled on with even more laws – no one had a chance. So Jesus wasn’t a zealot trying to throw off Roman rule. He didn’t make a cause against treatment of women or slavery or any ill of His day. Instead, he walked and talked and ate with those people who had been persecuted against. He made them feel loved and accepted by Him, even if the world had pushed them away. Jesus focused on the heart, and heart relationships. He knew how full of sin we are. He knew that no number of laws would remove our sinfulness, even good laws. Instead, He did the one thing that could be done for us. He took on Himself the sins of us all – every one of us who has ever lived, every sin ever sinned – or was being sinned – or had yet to happen. Jesus died for sin, once for all. And the sin question was removed from the table. Now all God seeks to know is “what have you done about my Son, Jesus?”  He doesn’t ask if we’ve had an abortion or are gay or an alcoholic or a judgmental, Christian right wing Trumper. All He asks is if we’ve accepted the sacrifice of His Son in our place. Period.

And even those who have trusted their life to Christ continue to sin. I still thoroughly judge the right wing. I still struggle forgiving those who set this whole Roe Versus Wade reversal into action. But my forgiveness by God isn’t contingent on my sinlessness – because I can’t be sinless. I am to trust more and more on God, and allow him to do His work in my, in spite of my still raging sin nature. And regularly confess my sins so He can be free to use me.  But the saving is over, occurring on that Cross 2000 years ago and made real in my life when I accepted the gift when I was a teenager.  So I can accept that many of the anti-abortionists trying to push their lifestyle on to un-believers is done so in good, but ignorant, belief that they are somehow helping to usher in God’s Kingdom.

Problem is, we don’t usher in anything of God’s. And even if the new law stopped all abortions going forward, it still wouldn’t stop sin. And it still wouldn’t bring people to God. My young girls think that Christians hate them for their lifestyle choices, and if the Christians hate them, why would God love them?  They believe that they have to totally change who they are, scrub themselves clean from things others call “sin” and they just see as part of their personality, before they would be acceptable to God, and why would they? Why would they wish to be part of a God who doesn’t accept them as they are?

And yet, God is a God of choice. He is also a God of mercy and grace and lovingkindness and forgiveness. He does accept them right where they are, based on the work of His Son on the cross. How sad that message is blurred by well-meaning but legalistic and wrong-focused Christians.

 

July 2023

Again, a year later and many states have enforced extreme anti-abortion laws. What they didn’t foresee is that many of the procedures used in an abortion are also used to help women in the aftermath of a miscarriage or other uterine related issues. There are doctors afraid to perform the routine D & C procedure for fear of legal repercussions due to their state’s new laws. This puts women’s lives at risk, women who were not seeking an abortion, just seeking good medical care. The ripple effect has been huge. The best conservatives can hope for is that they won’t be needing one of these, often, life saving procedures anytime soon.

Obstacles to Grace

 

First written 6/2022

This is gay pride month. Most Christians (at least of the more conservative bent) would view this as an abomination. I teach in a school where there are several students dealing with gender issues – gay, trans, non-binary, bisexual, to name a few. They are trying to figure out who they are, like all their peers – who they are, whom they are attracted to, how they express themselves. And sometimes they evolve in and out of these new ideas. Sometimes they become exactly who they are.  They teach me a lot. Their road isn’t an easy one. There is so much confusion and fear and hatred of the LGBTQ+ community. No one would choose to put themselves through that. These kids are not opting to be gay or bi or trans. They are discovering who they truly are, and learning how to live with that – like we all do.

But as a Christian, don’t I believe that homosexuality is a sin? What isn’t a sin? We are all sinners. There isn’t the smallest section of our being that isn’t permeated with sin. We don’t have to be gay to be full up with sin. We forget that. God doesn’t look down and see a couple big sins. He sees all sin.  All have sinned and fall short of God’s standard. So when we zero in on specific sins, we are only fooling ourselves.

The Bible neatly arranges verses on sin to include sexual sins alongside anger and jealousy and judgement.  And they are all weighted the same. Someone I know was recently tapped to lead a Bible study group. She was given additional information on how to “deal with” any homosexuals or divorced people who joined her group.  She was instructed to be accepting of all, but when the Bible speaks to these two issues, she wasn’t to skirt them. They are sin.  So I asked her if she had pages on how to “deal with” angry people, judgmental people, people who abuse and try to control other people, people who are without grace and kindness, were there informational sheets on them?  Of course not, but there should be.

We forget that in God’s sight, sin is sin.  There are no big or little sins. Homosexuality isn’t any worse than alcoholism or intolerance. We are so used to being sinners, we can’t even see the sin that besets us.  We become self-righteous and, in order to maintain that, we must point to the “worse” sins of others. But the Bible doesn’t make those distinctions.  Why do we?

The Bible teaches that Jesus died for all sin, for all time.  In other words, all my sins were forgiven 2000 years ago on a cross outside of Jerusalem. All of my sin.  All of your sin. All of the sins of those marching in the gay pride parades across the country.  All sin.  No exceptions.  And, as a result, the issue isn’t what to do about sin, especially the sins of others.  The issue is what to do about Jesus’ gift of forgiveness.  He went to extraordinary lengths to purchase our freedom from sin and its penalty – death. Why do we throw it back at him and focus on particular sins, as if it were our job to erase them?  We certainly don’t look at other’s sins with a view to forgive. It’s always with a view to condemn, and, if possible, make their lives more difficult.  We take it upon ourselves to be the judge, jury and executioner.  We neglect Jesus’ extravagant gift of forgiveness, acting as if there were certain things he didn’t die for – because those things make us uncomfortable.

We are talking about people, people needing to know Jesus and experience His remarkable forgiveness When Jesus’ was on earth, he walked with “these people
and ate with them and deeply loved them.  The same people we’d like to erase, to demean and create laws that make them second class citizens.  I have a lesbian friend who told me one time she might be able to believe in God. God made some sense to her. But she didn’t think she could ever believe in Jesus, because Jesus hated her.  What?!! Well, the people who love Jesus hate her, so why wouldn’t she make the next leap to believe they were following Jesus and he hated her too?

Do you hear that?  Our self-righteous attitude in singling out homosexuality has driven people away from Christ.  I wonder what Christ thinks of that?  I wonder what He thinks about our trying to force gay children through rehabilitation camps to change their thinking. I wonder what he thinks about our trying to block gay marriages and gay adoptions from people who just want to be in companionship with someone and raise a family, like everyone else. Jesus died for all these people. He has already forgiven all their sins. And yet we make their sins front and center and say, in effect, that they are not fit for the Kingdom. Like we are?

He who has been forgiven much loves more.  Look at Jesus and Simon the Pharisee. Simon judged the woman who threw herself at Jesus feet. He was disgusted at Jesus’ response to this woman. Why? Because he couldn’t see himself as needing forgiveness. He saw her as the sinner and himself as the saint, and as a result could not love the Savior. 

As long as I think someone else a worse sinner than I, that I have somehow arrived on the sinless list – then I am unable to love Jesus to the fullest and celebrate my salvation.  Because the fact is, we have all been forgiven the same amount – all our sins. And that is as true of those who have yet to believe as it is of us who believe.

I want to learn to love and forgive as Jesus did. I want to err in the direction of loving and accepting everyone God brings into my life. They are all totally, wholly forgiven, whether they know it or not. I need to treat them as Jesus would.

 

 “The strange paradox present on every page of the Gospels and which we can verify any day, is that it is not guilt which is the obstacle to grace, as moralism supposes. On the contrary, it is the repression of guilt, self-justification, genuine self-righteousness and smugness which is the obstacle”….”Before Jesus there are not two opposed human categories, the guilty and the righteous; there are only the guilty.” Jesus exposes the guilt of “the moral and scrupulous people by proclaiming that all men are equally sinful despite all their efforts, so that not by showing off their vaunted impeccability, but by confessing their guilt, by repentance, will they find the grace which erases it.”

 

Paul Tournier, Guilt and Grace, A Psychological Study. New York: Harper and Row, 1962) pp. 136,, 112. As quoted by Dane Orland in Surprised by Jesus, chapter 1 p. 23, 24.

 

 

July 2023

In the year that has passed since I wrote this, many states have passed legislation that blocks the rights of the LGBTQ+ community. In one year the anti LGBTQ sentiments have increased rather than diminished. And Christians around the country are celebrating these new laws, proclaiming them victories for Christianity. As a Christian I continue to have difficulty understanding that. I think of my students and my LGBTQ friends and my heart breaks. This is not how we will draw people to Christ. But it is how we can hurt a lot of people. It also compels me to pray for those who cannot see their own guilt, and beware of my own blind spots, due to sin in my life.

 

 

 

Return to the Blog

 

July 2023

I have taken quite some time off blogging. My apologies. I’m not sure why. I wrote the following pieces over last summer, but never posted them. I can’t even remember, without looking, when I last posted. Hard to believe it’s been since December 2017. My sister passed away and then Covid really kicked us all. Teaching school from home for a year and a half, and then under Covid restrictions the next year (masked and spread apart) played into that. I was exhausted all the time. Then there was the 2020 Presidential campaign, which had, in my opinion, a positive ending, but it was touch and go for a while, and that was exhausting. I feel like I am just now coming out the fog.  I had a great school year. I am planning this coming year to be my last year of teaching. I am excited and scared for what comes after that. I feel more present, so it’s time to begin writing again.

Thank you, to whoever is reading these. I’d love any feedback you’d like to give. Dialogue is more fun than monologue – although I do ok with that J.  I will try to keep up my end of the bargain.