Guns and Jesus

Let me start by saying I don't know. I don't know and I'm OK with that. Now let's move on.

It seems to me that there are a lot of fearful and angry Christians. I don't blame them. It is scary and awful when we don't feel safe. Especially scary and awful when we don't feel like our kids are safe. We want to feel safe. Secure. Sure of tomorrow. That is how we live in peace, right? But is this truly a peaceful existence? Should our security depend on our exterior circumstances? Is that what Jesus taught?

Christians seem to be all about guns and our "right" to carry them. In basic Christianity 101 (no class, just life lessons) I learned that as a follower of Jesus, "My life is not my own". This is a very tough lesson to learn, but when I began to get it I experienced such freedom. When I learned how to let go of things, and what I planned, and how I wanted everything to happen...and I learned to trust God, even when awful, scary, bad things happen to me or my loved ones, freedom came. When I learned I could still trust in His goodness...freedom came. I was no longer waiting for the other shoe to drop, or fearful of the boogie-man (or a devil that I had made bigger than God.) Peace came. Inner peace came and remains today.

Many Christians want to see teachers carrying guns in schools. To keep our kids safe. To ensure safety. To feel secure again. Not being on board with this popular opinion makes someone like me very unpopular. But it's OK. I don't know anything. I have read my Bible (Bibles...because I read them a lot and they fall apart) for many years, and I especially like to read about Jesus and His teachings. I don't know much of anything, but I don't see where He teaches us about our right to carry guns or even our right to defend ourselves. I do remember reading somewhere how He taught us that if someone slaps us, to turn the other cheek and let him slap it too. Radical. That Jesus, He's such a radical. 

I think about Martin Luther King and others whom we admire, and name streets after. So many of our heroes became such because of their radical ideas and principals. Ideas of fighting hate with love, and violence with peace. Stuff like that. Jesus stuff.

Where does this leave us? I was asked a question about Hitler...and what should the allies have done in WWII against him? I think about that. I think about a lot of things...and I talk to Jesus and ask lots of questions. It seems to me that He already gave me so many answers in His teachings. He taught about losing my life to gain it. Then He showed us by example. When the religious and political nut jobs formed a lynch mob and went after Jesus, He went along with them. He didn't pull out a pistol and defend Himself. He so powerfully showed us that there is a better way, and even if we die believing that love is the better way, we don't really die...we live forever.

So, when I think about Hitler and all of the Jews being herded up and taken to camp, I wonder what we (Christians) could have done? I wonder what would have happened if instead of believing that our only recourse against evil is to shoot and kill it with guns and weapons...we acted on what Jesus taught? What if we truly believed Him? We believe so many other things we read in our Bibles. What if all of the Christian people insisted on going with their Jewish friends and neighbors to these camps. What if we stood with them, demanding to be taken too? "If you take my brother, neighbor, friend...take me too!" What would Hitler's men have done in that situation? After all, they were trying to create a "perfect" race...what if we didn't allow them to have their evil  illusion? What if we were truly willing to die for what we believe? 

Is God's love, and grace, and mercy what we believe? Are we so fearful of death...our own or a loved one...that we will arm ourselves and take the life of another? Have we become the judge of the world? Is who gets to live and who must die...all up to us? Is the life of a mentally deranged and grieving young man of less value than another? 

Maybe the problem goes all the way back to the beginning. Remember the two trees in the garden? 
There was the "tree of life" and the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil."
Maybe we're still eating from the wrong tree...