Guns and God

Now this is something I find very interesting so I’m going to challenge you, I hope, with my understanding of the matter of Guns and God. For most people who believe in God, you’ll find that guns and God go hand in hand. This seems to go along with people in the Bible Belt particularly and most, not all, of everyone else in the United States who is called or refers to themselves as “Christian”. A Christian being one who attempts to live their life as Jesus. In any case, would Jesus be one to defend himself with a gun? I don’t think so for a number of reasons, since the story goes he “allowed” himself to be crucified “unjustly” and did not strike all the Roman’s and high priests of Judaism who convicted him with lightning bolts, nor did he simply create an AR-15 Assault rifle out of thin air and start wasting all his attackers left and right.

There are more references to how Christianity would not promote self defense in any form whatsoever. Luke 6:29 says “If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them”.

Matthew 5:39 says “But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.”

So essentially the Christian thing to do in any situation where violence is perpetrated against yourself is to allow it to happen. This is backed by Jesus’ own actions as well as “Gods word”. If you were getting raped and murdered even, the clear cut thing to do according to Christian theology is to let it happen, and maybe pray for your attacker or something good natured of that sort.

Matthew 6:20 after all says to “build your treasures in heaven”, and defending your life on earth wouldn’t seem to be conducive to that. 1Peter 5:10 says “And after you have suffered a little while, the God off all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.” 1John 2:15-17 says “do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever.”

So it would seem with all these biblical references to not love the world, follow the life of Jesus, turn your cheek, take on suffering, build your treasures in heaven, and not take vengeance or self defense because “your time on this earth is short, compared to eternity in heaven”… and the only goal of life is to follow Jesus’ commands and words to do just that.

Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird” stated in court that “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand”. Which, as a Christian that would take some serious courage to not defend yourself but apparently that is exactly what you’re supposed to do. I would expect the non Christian would be more apt to utilize guns according to everything I have ever learned in my 20 years of studying Christian theology, yet the majority of Christians in the Untied States don’t bother with it. They ignore it, or are ignorant of the matter altogether. Perhaps they don’t have the courage to go without a gun, or the courage to not defend themselves, or the courage to turn their cheek. Perhaps they really value their life on this world more than their religion and God tells them they should. Perhaps they don’t really want to do what God says, they want to make their religion out to be what they want it to be, and somehow somewhere a majority of them turn Christianity into a religion that promotes gun use and self defense. How, I will never see it, because the Bible really teaches just the opposite. I didn’t understand the majority of Christians when I was a Christian but I do seem to understand it better as an agnostic atheist. I suspect even bringing it up to some Christians, about this Guns and God issue that I just brought up might bring on some form of cognitive dissonance and get angry at me, or whatever, but that’s not my intention. I guess in bringing it up my intention is to cause people to think… as well as to ask you what you think on the matter. That goes for every Christian who promotes guns and self defense.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfvLcozLwtE[/youtube]

The relationship between Christians and guns is similar to the relationship between Christians and taxes. It’s not so much that the Christian is in favor of shooting people or being greedy, it’s that they are against the state rendering people defenseless or controlling the economy.

IN other words, there is a big difference between saying, “I will lay down my life and not defend myself from this attacker because I am a good Christian” and “I will take everybody’s guns away so they can’t defend themselves because I am a good Christian.”

This seems to be a substantial difference between the liberals and conservatives- I’ve talked to more than one liberal who seems to think that if something is good, making it mandatory is even better. This is anathema to how conservatives think, and neither side seems to think the other is making sense about this point.

They are against the state, yet “give to ceasar what is caesars” and “God appoints rulers” doesn’t seem to matter when it comes to taxes and presidents. Ultimately they don’t act on Christian principles as much as principles of their culture. Their culture is embedded with Christianity, will claim they are Christian, but really its something else when you chop it up into little pieces and analyze them.

Luke 22:36: He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one."

The words of Jesus himself, instructing his disciples to buy swords for their own defense, even if they have to sell their cloak to get one.

The Puritans carried guns everywhere, especially into Church, every family was required to carry them.

I don’t know who you mean when you say ‘they’ in the above, but individual people owning and carrying weapons for self defense is a Christian tradition going all the way back to Christ.

This is a good defense of someone who is against gun control but dislikes guns, but I don’t think it works as a defense of Christians who love guns and see no problem with having guns and intending to use them in a variety of situations that might not sit well with parts of the Bible.

The liberal who is against gun control - often for secular reasons is not justifying this…

“I will take everybody’s guns away so they can’t defend themselves because I am a good Christian.”

Those who do justify themselves this way can be pressed to defend this position, but the others cannot be.

I support the emphasis on pointing out that outlawing negatively-viewed things does not necessarily at all follow from viewing those things negatively. And in general both conservatives and liberals do, at least sometimes in both cases, decide that while they do not like X, they think outlawing it is a bad idea and/or wrong morally. Both forget this on certain issues. Likewise with good things. Libertarians and Anarchists tend to be more consistant on such issues, but conservatives, it seems to me have, historically been happy to make good things mandatory and outlaw things they view dimly as a rule also.

And the military has, of course, been supported by taxes. The wars in Iraq, for example were supported by taxes. In the more recent war this involved an incredible transfer of citizen money into the hands of corporations close to the administration - and it was unique, because so much was privitized in war support. There was not so much conservative outcry against the government controlling the economy in that case.

To the non-Christian, or at least many, the playing field would be very different, if, in the main Christian conservatives were against gun restrictions AND viewed gun ownership like homosexual acts or prostitution.

So it matters if Angry’s argument - that the Bible indicates a Christian position should be anti-gun. If he is right about that it does not follow that Christians should be for gun restrictions, as you accurately point out, but this still leaves and apparant inconsistancy in much of the US Christian population who do not view gun owning as immoral.

But you skip past this, as if the issue is not so relevent or conceded. If Angry is correct that Bible would be against gun ownership - at least as self-defense rather than say hunting - then we have an imbalanced situation. We have this group of conservatives outraged by gun restrictions but not outraged by people ready to kill to defend themselves.

If they were consistant, perhaps society would be different and restrictions would be less necessary. Perhaps not.

As for me I suppose I am concered about gun restrictions not because of individual crime but rather the always present threat of an increasingly poor unbelievably powerful nation and all the treands towards facism I see. So it is not like I am trying to come up with a clever way to get rid of guns from the hands of citizens and so weighing in here. I don’t like guns and I think what guns being available as they are leads to all sorts of horrible outcomes. I am just concerned about even worse ones. So on this issue I am a utilitarian. The Conservative Christians seem to be deontologists, with the Constitution, interpreted their way, as the set of rules AND NOT THE BIBLE as the source of their deontology.

I think there is but one questionable reference in the bible that condones owning a sword and that is it. There are many, many more things that they (gun owning christians) ignore.

What’s questionable about it? It’s the words of Jesus specifically telling his followers to go buy swords. It’s important enough that if they have to sell their robes to afford them, they should.

We don’t do biblical interpretation by counting the number of verses that support our opinion, counting the verses that don’t, and simply ignoring the smaller pile of verses.

Jesus told his followers to arm themselves, and that’s that. Sure, it has to be understood in the context of his admonitions against violence, but he still said it.

You can’t very well declare Christians aren’t doing Christianity right for wanting to bare arms when this verse exists. There goes your case, as far as I can tell.

He told his disciples to buy a sword, in the time of his upcoming arrest. It can be seen as a possible deterrent so that they would arrest him, instead of kill him on the spot? Unknown of course, but the reason for it couldn’t be so they can go against “turning their cheek.” So it is questionable in the context of why Jesus was saying it. Taking into account the broader context of the N.T., it has been postulated theologically to not condone use weaponry. Not only the quotes I have above, but: “For all who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matt. 26:52). Ironically when Peter does chop off the man’s ear when they come to arrest Jesus, he warned him “no more of that”.

Jesus did often speak figuratively it’s hard to discern in the context of that one passage, that it was literal when taken against the backdrop of the entire NT

He told his disciples to buy a sword, in the time of his upcoming arrest. It can be seen as a possible deterrent so that they would arrest him, instead of kill him on the spot? Unknown of course, but the reason for it couldn’t be so they can go against “turning their cheek.” So it is questionable in the context of why Jesus was saying it. Taking into account the broader context of the N.T., it has been postulated theologically to not condone use weaponry. Not only the quotes I have above, but: “For all who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matt. 26:52). Ironically when Peter does chop off the man’s ear when they come to arrest Jesus, he warned him “no more of that”.

Jesus did often speak figuratively it’s hard to discern in the context of that one passage, that it was literal when taken against the backdrop of the entire NT

I’ve read a few interpretations, the one that makes the most sense to me is that he knows he’s going to be arrested, crucified and such, and that the disciples will be going off without him to preach in a world full of robbers and highwaymen and such. I don’t think he was planning an armed resistance to his arrest.

Look at the full verse though: "“Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.”

People only ever quote that second half. The first half, ‘put your sword back in its place’ (the sheath, I can only imagine), is a further justification for Peter to carry one- a sword Jesus told him to go buy in that verse in Luke.

Well, if we extend it a couple verses, it goes like this:

"He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. 37 It is written: ‘And he was numbered with the transgressors’[a]; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.”

38 The disciples said, “See, Lord, here are two swords.”

“That’s enough!” he replied.

So, he tells them to buy swords, they show him some swords that they have, and He doesn’t correct their literal interpretation of His words. Then on the Mount of Olives, we find Peter carrying a sword. So I see no signs that it wasn’t meant to be taken literally.

Sure the only sign to not take it literally is multiple references to not use violence at any time.

However, there is also no sign that this is prescriptive to all people, as opposed to the other verses I already mentioned.

Like I said, its a stretch.

This explanation may be a bit of a stretch as well, on the figurative interpretation of sword. But that’s how it goes with the bible, whatever you want it to mean, it can mean.

clearbibleanswers.org/questionsa … -2236.html

Another somewhat reasonable explanation here:

holyspiritactivism.com/2013/01/1 … wo-swords/

Essentially, theologically there isn’t much justification for it. On the surface, sure, jesus said buy swords (myopic NT View ignoring everything else)

So when you thought Jesus universally condemned self-defense, you had the confidence to say this:

But now that I point out there’s a verse quite clearly showing Jesus advocating the purchase of weapons for self defense, suddenly it’s all so vague and the Bible can mean whatever you want it to?

Pretty self-serving reversal of position, there.

Again, it’s pretty straight forward- Jesus tells his followers to go buy swords, and they do. You can’t accuse Americans of being bad Christians for owning weapons for self defense when the discplines carry swords at Jesus’ request. That’s that.

All you’ve got left is “American Christians interpret the Bible differently than me” which is a much, MUCH weaker position, especially considering nearly every Christian culture in existence has interpreted that verse differently than you (and the websites you link), because nearly every Christian culture has been an armed culture.

Everything can be seen as straightforward on what I said. If you want to follow the bible though, you’ll end up insane or in jail. I’m saying there is a lot more reason lumped against why you think the bible justifies is at, as opposed to why the bible doesn’t justify it.

You argued that the Bible doesn’t justify people owning weapons to defend themselves. Jesus explicitly tells his disciples to go buy some weapons. If you want straightforward, it doesn’t get any more straight forward than that. None of the verses about peace in general or turning the other cheek are as explicit about the ownership of weapons as the verse where Jesus says “Go buy some weapons, y’all.”

A conversation about when it’s alright to use those weapons and when it isn’t could be interesting, but I don’t see any room for debate on whether or not it’s permissible in Christianity to own them.

And yet you chose to use the Bible, and the Bible alone, as the source of evidence to support your case. Now that I’m using it, all of the sudden you want to disparage it? You just disparage your own case if so.

Jesus tells his followers to go and buy weapons. At no point does he say that people shouldn’t have weapons. He drives the money-changers out of the temple with a whip. Virtually every Christian culture from then until now (incuding the immediate disciples of Christ) armed themselves. Christians have every reason to think that it’s alright to own weapons in self defense. Your argument doesn’t work.

To understand what the bible justifies or not you have to take the bible in its entire context. Not one liners here and there (in this case only here) in anecdotal stories that fly against everything else it states.

I think the issue is even more problematic when dealing with nukes, since these must necessarily have collateral damage. Innocents will die. So it is not simply a matter of turning the other cheek on the perpetrator, but on children, unborn children, women, people in hospitals, dissidents against the goverment one is at war with etc.

Yes sure very true, how the Christian right wing and military go hand in hand as well. What would Jesus do? Join the Marines? Na.