The following is the letter I sent to my church today. If it helps you see that not all Christians are actively advocating racial injustices, or supporting lax regulations on guns and ammo, or ignoring action in favor of thoughts and prayers, I am grateful to be one voice, one actor in the march for a society free from fear of one another and free from gun violence and racism. If it helps you take action, I am overjoyed for supporting your desire to make a difference!
Dear Church:
Don’t be political! This is sound advice every preacher receives from faithful disciples. It is sound advice we preachers can offer to our members. After all, I am not ordained to create politicians or political activists. I am called to equip the saints for the work of ministry. I am called with you to be disciples of Christ, and not hearers only but doers of the word, in such a time as this.
Let me begin with my confession. Unlike many of my colleagues, thoughts and prayers for El Paso and Dayton and Gilroy didn’t happen in my pastoral prayer Sunday. Not from me. Not from those present whom I asked for prayer concerns. We were silent. It was possibly on all our hearts and minds, those thoughts and prayers, but not on our lips. So here are the words I have:
Sin and evil. Sin and evil. Sin. Evil.
Only in acknowledging this evil of gun violence and our complicity in this sin can we actually begin the journey to ending it. WE must repent, because we have not changed this sin and evil. Us. We who have the power to vote, to march, to give up our weapons of mass destruction, to demand laws be written and enforced. To speak. To act. Us. We are response-able to confess, repent, and to do–because we are disciples of Christ Jesus. If we are.
We must choose whom we serve. SERVE is the operative word. Thoughts leading to prayers must then lead to action. For we serve an incarnate GOD in Christ who calls us to be doers of the word and not hearers only. Consider:
WE live in a state whose current governor ran an ad in which he appeared to point a gun at his daughter’s boyfriend (or at the least, clearly used the gun as a threat) to make a political point. And we laughed and voted him into office. I know some of you just said, “not me.”
Our theology demands that we acknowledge our total depravity as human beings and turn to God. None of us are free from the stain of voting for someone who thinks they can make light of armed threats on children. None of us are free from the stain of a president who laughs at someone shouting, “shoot ‘em” during his rally. None of us are free from the stain of a senate which refuses to enact common ground gun laws for the common good of our citizens.
I once stayed with a white church member overnight due to a church retreat. In the guest room I slept in, there was a solid wall stacked floor to ceiling, 10 X 10 X 10, with ammunition and gun racks full of guns were on the other wall. This is not a Christian way of life. This is not the way of peace. This is not taking up our cross and serving God. This is sin and evil in our midst which does not believe God’s word that “perfect love casts out fear.” But I was silent. Lord, hear my prayer of confession.
I was once told by a white parishioner, who patted his concealed sidearm, “I’ll be ready to protect you from gays and terrorists.” But I was silent. Lord, hear my prayer of confession. Empower me to speak, and to act with justice and peace from a heart filled with love.
Responsible gun owners do not fill bedrooms with ammo. Those who do are people living in fear, not the Way of Christ.
Responsible gun owners know and follow the golden rule of never, never, never pointing a gun at a person, because a gun is always assumed to be loaded. Those who disregard normal gun safety guidelines are behaving foolishly and without the righteousness of Love for our neighbors.
Responsible gun owners know that background checks should be universal and gun show loopholes closed. Those who disagree are lawless and not living under the proper authority of the Lawgiver.
Responsible gun owners know that they are not hunting with AK-47s and only need access to large capacity magazines on a regulated gun range, if in fact they think this is a fun sport. Those who believe otherwise are delighting in death and destruction rather than walking with the One who is Truth and Life.
These are common ground steps the majority of Americans agree upon and they will create a common good. These are common ground steps that all Christians can advocate without regard for politics. These are common ground steps that build a common regard for our neighbors’ safety and our own.
To do otherwise is sin and evil at work in our midst.
That sin and evil begins with fear and hate.
We live in a state with one of the highest numbers of hate groups who advocate white nationalism and white supremacy based on our racist history and a racist white identity culture. We live in a state which elected a governor threatening immigrants living, working, going to school with us. We live in a state being investigated for suppressing the vote of African-American citizens. We live in a state with the most memorials to Civil War soldiers who fought for the right to own slaves. And we live in a state whose economic success was created by a system that bought and enslaved kidnapped peoples and prisoners of wars between African nations, and we defined these men and women as three-fifths of a human.
READ that again.
The person of color serving you at Chick-Fil-A would have been, and is by many still, considered sub-human. Yes, less than human.
This blatant disregard for humanity, for God’s creation, for those who bear the image of their divine Maker, this is racism. There is no excuse today for not understanding the power of racism and the systemic underlying culture of racism in America that imprisons all of us in its evil grip. To disregard or refuse to learn and reject racism is a sin and is evil at work in our midst. To ignore it, to say “some of my best friends,” to declare, “I’m not a racist,” to shrug and say, “that’s a hundred years ago,” to claim, “but I don’t think that way,” is either racism or an irrational rejection of reality, or both, and is a sin and evil at work in our midst.
Racism, and slavery are at the root of our love for guns.
Choose this day whom you will serve: the father of lies who perpetuates ignorance and violence, or the Prince of Peace who is the Truth, Way and Life, reconciling all peoples to one another and to God.
Choose this day whom you will serve: the lovers of violence and fear who spew hateful words about our neighbors, or the Love who made heaven and earth and endured the cross to prove that non-violence was the only response to tyranny that will lead us to fulfill Jesus Christ’s prayer “on earth as in heaven.”
So, say your prayers, choose your thoughts, choose your words, but above all, choose your god.
And for the love of God, for the love of the one true God, please, for the love of God, do something.
Peace,
Rev Bev
Here are some resources for action and education:
Call our Senators to request that the Senate vote on the bipartisan bill HB 8 regarding background checks To read more, click HB 8
Sen. Johnny Isakson: (770) 661-0999, (202) 224-3643
Sen. David Perdue: (404) 865-0087, (202) 224-3521
Join or Support
Presbyterian Peace Fellowship (national) To learn more, click PPF
or the local
Presbytery Peacemaking Partnership https://www.atlpcusa.org/peacemaking or Presbyterians for a Better Georgia https://www.p4bg.org/
See our Presbyterian Resources:
PPF Minister of Gun Violence Prevention,
https://www.presbypeacefellowship.org/gun-violence/
http://justiceunbound.org/action-alerts/in-the-aftermath-of-two-mass-shootings-this-week/
Watch this testimony on Amazon Video (free if you have a Prime account) This is a documentary produced by Presbyterian David Barnhardt and Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
http://triggerdoc.com/
Come to Worship at RSPC the next two Sundays which were already in the works to address Peacemaking and Racial Justice: August 11 is Woodstock Sunday and August 18 is Tie Dye Sunday (wear your Tie Dye).
bevfriedlander 