Good Christians Need Not Own Guns

by Noah Kim | Apr 7, 2019 9:47 pm

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Posted to: Legal Writes, Religion

Two thousands years after Jesus turned water into wine, two of his loyal followers erected a forge outside a New Haven church Sunday to turn a rifle into a rake — then offered a Christian take on the power of the gun versus the power of the cross. The two followers, anti-violence activists Shane Claiborne and Mike Martin, stopped by the United Church on the Green to deliver a sermon. As a part of a publicity tour to promote their book Beating Guns, the pair spoke about their decision to fight gun violence by repurposing guns into garden tools — to “cleanse these instruments of destruction in the fire of the forge,” in the words of Claiborne. They also invited members of hte public to do some of that cleansing outside the church. Inspired by the biblical prophets’ call to “beat swords into plowshares,” the men have turned handguns into hammers, AR-15s into garden rakes, and AK-47s into shovels. New Haven is among the communities that have participated in the project. (Read about that here.) The activists come from different backgrounds: Claiborne is an evangelical author and anti-violence activist. Martin is a Mennonite pastor turned blacksmith. Both of them believe in the necessity of a “Christian response” to the American gun violence crisis. The tour was planned to coincide with the pre-Easter season of Lent, when many Christians reflect on the sanctity of life. During Sunday night’s event, both Claiborne and Martin emphasized the religious groundings of their project. Martin drew links between the fire of the forge and the burning bush as well as the hardening of metal and the “hardening of Pharaoh’s heart” in the Book of Exodus. Claiborne spent much of his speech contemplating the fact that Evangelical Christians have a higher rate of gun ownership than any other demographic in the country. He spoke with humor, conviction, and a quasi-biblical cadence, arguing eloquently that guns contradict the Christian ideas of mercy and compassion. “The gun and the cross give us two very different versions of power,” he said. “One says ‘I’m prepared to die.’ The other says ‘I’m prepared to kill.’” He and the audience took particular umbrage from the number-one bestselling “bible” case in America, which doubles as a handgun-concealer. “When we use the word ‘idolatry’ to describe our country’s gun obsession, we don’t think we go too far,” he said, holding one of the cases aloft as people booed and hissed. After they finished speaking, Claiborne and Martin asked the audience to accompany them to a forge that they had assembled outside, where Martin’s father, Fred Martin, was busy heating up a rifle barrel. First Claiborne read aloud a prayer that he had written to commemorate the event. “Dear God, we thank you for giving us a perfect world, and we ask forgiveness to the mess we’ve made of it,” he said. “We ask that you soften our hearts like the forge softens metal.” Outside, the activists invited those who had been personally affected by gun violence to help them hammer the rifle barrel into a different shape. Henrietta Beckman, president of the anti-violence organization Mothers United Against Violence, dedicated the act to her son, Randy, who died from a gunshot wound 17 years ago. Back inside the church, Claiborne and Martin concluded the event by presenting the recently-forged garden tools to agricultural programs in Greater New Haven and to individuals whose family members had been affected by gun violence, including Beckman. Retired Bishop Jim Curry (pictured), who has worked with both Claiborne and Martin in the past, offered the concluding remarks. “It’s not over, but it has begun,” he said. “Thank God for that.”

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posted by: THREEFIFTHS on April 8, 2019 2:22am “I am not anti-gun. I’m pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We’d turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don’t ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.” Molly Ivins

posted by: fcastle1984 on April 8, 2019 2:47am Neither do thugs. But they still buy them

posted by: redman on April 8, 2019 8:49am I can’t help but wonder how many of these so called “Christians” support the killing of an unborn human.

posted by: 1644 on April 8, 2019 10:25am This stunt exemplifies why I stopped supporting my church. It is too politicized, as the clergy and the congregations have turned the institutions into another way to promote their divisive political views. As a conservative, I know that I am no longer welcome in the church I grew up it, and haven’t been since at least the Bush years. I miss it, and don’t feel comfortable in more evangelical, extroverted congregations. The UCC is dying. It’s sad.

posted by: IloveMYcity203 on April 8, 2019 10:53am “The gun and the cross give us two very different versions of power,” he said. “One says ‘I’m prepared to die.’ The other says ‘I’m prepared to kill.’” - Shane Claiborne.

I can easily say, “One says, I’m prepared to die, and the other says, “I am not prepared to die.”

Law abiding citizens don’t walk around armed thinking, “I am ready to kill someone.” With that type of Rhetoric, you might as well say every police officer in this country is ready to kill someone. It’s more like someone is prepared to stop the threat or prevent someone from hurting them or taking their live. To shoot to kill someone is unloading the entire magazine on a person even after 1, 2 or 3 rounds made them stop. I cannot believe the thinking of some people. It amazes me how people will put a spin on anything especially when they have no idea about anything. For someone who carries (legally) and follow all of the rules and laws, I take that comment personally. Most criminals who don’t care about any laws or what people think may be applicable to that, do not put every legal gun owner in the same boat.

posted by: jim1 on April 8, 2019 12:06pm DID THEY GET A FIRE PERMIT? A GUN SO CLOSE TO THAT BELOVED GREEN.

posted by: Kevin McCarthy on April 8, 2019 12:11pm Fcastle1984, most people who die of gun violence are not killed by thugs. Nearly two-thirds of all gun fatalities in this country are suicides. Reducing the availability of guns reduces the number of suicides.

posted by: William Kurtz 1644 wrote: “This stunt exemplifies why I stopped supporting my church. It is too politicized, as the clergy and the congregations have turned the institutions into another way to promote their divisive political views. “ No one less ‘politicized’ than Jesus, amirite?

posted by: jim1 on April 8, 2019 12:41pm Nice tools, great idea!!!! I love stunts like this. Fewer guns means fewer killed or maimed.

posted by: 1644 on April 8, 2019 1:12pm WK: Not at all. Jesus rejected the Zealots’ call for political revolution, and said, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.”

posted by: LookOut on April 8, 2019 1:23pm Kevin While your bringing the suicide statistic into the discussion is interesting, your conclusion that reducing the availability of guns (which may not be the real result of this stunt) will reduce suicides is a stretch. Those who decide to take their own life will find a way (slit wrists, pills, CO poisoning, jumping off bridges). And even if we ‘save’ a few people who want to kill themselves, is it worth blocking the ability of law-abiding citizen self-protection? I’d rather spend energy fighting the #1 cause of death in the US (abortion).

posted by: 1644 on April 8, 2019 2:37pm 3/5’s: This just in

https://www.nhregister.com/policereports/article/New-Haven-man-stabbed-with-own-knife-in-Stamford-13750480.php Perhaps strip clubs should start pre-cutting the strip steaks so patrons don’t need to bring their own knives! In this case, a wholesome father-son outing was turned into a near tragedy due to the presence of a knife.

posted by: LookOut on April 8, 2019 3:12pm good point 1644….knives tend to be used more than guns in most criminal activity. There is even a significant percentage committed with bare hands. (Please don’t tell this church, I’d hate to see a hand removal ceremony on the green) https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/uwcc.pdf

posted by: THREEFIFTHS on April 8, 2019 3:47pm posted by: 1644 on April 8, 2019 2:37pm

3/5’s: This just in

https://www.nhregister.com/policereports/article/New-Haven-man-stabbed-with-own-knife-in-Stamford-13750480.php Perhaps strip clubs should start pre-cutting the strip steaks so patrons don’t need to bring their own knives! In this case, a wholesome father-son outing was turned into a near tragedy due to the presence of a knife. It appears the father pulled the knife to defend himself and that knife was taken from him and he was stabbed with his own knife in the back and the back of his head.” The knife was taken from him.Just like people can have Guns taken from them.Like I said before.Go back to Flint Lock Firearms. posted by: redman on April 8, 2019 8:49am

I can’t help but wonder how many of these so called “Christians” support the killing of an unborn human. How about these so called “Christians” that support the death penalty?

posted by: LookOut on April 8, 2019 3:12pm

good point 1644….knives tend to be used more than guns in most criminal activity. There is even a significant percentage committed with bare hands. (Please don’t tell this church, I’d hate to see a hand removal ceremony on the green) More more people survive knife attacks the gun attacks. Number of murder victims in the United States in 2017, by weapon America’s most popular murder weapons Handguns were by far the most popular murder weapon used in the US in 2017. That year 7,032 people were murdered with handguns. Knives or cutting instruments were the second most popular weapon used, with 1,691 murders committed with a knife. https://www.statista.com/statistics/195325/murder-victims-in-the-us-by-weapon-used/

posted by: Bill Saunders on April 8, 2019 3:56pm I still think this community experiment in ‘transformation’ is fantastic!

posted by: narcan on April 8, 2019 4:00pm Let’s not be hasty, LookOut, you may be onto something. Hands are often the unwitting victim of a violent gun being placed in them, telepathically forcing them to pull its wicked trigger. Hands are also manipulated by other inanimate objects like knives, clubs, and aSsaULt WeApOnS, and occasionally even act directly to commit crimes of their own volition, completely independent of the person they are attached to. If we didn’t have hands, we would no doubt see the killings and violent crimes come to a complete cessation. You know, for the children. Did anyone at this stunt offer ideas to re-educate a generation raised to lash out violently at every disappointment. The article makes it sound as if they just fluffed about how pieces of metal and plastic somehow magically turn kindly, harmless people into killers.

posted by: Bill Saunders on April 8, 2019 5:08pm I obviously give people a lot more credit than you do. I think the ‘metaphor’ transmits it’s message without words. That is part of what makes it powerful.

posted by: Kevin McCarthy on April 8, 2019 9:46pm LookOut, please read this https://americanhealth.jhu.edu/article/how-do-gun-laws-affect-suicide-rates

posted by: Kevin McCarthy on April 8, 2019 9:52pm LookOut, or if you prefer non-academic literature, this https://www.vox.com/2015/10/1/18000516/suicide-guns

posted by: Kevin McCarthy on April 8, 2019 9:57pm LookOut, (finally), this article has a good review of the literature, covering a variety of analytic techniques https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/supplementary/firearm-availability-suicide.html

posted by: William Kurtz ” Jesus rejected the Zealots’ call for political revolution, and said, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.”” Well . . . I’m no theologian and interpretations of that passage disagree. But Jesus’s words concern the legitimacy of obedience to civil authority and adherence to civil laws and don’t seem to address the question of whether it’s appropriate for people’s religious convictions to shape their views on public policy. Would you also agree that it’s “too political” for pro-life activists to criticize abortion or urge legislators to pass restrictions on it?

posted by: LookOut on April 9, 2019 11:17am narcan - very interesting. If only we could train human hands to somehow resist the dangerous urges of those guns….

posted by: 1644 on April 9, 2019 12:34pm WK: I am all for individuals of any viewpoint exercising their first amendment rights on whatever issue is important to them. I do not believe religious organizations, as organizations, should advocate for the state to impose their religious views on others.

The leftward lurch of the formerly mainline churches would not bother me if I could find a church home in a fundamentalist congregation. Unfortunately, I am as uncomfortable in them as I am in the church I grew up in and was long a member of. I also recognize that, as a congregational church, it’s majority rule. I listen to Conference representatives testify in Hartford, and think, those who claim to represent me don’t. So, I know it’s no longer my church, and I am not welcome there.

On scripture, well, Romans 13 is the classic deference to authority citation. Otherwise, the Bible is full of contractions, such as the Parable of the Ten Virgins versus the Parable of the Vineyard (few like the latter). Generally, most ministers I know so twist the obvious meaning of scriptural passages to match their personal views even Dick Cheney would call it torture.

posted by: Hartman13 on April 9, 2019 1:33pm Why am I reading “Christian” (or any other religion) at all in this article? This project was founded by the New Haven Police Department and Yale New Haven Hospital’s Injury Free Coalition for Children. I’m personally insulted - not at all by the project (It was my idea), but rather by the interjection of religion into it.

It’s shameful there’s not a single mention of the NHPD and Yale New Haven Hospital (Especially Pina Violano), who’s dedicated participants have spent thousands of collective hours making this happen. This project broke me and now reading about it in this sense, has broken my heart.

posted by: pd093 on April 9, 2019 10:17pm I remember when Yale student Christian Prince was robbed and murdered on the steps of St. Mary’s Church on Hillhouse Ave. I have attended church at St. Mary’s for over 30 years and have carried my pistol with me every time.

posted by: ethanjrt on April 10, 2019 9:37am LOL @ the ol’ “people will find a way” argument, which while certainly true of *some* people flies in the face of all research and evidence. (Of course this goes not only for suicides but also for obtaining illegal guns, gun homicides, etc.) LookOut, do a little reading (maybe start with Kevin’s links) and get back to us please.