Jesus and a Gun | Eastern North Carolina Now

    A good reader referred me to the following article of excellence: http://www.biblicalselfdefense.com/ It is thorough in coverage of the issue of weapons and the Bible. I commend it to you for reading. It saves me time and space with all the details it provides. It tends to say in summary, "Go ahead and pack heat in church. Jesus would approve."

    On the other extreme, is my next door neighbor. He is one of the finest Criminal Defense Lawyers in Eastern NC. On his vehicle is a bumper sticker: WOULD JESUS EXECUTE? He is trying to say Jesus is so kind and forgiving he would never deprive even a despicable killer and rapist of his life. What about a heartless Great White Shark in human disguise?

    I hunt and I have taken the lives of animals. I shoot with an accuracy of 100 yards / 3 bullets in a 3" circle with a .270 Browning Automatic Rifle. Go out this afternoon and see if you can shoot better. I try to bring down doves at 1:5 max. It's hard to do if you define it as 1 kill for 5 shells shot. Many hunting doves mean "1 dove for 5 boxes shot" when bragging around the campfire! My rule is NEVER SHOOT OR KILL THAT WHICH I WILL NOT EAT = LIFE IS PRECIOUS.

    Here are some basics for my contention that Jesus would not wear a gun and kill somebody. I think he would shoot to stop someone trying to kill. The perfect Son of God has to be a perfect marksman as well! Like the Lone Ranger or Roy Rogers, he could shoot the gun out of the hand of someone trying to shoot him!

    We now have movies that show blasting wounds spurting blood ever since Sam Peckenpaw did the first gory gunfight onscreen. It drew audiences to pay for tickets. They were repulsed and horrified, but human nature is to go again and again. My grandsons love bloody video games.

    (1) No sooner than Moses came down Mt. Sanai with a Commandment of "Thou shalt not kill," the Pharisees (lawyers/legislators) began to fine tune it to . . ."except in certain cases." The Priests told the Jews to "go and take a Tribe out. Kill every man, woman, child---even their animals. Bring all the treasure to us at the worship tent." That is being practiced today as I write in the Gaza Strip.

    (2) A famous story of a Quaker is told. They don't believe in killing—and practice it. This Quaker farmer heard a noise in his house and came out his upper balcony bedroom door with his shotgun. He shouted, "Sir, thou hast better move

    for thou art standing where I am about to shoot!" Like Jesus, he uses force as a warning to get attention of hard heads.

    (3) The closest Jesus came to Capital Punishment was with children being harmed. His words were, "Anyone who harms a child should have a millstone tied around his neck and cast into the middle of the sea." That was death by law in his day. He clearly cited it for use with child molesters. They destroy a young life forever and kill the spirit with horrible use and abuse of a sexual nature. It would apply to those distorting a child's mind to hate. Jesus WOULD EXECUTE, my friend.

    I see the Bible as its technical name implies. A "Canon" is a "measuring rod" used in early building days. Our Bible of today has a complex history of transmission, but the whole purpose is to keep people from going off half-cocked to use and abuse and kill with the rationalizations of a Pharisee. Read Matthew 23. Jesus despised the way of the Pharisee.

    A good Pharisee would make a hating skin head militia member with a Swastika tattooed on his chest. With a smile he says, "The Constitution allows me to bear arms and, like David Koresh, I have bought every weapon and type of ammo to defend my freedom." Many of these types are now called "Doomsday Prepers." There is even a TV series about their escape routes so they and their children can get to their cache of arms and food. They will kill with abandon and smiles to "protect themselves."

    What did Jesus really advocate?

    (1) Love you enemies and do good to them that hate you.

    (2) Forgive your enemies and help them. "If a soldier compels you to carry his cloak a mile, do it for two."

    (3) He could have come down from his cross. Instead, he "said not a mumbling word."

    (4) Love one another as I have loved you.

    (5) With the same judgment you use on your fellow man, God will judge you.

    You say, "BUT THAT WILL NEVER WORK!" I beg your pardon with 2 examples from today: Ghandi and Dr. Martin Luthur King, Jr.

    Both these revered leaders in change read the Bible / followed the example of Jesus to the point of bleeding and taking a beating from hateful people opposing change. Both men were gunned down. The native people of India were considered non-human by their British overlords. The same was (and still is) the outlook of some southern whites toward blacks.

    Even my own saintly Grandmother with a rare college education for women of her day told my mother, "Lucretia, you know Negroes don't have souls!" My mother was aghast, but her mother believed in her southern outlook and rationale. Negroes were less than human in her view and it didn't trouble her.

    Read your New Testament and see what it depicts:

    (1) Hate and killing are wrong.

    (2) Love ("unfailing good will" / Agape) are what you use, with God's help.

    (3) Leave the taking of life to God.

    (4) Leave the judging to God while you do the loving, like Christ.

    It would be marvelous if we could re-write the Bible to suit our situation. If we are honest about war of a WWII nature, don't say "God demands it." Instead say, "The horrors of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were inhumane. All nations and peoples who subjugate and destroy others without a conscience cannot co-exist with civilized and godly people. We must do what is necessary to keep this world the kind of good Creation God gave to us."

    I think Jesus, the Christ, would agree on this. I am not a "do as I tell you" kind of Preacher. I try to be a Servant Shepherd of the Flock. Jesus called himself "the Good Shepherd." So can we.

    I welcome your good thinking and responses on this most complex subject.