Beneath this star-spangled net of red, white and blue, we are trapped by hate and violence – and entitlement to our weapons.
The president is correct: there IS an insanity gripping our nation
Trump is correct that we are experiencing a frightening dis-ease in America. Insanity – moral disorder – imperils our people, our nation, our earth. What he doesn’t seem to recognize is that he is the source of much of the chaos, the claims of many evangelical leaders notwithstanding.
‘It feels like being hunted’: American churches, mass shootings and ‘the slaughter of the innocents’
It’s a question we have asked countless times: have we reached a turning point? Do our faith communities, whose history began at the place of the skull and the killing fields of a Roman coliseum, have a will or a witness for our assault-weapon-proliferated, executionary times?
The President is right: Mental illness is killing all of us
Trump isn’t altogether wrong – gun deaths in America are driven by a mental health crisis. However, instead of that un-wellness resting upon a lone shooter or evil terrorist, it is visited upon all of us who still believe that the same circular conversation will actually result in something different.
Shaming pastors is not the way to respond to two more mass shootings
In the aftermath of mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, I read and heard exhortations along these lines: “If your pastor does not call out white supremacy and gun violence tomorrow in worship, it’s time to find another church.” Please, can we stop doing this?
Responding to gun violence in America: the Church cannot give up
Because we follow the Prince of Peace, the seemingly endless gun violence in our nation affects us in a deep place. Our hearts and spirits feel this violence as a literal assault on our humanity and our faith. So what do we do now?
I’m a pastor who refuses to offer ‘thoughts and prayers’ for these people
I’m praying that God will comfort suffering victims and afflict their political and religious victimizers. That’s not a “God bless the USA” prayer. It’s a “Thy will be done” prayer.
The root of our inability to end gun violence is spiritual, but not in the way many think
Christians in America are unable to #ActTo EndGunViolence because we have intertwined the American story with the Myth of Redemptive Violence. We must be converted away from this pervasive myth by the nonviolent, suffering resistance to evil that is the Story of Jesus.
Do we love children enough to put our guns aside?
Could the Constitutional right to own guns be in direct conflict with the Christian responsibility to love one’s neighbor, protect human life and prioritize the vulnerable?