In 2018, I did something most people wouldn’t dare do. While making a play about guns in America, I took a group of high school students to the NRA annual meeting in our hometown of Dallas. What we saw and…
Worshiping guns, weaponizing God
I love my guns. To me, they’re beautiful tools. No different than the ancient hand drill passed down from my father, or the simple, bone-handled pocketknife I carry. I marvel at the craftsmanship of these utilitarian devices, the grain of…
Guys, guns and gods
I am an unabashed 1980s baby. My childhood was blessed with He-Man, Transformers, G.I. Joe, and the then-wrestlers from the National Wrestling Alliance, American Wrestling Alliance and the World Wrestling Federation. I grew up memorizing movie lines and moves by…
Slavery and guns in America: The constitutional parallels
“We don’t have to die like this. We don’t have to live like this.” Those two sentences have become something of a mantra for Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. I heard her say…
The church must show the world a more excellent way of nonviolence
The Monterey Park shooting was the 36th mass shooting in the USA in this young year. Reporters have trouble covering all the violence in our culture. Some of the violence stands out in graphic and horrifying detail. A 6-year-old child…
Yes, there is a way out of our national gun violence epidemic
There is a lot of discussion about gun violence after the mass shooting in Ulvade, Texas, and the alarming number of mass shootings across the United States. I suspect all of us have hurt deeply as the news of these…
The three arguments used to block sensible gun control and why they’re flawed
The most we manage to produce in the wake of another school shooting is a spate of arguments back and forth. Never any action. The satirical website The Onion is infamous for this headline, posted after almost every mass shooting:…
Guns, the elders and the children
Nineteen children were shot dead on Tuesday at their school in Uvalde, Texas; 10 elderly Black people were shot dead on Saturday while shopping in their local grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y. The rage of people is palpable but there…
On another classroom full of murdered children
Tuesday afternoon, May 24: My focus was the Republican primaries in my home state of Georgia. Donald Trump, in his continued efforts to protest the lost 2020 election and make sure he can never lose another one, had put up…
White supremacy and firearm idolatry: America’s Baal
“And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? If the LORD (be) God, follow him: but if Baal, (then) follow him. And the people answered him not a word.” — 1 Kings…
In the war of words over guns, ‘wisdom is better than weapons of war’
We fight the “gun battle” in many ways. Some hurl statistics like darts, trying to puncture the other side’s position. Their opponents are adept at this, too, reminding us: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics”…
‘Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over’
Can activism be an expression of faith? Can the practice of my faith, as an activist against violence and all the evils related to it, fulfill the Great Commandment? What might happen if people of faith intentionally examined the nature…