The Good Samaritan and his .40 Caliber Pistol

The recent school shooting in Oregon received some extra attention because the shooter or perpetrator was gunned down by someone off the street, someone not in law enforcement. This makes some in government nervous as the line between state power and violence and the kind wielded by vigilantes becomes confused.

But what caught my attention was the FOX channel headline (which was subsequently repeated on Christian radio) that the man who shot the perpetrator was a 'Good Samaritan'.

Now, whether he did the right thing in shooting the shooter is one question. Whether that is something that he ought to have done, could have done differently, or the like can be debated. Strong arguments can be made that even if killing someone else was wrong, to have not stopped him would have created the conditions for a greater wrong. We can go round and round about such questions all day and in the end I don't think there is a satisfactory answer. The world is fallen and sometimes all roads bode ill. It's an area of Christian ethics that rightly makes us uncomfortable.

But to call him a 'Good Samaritan' is problematic and troubling as it misrepresents the nature of neighbourliness and mercy. It doesn't just acknowledge that sometimes all choices are bad, but instead celebrates his deed, his killing and even sanctifies it. After all, Christ said - go and do likewise, right? And preferably with a .40 caliber pistol?

I immediately suspect this is about politics and the politics of gun culture. We've long heard that the only way to stop a bad man with a gun is by a good man having a gun. It's a misleading statement that is trying to set up a false dilemma in order to manipulate the audience.

But in this case the Right wants to reinforce their mantra and so it's very much in their interest to not only support this man and play up the event, but to put a spotlight on it and theologize it. And that's what's being done.

The Good Samaritan didn't intervene with violence. He didn't kill the bandits nor hunt them down. He dealt with fallen world realities and responded with grace, mercy, and love.

The use by the Right of this term is deliberate and agenda driven. They keep repeating it over and over again which tells me this was something ordered from the top - the same top where there are other meetings, often with corporate and political interests. The Family Life Network and American Family Radio can say they report the news from a Christian worldview. But let's just say that sometimes they have some help in that and there's some outside interests and influence at work in the equation - that seem to 'inform' their notions of a Christian worldview.

Some will consider the man who stopped the shooter to be a hero. Fine, I expect that but he's not for us - for Christians I mean. Whether he did right or not - he's not a hero, not someone to celebrate, or emulate. He killed a man and if he has a conscience, if he has a soul, that will bother him and rightly so. It should bother him and make him wonder if there wasn't some other way.

Regardless, we don't celebrate it and we don't twist Scripture and the teachings of Christ in order to score political points and manipulate the gullible people who listen to Christian radio or watch propaganda outlets like FOX.