In the American context it is often argued that even if guns
sales were suspended there are so many guns 'out there' that crime and mass
shootings would not be affected. That may be true but I'm not sure that continued
unrestricted gun sales are either the solution or correct moral response.
It's an issue for Babylon. Only Christians who have confused
the 2nd Amendment with Christian doctrine or have somehow
synthesized the two into a syncretistic ethic believe it is somehow a
'Christian' issue.
If the government were to require that we all hand in our
guns then in terms of the New Testament's imperatives with regard to the civil
magistrate, we should hand them in.
I know that's sacrilege to many. They believe that such a law
would be 'sin' and therefore something that we should collectively disobey. Turning
over firearms is not sin, at least not according to the New Testament. No
right-thinking Biblically minded Christian would be part of the military or
police. No Christian would carry arms in order to exact revenge or kill an
attacker. Beyond hunting and perhaps some very limited notion of
self-defense... I'm trying to be charitable... there's no reason for Christians
to bother with them.
They needn't worry anyway. No one in Washington is mad enough
to try and seize guns at this point. They're already afraid of insurrection.
Such a move would all but guarantee it.
The mass shooting issue couldn't be made any plainer than by
the recent incident on the London tube.
It was certainly a terrorist incident. It was political
retribution for the UK's involvement in the Syria War. He injured three people.
No one died.
Now the pro-gun argument is that if the locals had been
carrying guns they could have shot him down and no one would have been injured.
Why this is the 'Christian' position, I'm not sure. There
seems to be such eagerness on the part of so many professing Christians to
shoot people.
Without a gun, the man did some harm but was quickly subdued.
What a contrast compared to Dunblane in 1996 or Breivik in
2011.
Again the pro-gun position is that they could have been
stopped if teachers or counselors were carrying guns.
But of course had these killers (Hamilton and Breivik) been
restricted from obtaining firearms in the first place, then they would have
never succeeded in killing the numbers that they did.
Yes, guns don't kill people. We all know the line.
But, people simply can't massacre people on the same scale
without semi-automatic firearms.
If we restrict law abiding citizens, then only criminals will
have the guns...
Yes, we know this argument too. And again with millions of
guns in the United States it would take many years for them to be weeded out.
But is gun proliferation the answer?
It may be the answer in a lost world that embraces the boast
of Lamech but it's not an acceptable position for Biblical Christians to
embrace. Those that do so, and they are many, have abandoned the teachings of
the New Testament and have denied Scripture as the basis for ethics. Instead
they have embraced a philosophical system that borrows in part from Scripture
and synthesizes its doctrines with Consequentialism and the need for power and
the protection of one's assets. This is wholly contrary to the New Testament's
teachings in both the Gospels and Epistles.
The way of the cross is not easy and we will be counted as
fools. We are called to suffer and be prepared to bear witness and die. Many
who proclaim Christ's name are wholly unwilling to live by faith and for many
it must be wondered if they possess it all.
Our society is breaking down and there is bound to be more
violence and chaos on all levels. This is necessarily unpleasant but we must be
certain that we don't abandon Christian ethics because we've decided they just
don't work in the real world. Likewise we must be careful that we don't take
concepts like 'providing for one's family' and use it as an excuse to negate
larger and more prevalent concepts found in the New Testament. Provision does
not mean we take lives in order to protect our own, let alone our property.
Let goods and kindred
go, this mortal life also. The body they may kill, God's truth abideth still.
