Photo Courtesy of Bishop's Blog, Philadelphia Area
Violence Problem
The Hebrew scriptures are full of seemingly bizarre ideas, but to modern minds the idea of collective guilt is especially out of place. The flood, the Tower of Babel, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Passover, and the punishment of Achan’s family are all examples of God’s wrath applied in a rather indiscriminate manner throughout a community, sweeping up the guilty, the innocent, and the complicit. In a large, diverse society, the idea that we might all be collectively responsible for the behavior of the most violent and twisted among us seems like an anathema, but it’s a biblical anathema so perhaps it’s worth a second thought.
In recent days, there has been no shortage of societal sins for which we could feel a tinge of collective guilt, but perhaps the most notable of these was the shootings in Las Vegas that left over 50 dead and over 500 wounded. As we drift into predictable debates about gun control and personal responsibility, perhaps it is worth thinking about our collective responsibility. After all, who educated the shooter? Who employed him, providing him the means to procure his armory? Who made the movies filled with violence? Who sold him the guns? Who told him violence could solve problems? Who offered him a watered-down Christianity? Who loved him? Who did not?
The hard, biblical truth is we all bear some responsibility for the state of our society, and it is our society that created this killer. Worse, it is our society that creates all killers. It is our society that does not care for the sick or feed its hungry. It is our society that nurtures racism, that uses greed as its motivating force, and that is so inured to lust that it goes completely unnoticed. Our society is profoundly ill, and as long as it remains that way, we will continue to mourn because our damaged society will continue to create damaged people.
So, what is to be done in the midst of all this brokenness? Well, not surprisingly, it has something to do with Jesus. Prior to the events in Las Vegas, I would have said that the solution to these ills was “personal transformation.” That is, everyone needs to experience sanctifying grace and we will no longer have these tragedies. I still think that is largely true, but perhaps we do not need personal transformation so much as collective or societal transformation.
Perhaps we do not transform gradually and one at a time, but explosively as in the Methodist revival and the Great Awakenings. Perhaps grace is like a contagion that has largely receded, but is ready to spread again in the right conditions. How then do we release the virus of grace on our society? How do we become patient zero?
What is needed for collective transformation is preaching the Gospel. That’s it. The catch is, we actually have to preach the real Gospe,l not what we have been preaching since the Battle of Milvian Bridge in AD 312. That bit where Jesus says you can’t serve God and money. That bit about living and dying by the sword. That bit about picking up your cross. Turning the other cheek. Loving your enemies. Hating life itself. Camels and needles. Rich young rulers. Woe to the rich. Last shall be first. Gouging out your eye.
Of course, we preach on those verses, but we water them down. We know Jesus advocated nonviolence, but that is too much for our congregations, so we say it’s okay to disagree with Jesus’s teachings. We know that money is dangerous, but we have a lot of rich people in our churches, and we wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings. We know that lust is sin, but it’s embarrassing so we don’t talk about it.
We may think that by watering down the Gospel we are being inviting, that we aren’t putting people off. We think that if we preached the real Gospel people would stop showing up to church. But this is the belief that the Gospel, the record of love incarnated on earth, will drive people away from the God of love. This is absurd. Don’t we have enough faith in the Gospel to assume that if we preach it, in the end, grace and love will win?
We may have never pulled a trigger, but we are guilty. We are guilty of adulterating the Gospel to try to make it more palatable, to make ourselves more liked and our churches fuller. In so doing, we have abetted a culture that tolerates and expects violence, a culture in which Jesus’ command to meet violence with peace is alien. If we want to end this culture of violence, Jesus provides a clear path, all we must do is turn around and follow him.
Brian Snyder
Brian Snyder is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Science at Louisiana State University and layperson at First United Methodist Church in Baton Rouge.
Brian Snyder is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Science at Louisiana State University and a member of First United Methodist Church in Baton Rouge, La.