Baptist Standard:

ABILENE—Christians who advocate gun rights on grounds of self-defense have lost sight of the radical nature of Jesus’ message, a Hardin-Simmons University professor told a student-initiated forum on gun violence.

“Americans have a deep love of salvific violence, the idea that with the use of force—the use of deadly force—against the right kind of people, we can make things turn out OK,” said Rodney Taylor, assistant professor of theology at HSU. “I think the cross, however, says something very different. What we see in the cross is the overcoming of violence, not through resistance, but rather through trust in God.”

Speaking on “God and Guns: The Way of Jesus in a Violent World,” Taylor critiqued the argument of self-defense as a natural right by comparing and contrasting it to Christian beliefs about premarital sex. To non-Christians, a prohibition against sex outside marriage seems like a “strange command,” he noted.

“But there are a lot of other strange commands there that Jesus gives us that seem counterintuitive,” he said. “I think the problem with the natural right of self-defense is that it loses sight of the kind of radical message that we see in the gospel—this radical approach that Jesus gives us that is counterintuitive, that doesn’t really seem to fit.”

The reason it doesn’t fit is because it is nonsense fabricated entirely out of their minds rather than being found in the Bible.

We’ve covered this before in Christians, The Second Amendment And The Duty Of Self Defense.  There are at least a couple of problems with this forum and its pronouncements on guns.  First, professors in anything, those who have spent vast quantities of money and time in so-called “higher education,” want to believe that they’ve discovered something new, something exciting, something breathtaking, something no one has ever seen.

To get a little pointy headed here and diverge into a sidebar comment that few of my readers will know about (but these professors will), this is one of the features of the so-called new perspectives in Paul and N. T. Wright.  No one before him, he must necessarily believe, not Augustine, not Anselm, not Calvin, not Beza, not W.G.T. Shedd, not Hodge, not Dabney, and on the list could go, has gotten it right.  God left it to him to really explain what the apostle Paul was saying.  Everyone else in history was wrong.

Likewise for this forum, every other theologian was wrong about the justification (and even necessity and duty) of self defense.  This is quite an arrogant way to live and think, but academia is shot through with it.  The second problem is that this forum is comprised of progressive, contemporary theologians who believe in nothing much except the social gospel.  Thus, they want to correct or ameliorate broad, sweeping social ills not by preaching salvation by grace through faith to individuals, but by statist control over the collective.

This is easy, folks.  The sixth commandment controls us in this matter.  God forbids the opposite of what he enjoins, and He enjoins the opposite of what He forbids.  Thou shalt not kill means thou shalt save life.  These forum members would sooner allow their wives to be raped and murdered by home invaders than lift a hand to save the one God gave them to protect.  Or, they would fight to save their wives, making them to be liars, and worse, profoundly stupid liars because they chose to use one of the least effective weapons to defend the loved ones under their charge.

Take your pick.  Silently stand by and watch their wives be raped, or they become liars; not even they believe a word of what they have to say, and so you shouldn’t either.  And for the record, God has made no promise to save their wives in home invasions while they silently stand and watch.  Let’s make this even more visceral by quoting what I said earlier.

God has laid the expectations at the feet of heads of families that they protect, provide for and defend their families and protect and defend their countries.  Little ones cannot do so, and rely solely on those who bore them.  God no more loves the willing neglect of their safety than He loves child abuse.  He no more appreciates the willingness to ignore the sanctity of our own lives than He approves of the abuse of our own bodies and souls.

God hasn’t called us to save the society by sacrificing our children or ourselves to robbers, home invaders, rapists or murderers. Self defense – and defense of the little ones – goes well beyond a right.  It is a duty based on the idea that man is made in God’s image.  It is His expectation that we do the utmost to preserve and defend ourselves when in danger, for it is He who is sovereign and who gives life, and He doesn’t expect us to be dismissive or cavalier about its loss.

And even more to the point, “If you believe that it is your Christian duty to allow your children to be harmed by evil-doers (and you actually allow it to happen) because you think Christ was a pacifist, you are no better than a child abuser or pedophile.”  So here is a challenge for the forum members.  Prove to me and my readers that your views don’t really mean that you wouldn’t save a child being harmed or your spouses being raped.  Prove to me that you’re better than a child abuser or pedophile?  And if you would act to save a life in this way, why would you choose a means that ensured your failure?

Emily Miller notes that Washington National Cathedral recently weighed in on gun control.

Once again, the D.C. police are using their resources to provide illegal guns for a public relations stunt intended to pressure politicians to pass federal restrictions on the Second Amendment.

Outside the Washington National Cathedral on Sunday, blacksmiths will “forge firearms into garden tools” as a symbolic enactment of this year’s theme, “Swords into Plowshares.”

The Children’s Defense Fund, which is cosponsoring the event, said in a press release that blacksmiths will be using “illegal guns confiscated by the police.”

The dramatic scene will follows a children’s church service in which the organization’s president Marian Wright Edelman will speak.

It is illegal in the District to possess a firearm that is not registered. When asked about the event, Police Chief Cathy Lanier’s spokesman said that, “These are not firearms. They are scrap parts only, and they are inoperable.”

That’s actually legally irrelevant. According to the District firearms laws written after the Supreme Court’s Heller decision in 2008, even a non-functioning firearm must be registered and can result in criminal liability.

Yea, it may be illegal in more ways than one.  If they take possession of a lower receiver that is technically defined as the part that is controlled by the ATF.  But let’s focus on Washington National Cathedral for a moment.

How very sophisticated of them to beat up guns as part of a worship service.  David Codrea notes – tongue in check – how very hipster Gary Hall is.  Of course, Washington National Cathedral doesn’t believe in any of the classical confessions of the faith (e.g., Westminster Confession of Faith, Heidelberg Catechism, Canons of Dort, etc.).  They don’t believe in anything, and so they aren’t a real church.  You may as well have a Potemkin Pastor for your weekly speaker under those circumstances.  After all, it’s no more than a country club that meets once per week.

A few miles away in Indiana, another pastor takes a different view.

A pistol-packing pastor helped foil a stick-up when he pulled his handgun on a man trying to rob an Indiana discount store Friday night, police said.

Pastor Carl Sanders, who has a permit to carry a firearm, managed to hold the suspect at the Dollar General Store in Evansville on the until police arrived.

Evansville Police said Jermaine Dewayne Marshall, 25, walked into the store and, with a bandanna over his face and an unknown object wrapped in plastic in his hand, demanded money from a worker at the register. The employee refused.

“Marshall tells the individual again to open the register and points this object he’s trying to pass off as a firearm at the employee,” said Capt. Andy Chandler of the Evansville Police Department.

When the clerk refused again, Marshall struck him several times in the face.

That’s when Pastor Sanders walked into the store.

Sanders told NBC affiliate WFIE Evansville that Marshall came at him with what appeared to be a gun wrapped in plastic.

“He was telling me to get on the ground,” Sanders told WFIE. “That’s when I pulled my weapon and say, ‘No, you get on the ground.'”

“I laid my life down for some people, knowing they were going to be OK,” Sanders said, adding that Marshall “didn’t deserve to be hurt, I wasn’t going to hurt him, but I wanted him to know you can’t do this.”

Sanders called the police and kept Marshall covered until police arrived, Chandler said. Police discovered that Marshall had been trying to pass off a spoon wrapped in a plastic bag as a firearm.

You see, Carl Sanders cares about people, and Gary Hall doesn’t.  If this sounds harsh, you need to think more deeply about the issue since it is clear that you haven’t considered the ramifications of your views.

In what I noted to myself as one of the best lines I have ever heard, the horrible Think Progress had a piece entitled Who Would Jesus Shoot?  The comments are more important than the silly article, as they demonstrate that most people (falsely) equate Jesus with pacifism.

So in order to answer that question let me wax theological for a moment.  Nothing happened in the birth, life, death, burial and resurrection of Jesus that wasn’t ordained, controlled by God, and intended for a specific end (He upholds all things by the “Word of His power,” and He “Works all things after the counsel of His own will,” Hebrews 1:3 and Ephesians 1:11).

One must understand the soteriological import of every event in order to understand what happened to Jesus.  Asking the question Who Would Jesus Shoot? demonstrates that the questioner is an idiot.

But let’s pull this thread a little farther if we may.  I have dealt with the issue of guns, violence and Christianity in another extensive article, looking at the Biblical evidence, the historical evidence and the theological positions of the Church fathers.  Very directly, I state that:

God has laid the expectations at the feet of heads of families that they protect, provide for and defend their families and protect and defend their countries.  Little ones cannot do so, and rely solely on those who bore them.  God no more loves the willing neglect of their safety than He loves child abuse.  He no more appreciates the willingness to ignore the sanctity of our own lives than He approves of the abuse of our own bodies and souls.  God hasn’t called us to save the society by sacrificing our children or ourselves to robbers, home invaders, rapists or murderers.

Self defense – and defense of the little ones – goes well beyond a right.  It is a duty based on the idea that man is made in God’s image.  It is His expectation that we do the utmost to preserve and defend ourselves when in danger, for it is He who is sovereign and who gives life, and He doesn’t expect us to be dismissive or cavalier about its loss.

If you believe that it is your Christian duty to allow your children to be harmed by evil-doers (and you actually allow it to happen) because you think Christ was a pacifist, you are no better than a child abuser or pedophile.

Who would Jesus shoot?  He would shoot anyone he had to in order to save life from harm by evil-doers.  Christ had very specific warnings about those who cause the “little ones” to stumble (Luke 17:2), and He made clear His stipulations concerning their place in the Kingdom (Luke 18:16).

Like I said.  If you think this is some sort of doctrinaire, theoretical debate with ethereal platitudes, you’d better rethink your position.  This is the stuff of life and death – literally.

UPDATE: Thanks to David, Mike and Glenn for their attention to this article.