Scot McKnight, a respected professor and author, and someone I know personally, has started a series at his blog on Christianity and Guns in light of Sandy Hook and other recent mass shootings. As a pastor, Christian, and human, I stand with him and others in calling for massively curbing the types of guns and amount of guns made available to people in this country to purchase and possess.

As a human I say this because of the statistics.

“In 2008, 17 in Finland, 35 in Australia, 39 in England and Wales, 60 in Spain, 194 in Germany, 200 in Canada, and 9484 were killed by guns in the USA.” The argument guns don’t kill people, people kill people is nonsensical and illogical when you have the type of underregulation that has led to the highest number of gun possession in any country in the world in America, leading to the highest number of gun-related murders in any country in the world—to the point where gun deaths will soon overtake car fatalities. (As a comparison, see how this country has virtually eliminated gun shooting deaths by eliminating gun ownership.)

As a Christian I say this because the Church of Jesus Christ needs to embody a kingdom ethic when it comes to guns.

“It is not God’s will that 82 to 84 people die every day as a result of gun violence.” The current mass, underregulated availability of devices of violence perpetuate and enable such violence—it provides an opportunity for such violence to take root and blossom and bloom in our communities. The Kingdom of God is God’s re-creative movement to put this world back together again through the rescue provided through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection—through Christ God is restoring the world back to the way He intended it to be at the beginning of Creation before Rebellion. The prophet Isaiah speaks of that movement and the type of ethic the Church of Jesus Christ is called and commissioned to embody, specifically when it comes to devices of violence—“beating their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks” is a specific prophetic utterance of the way things are supposed to be. Guns and what results from guns are not the way things are supposed to be—they are the result of Rebellion, of the Fall—and Christians should be on the font lines leading the charge saying so.

As a pastor I say this because I am called to tell the truth.

And the truth is that demanding such underregulation and availability of the types of nonessential, nonsensical, ridiculous devices of violence that allowed Sandy Hook to happen is selfish, indulgent, and gluttonous. This selfish, indulgent, and gluttonous attitude creates the opportunity for evil, sin and death to reign in this country through cycles of violence, societal decay, and injustice. It continues to feed the “principalities and powers of this world” and hold our neighborhoods in bondage. For Christians (not to mention people) to blindly, dutifully insist upon underregulated gun rights is nothing short of selfishness and gluttony. Furthermore, the type of defense I see by Christians of the 2nd Amendment—and American constitution itself—as this untouchable holy word is an idolatrous posture before Empire America. The Church is called to align our lives and submit to one Holy Word—which trumps and transcends the 2nd Amendment of the American Constitution at every turn. That Holy Word has said not a few things about devices of violence, attitudes of violence, and the results of those devices themselves.

I am not seeking to demonize or blame gun owners here for what happened last week or for America’s violence problem. Nor am I against some curtailed, regulated, limited ownership—such as for hunting purposes. Guns are not the root of the problem of violence in America—the sinful, rebellious human heart is that root. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take an active stance and role in curbing the opportunities people have in fulfilling the desires of that sinful, rebellious heart.

Here is what Scot wrote that led to this post. What say you?

It is time. And it is the season of peace. We join the people of Newtown and Aurora and elsewhere to raise the flag of peace when it comes to guns. The church and its leaders ought to be first in line. I join them.

James Atwood admits he has been waiting for 36 years, but that wait (for all of us who have been waiting) is now over: Atwood himself wrote the book. What’s he been waiting for? After he buried one Herb Hunter who was killed by a reckless use of an easily-purchased handgun, he’s been waiting for someone to write a book that theologically reflects on guns in America.

30,000 gun deaths per year in the USA. 30,000. More than the population of the village in which we live. Wiped off the map every year. 30,000.

Where there are more guns, there are more gun deaths. Guns are designed to kill.

In 2008, 17 in Finland, 35 in Australia, 39 in England and Wales, 60 in Spain, 194 in Germany, 200 in Canada, and 9484 were killed by guns in the USA.

Atwood, who owns a gun and is a deer hunter,  was asked about five years ago to speak to the Presbyterian Peacemaking Forum about guns and gospel values and idolatry, and that book is called America and Its Guns: A Theological Exposé. Atwood is more than a concerned pastor; Atwood has been involved with The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence for 36 years. He’s read all the materials; knows the evidence; has been active in the discussion and social struggle; and he has given us a gift.

What we need is a balance between the right to bear arms and the right to live in safety.

For change to occur, Atwood observes, requires “the leadership of an educated, spiritually aware, and committed community” (xvi). The Gun Empire, he claims, has a stranglehold on America. He sees gun violence as the elephant in the room no one wants to look at or talk about. He thinks the stranglehold is about the “principalities and powers” and are nourished by death.

It is not God’s will that 82 to 84 people die every day as a result of gun violence.

The nonsense of the Gun Empire is that guns don’t kill people and that the answer to gun violence is more guns.

Atwood thinks his previous strategies — through the federal government and legal process to create better laws —  didn’t work because he was too naive about the NRA’s use of funds to guide legislators. He thinks now that the way forward in gun violence and the way forward against the Gun Empire is to motivate and mobilize the church, the community of faith, to act on its faith.

Here is how he says it:

On the moral high ground, with confidence in the rightness of our cause, with indisputable facts at our disposal, and with strong biblical and spiritual resources, people of faith will be able to convince those in Congress and in statehouses to vote for fair and balanced laws that they know in their hearts is the right thing to do.