By now, most of the world has read about the church shooting in Maryville, IL where a man opened fire on Rev. Fred Winters at the First Baptist Church.
I caught wind of the news just after our morning services on Sunday (thanks to Twitter) and we paused to pray about the situation and those involved before our evening Bible study at our church that same evening. Today, too, after my meeting with Pastor Tim, we spent time together praying for those involved.
The tragic event has been on my mind almost constantly since Sunday afternoon. I have had a range of emotion and a range of thoughts about “what I would do” in a similar situation.
By Monday I was already reading ministry-posts about “protection”, “safety”, and having “escape routes” planned and such.
It seems that most-people are revolving their thoughts around what they would do in a similar situation. Would they shoot-to-kill to protect their pastor?
My question: How does Jesus want us to respond in situations like this?
My thoughts are jumbled but include the following: should Christians be armed to protect themselves in situations like this? Should one protect oneself even in the case of religious persecution? Where does “protecting one’s family” interfere with the testing of our faith that God always provides? Could a weapon be that “providential provision”? How does shooting a perpetrator fit with “turning the other cheek” as Jesus teaches?
Anyone else wrestle with these thoughts?
Those are tough questions. I think that if it were just myself in the situation the answer would be very easy. However take the same situation and put Kayden or anther family member in harms ways and I will be honest enough to say that I cannot say beyond a shadow of doubt that I would be able to do the right thing. This is where I pray and trust that if, God forbid, a situation like that would come up I would trust God to give me direction and strength needed to do the right thing.
PS I hope that a lot of your readers respond to this – you have such a diverse following and I would love to hear what they think.
This line of though give me pause. I don not believe that churches should become armed camps. Whereas on the other hand I doe believe that they should be able to defend themselves. Our church does have armed guard, myself being one of them. But none of those men carrying do so openly. We have ushers to take care of the everyday things and separate security that when situations require a bit more authority step in. You’d never see them, never hear of them talking about being in that position and the meetings we have to go over situations and responses are far from public. I have a large family, 400 plus people and though I do not often see eye to eye with the majority of them I do not wish any of them harm. I treat my church building the same way as I would treat my house. If you come into it intending to do harm to the occupants of it I will put you down. Not only will I put you down but I will do so in such a way that you will not be getting back up again, ever. I am reminded of Simon Peter who carried a sword. I find it hard to believe that Jesus didn’t know Simon was carrying a sword. He knew. If he was so much against violence he would have put a stop to the sword thing long before the garden. Also David was a man with blood on his hands, and yet, a man with Gods own heart. Because of the blood God would not allow David to build his temple, but he did not reject him or judge him for the blood. Christians get so wrapped up about this turning the other cheek thing. The historical connotation of the idea involves backhanding a slave in the face. Turn the cheek meant that in order for the man to strike you again he had to open handed slap you on the other. A back handed slap was reserved for slaves, openhanded for peers. The thought was that by turning, if he were to strike you again it would have to be as an equal, an acknowledgement that you were not a slave. This would effectively end the beating a lot of times shaming the man beating you. So in this regard, turning the cheek would mean that we too carry weapons and reserve the right to defend ourselves as equals. As it is, if killing a man who is trying to kill me or my family removes me effectively from being able to build Gods house but protects the house that is built, I guess I am ok with that.