GUNS AND CHRISTIANITY

   Imagine someone handing Jesus an AR-15 automatic rifle.

   I see him looking at it very sadly and then even more sadly handing it to a soldier.  Yes, in this world of ours it is will be necessary at times for soldiers to fight just wars of defense.  Of course, we must do everything we possibly can to make any kind of war a thing of the past.  But we are not naive.  Obscenely, even now we are faced with threats of war, even a nuclear war.

   The Second Amendment gives us the legal right to have certain guns in case we need to form a militia.  Today's militia takes the form of the National Guard units of the various states.  The "militias" that are paranoically formed for defense against the federal government are corruptions of the militia mentioned in the Second Amendment.  

   We can legally have guns, for example, for target shooting, hunting and personal self-defense.  That is reasonable.  But as a Christian and spiritual theologian, I deeply believe that no one, no one, outside the military should have an assault gun, which is a weapon of war.  To permit civilians to have such weapons is not necessary, not reasonable, not human, not Christian.

   Philosophy and science describe us as rational animals.  To be human is to be able to act rationally, reasonably.  How rational or reasonable is it for civilians to own and use weapons of war whose only purpose is to mutilate and destroy an enemy?  

   We are images and likenesses of God and the people of Jesus the Christ, who is the greatest expression of God's peace and love.  Christians who present God as a war-like, avenging judge who, for example, sends hurricanes to punish us because of homosexuals, seriously misrepresent God.  They never move forward in the Old Testament to see God's great love for us all and for all creation. (Ps. 23; Jer: 31:3; Joel 2:17-14.)  And when they arrive at the New Testament they can't worship and preach a God who is Infinite, Overflowing, Self-giving Love, as revealed in the person of Jesus, who taught us how to live in love.

   In the name of Jesus, the Christ, and of human reason, how necessary is it for anyone other than a soldier to have an assault weapon like the AR-15?  The children in the Florida high school who were murdered were not just pierced with the killer's bullets.  The AR-15 mutilated and destroyed their young limbs and organs.  Were these precious children so horrifically destroyed so that we American civilians could have the right to own and use a weapon of war?

   The NRA and the politicians who depend on the NRA for money and reelection have actually said that the mentally ill should not be prevented from owning a gun--any gun.  Now they are reconsidering their irrational stance.  But what do we mean by "mentally ill?"  Do we mean clinically diagnosed paranoid schizophrenics?  How about people who are  depressed, or upset, or politicized against our government, or angry at their parents?  And in today's overly individualized and broken culture, how much do I have to stretch the point to say that if I believe I just have to have an AR-15, am I in some way mentally ill?

   Thank God for the students of the Florida high school who, having seen hell first hand, are bravely speaking up.  With rightful anger they are crying out to all adults to wake up to the truth about assault rifles and to the special sacredness of human life.  Isn't war horrific enough without bringing it upon our own children!?  May their voices grow in volume, redound to heaven and bring reason and sanity especially to our legislators and President!

   As an American and Christian, I cry out to all my fellow Americans.  For the sake of reason, of humanity, and of our very souls, "Enjoy ordinary guns if you want to, but leave military weapons to the military!"   






    

   

REDISCOVERING OUR ONENESS

   Our faith tells us that we are one family under God.  But our churches remain divided as the ecumenical spirit wanes.  And sadly, the heavily politicized Evangelical churches blatantly defy the oneness given to us by God.

   Our American founders dreamed of one nation under God.  But the Declaration of Independence excluded the slaves from enjoying their inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  And racism continues to poison our nation.  Our Constitution begins, "We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union..."  But under President Trump we are a very sorely divided nation.  Our national motto, "E Pluribus Unum," is losing its meaning.

   Our economic system divides us into the very rich and the many poor, sick, vulnerable and outcast.

   The great philosophies of both East and West have been abandoned by most schools

    Yet, there is hope.  It is coming from today's science.  An increasing number of physicists are offering a radically new view of the oneness that is the universe, the world and all of us on earth.

   Here I will repeat a little story that I told in a previous post.  Two young fish were swimming along a stream when an old fish came swimming toward them.  As the old fish was passing them, he said, "The water's fine today, isn't it?"   The young fish did not respond.  When the old fish had swum past them, one of them turned to the other and asked, "What's water?"  They didn't know the world they were living in.

   The physicists I am referring to are saying that the universe/world we live in is not made of material but is all non-material energy.  The universe, they explain, is made of atoms.  Until recently we thought that the atoms were made of material nuclei and electrons that scientists saw as little balls of matter.  Now they say that the nuclei and the electrons are actually little non-material waves in non-material energy fields.  The atom has no physical dimensions!  So the universe is made of non-material energy that has no physical dimensions.  

   (Our brain turns the non-material universe into a three dimensional, "physical" world but that's another story.) 

   Also, these physicists say that the non-material energy that the universe and we are  made of is living, intelligent consciousness.  To go back to our little story of the fish, the "water" we are swimming in is an ocean of universal, living, intelligent consciousness.

   Every galaxy, every star, planet, rock, plant, animals and person arises as an individual expression of one, living, intelligent, universal consciousness.

   So at one point in our history we were all one, same reality.  If we trace ourselves  back to our original reality, each of us is an individual expression of the one, basic living, intelligent consciousness that is the universe.

    Today, to many of us, especially the young, science is more respected than religion.  And more respected than philosophy, which also tells us of our basic oneness in terms of essence, i.e., we are all human.  So I wonder if today's science can do what our politics, education and mainstream religions are not doing.

   God can now be described as Eternal/Infinite Living, Intelligent, Divine Consciousness, who is Love.  The universe can be described as the space/time, finite, created image of Eternal/Infinite Living, Intelligent, Divine Consciousness/Love.    

   Genesis tells us that God created the universe and then entered into it, filling it with divine presence.  (Gen. 1:1-3)    The God-filled universe  is the living, evolving Christ Reality.  As Teilhard de Chardin said, "Cosmogenesis is Christogenesis."  

   Jesus was a 1st century Jewish male who at his conception became the universal, God-filled Christ Reality.  He was both human and Divine.  He is God's living, intelligent, conscious Reality/Love overflowing into the world. 

   In and through Jesus, we work to build the Kingdom of God on earth that Jesus prayed for, "Thy Kingdom come...one earth..."  In Jesus' power and love, we evolve, slow step by slow step, toward the full meaning of our lives, which is global wholeness in love.    

   Thanks to the new insights of today's science we have a contemporary and very persuasive way to renew our understanding and our faith in God and in Jesus the Christ, so we can renew and reinvigorate our lives and the world in the Oneness and Wholeness  of Love that God created us to be.