mtbc | God, Guns and Country

For me, Jesus' message is very much one of submission, to such a degree that, ironically, perhaps Christians should have been called Muslims. Matthew 6 explains, You cannot be the slave both of God and of money. That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and what you are to wear … Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on God's saving justice, and all these other things will be given you as well. If we go forth in poverty, loving, helping and healing others, and spreading the Gospel, then we can trust God to attend to everything else.

Further, I take Jesus as disappointing the Zealots who wanted armed insurrection against the Roman occupation. In Matthew 5, Jesus tells the crowd, offer no resistance to the wicked … love your enemies … Rather later, Matthew 22 has Jesus advising to pay Caesar what belongs to Caesar — and God what belongs to God. Or, jumping ahead to Jesus' explanation to Pilate in John 18, Mine is not a kingdom of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, my men would have fought to prevent my being surrendered to the Jews. As it is, my kingdom does not belong here. Jesus' eyes are on the life hereafter, not Earthly politics.

One could observe that Jesus isn't wholly pacifist. For example, John 2 has, Making a whip out of cord, he drove them all out of the Temple. My impression of Jesus' objection concerns Heavenly rather than Earthly matters, the issue of how the Temple is run, because it is central to the Jews' relationship with God but the vulgarity hinders the spiritual mission. I see it in the same light as Martin Luther's protest against the church's venality.

There is also Matthew 10, with Jesus asserting, it is not peace I have come to bring, but a sword. For me, the answer is to read on a little more, it's a figurative discussion of the rifts and friction entailed by devotion to Christianity, serving only God. After all, later in Matthew 26, Jesus warns, all who draw the sword will die by the sword.

So, from this background of how I regard Christianity, I was surprised to be reminded of a young chap who intended to vote for Trump last year because he's a Christian and I'm a Christian, also because Trump wouldn't take his guns away. With Christianity as the leading issue there, and leaving aside the details of how Trump lives his faith, I wondered: if this chap goes to church anywhere near as much as Biden, what impression does it give him of how a Christian should live? What use for his firearms does it suggest?