To Control or Not to Control Guns: A Draw.....Or Is It?

When I was a kid growing up in Iowa there was always a firearm in our house, or rather a gun that to me was more like a cannon. My dad was Quaker to the core, but he owned a 12 gauge shot gun. I guess it was mostly for hunting, since in safe and conservative central Iowa in the 40’s I don’t recall him thinking we had to protect ourselves from the government. After all, our government was jolly well busy fighting the evil Hitler in the distant lands of Europe. I never tried shooting that 12 gauge shot gun lest as a scrawny Quaker kid I should dismantle my right shoulder at worst, or end up on my posterior at best. When he was old enough one of my elder brothers brought into the family arsenal an over and under gun that was combination 22 caliber long rifle on top of a 410 shot gun on the bottom. Now that was one I could handle. While I didn’t do very much hunting with it (ammunition was expensive for us), I can remember once when I ventured out onto a recently picked cornfield covered with light snow on a moon-lit night to bag a few rabbits. It was no contest. The rabbits were never in trouble. They could hop right by me giggling away and wiggling their cute little tails in the moon light, and the most I could do was shred a few half standing corn stalks.                          

So, until I got married in 1954, I lived in a house with guns. I never gave it much thought, but that right to have guns in our house was protected by the Second Amendment. That’s how it was then and should have been, and that’s how it still is and should be. But my Quaker father taught us that combined with the right to own guns went a sense of sacred responsibility to and for the wider community, and that “wider” meant going well beyond the local confines of Hartland Corner, Marshall County, Iowa, to embrace the worth of people everywhere. Quakers were a small bunch then and still are, but we have staunchly held to a belief that there is worth and dignity to every person, that this worth and dignity must be protected, and it is done so by all of us accepting that we belong to a common human family in which and for which we seek the common good.          

So let’s now cut to the chase. Since the Newtown, Connecticut massacre of 26 persons, including 20 utterly defenseless children, there have been calls to have a national conversation about gun control. Some local conversations have perhaps been tried here and there across our land, but usually the parties have had to admit that they couldn’t hear what the other side was saying because each was yelling so loud. So I am going to herein launch some concerns and questions, and I invite civil, caring, thoughtful responses from anyone, if anyone in fact reads this.

I affirm the right of every American to own as many guns as they want to for their pleasure and protection, and that can mean literally hundreds and hundreds. The Second Amendment has your back on this, and no one is ever going to repeal that Amendment and take away that right. It’s been said that Pres. Obama wants to destroy the Second Amendment. Folks, he may not be the smartest president we’ve ever had, but he’s smart enough to know he could never get that done. For that reason, but more so because I believe as President he sees it as his job to protect the entire Constitution, it’s safe under his watch. So let me say this charitably---those of you who insist the President is going to or wants to destroy the Second Amendment have swallowed too much of Wayne LaPierre (and frankly for all of his words he is too smart to actually believe it himself anyway), and are spending far too much of your precious energy on a non-issue.

Therefore, since our right to own guns is well protected, that brings us to the other side of our personal involvement, and that is our personal responsibility. While we are held responsible to obey certain national, state, and local laws, the failure to do so having certain dire legal consequences, there are various moral responsibilities which are not required by laws, but which can only be carried out voluntarily. And caring for the lives and well being of others all across our land is one of them, which brings me to the following concern.                                                                                                        

After the killings at Newtown, Connecticut, I was very disappointed that congress could not muster the courage and votes to pass a universal background check. I was also distressed that a bill banning military style assault weapons never even got off the ground. In regard to the above and the Newtown killings, opponents to the universal background check and the ban on military style assault weapons insisted that they wouldn’t have stopped the Newtown killings anyway. How do they know? By what powers of omniscience are they able to be so certain? But they rightly counter with the question: how do I, Bill Wagoner, know they would have helped? I can’t be any more certain than they, which seems to brings us to a draw. Or does it?                                                                                    

If there is any question at all, do not the rights of six adults and 20 totally defenseless children to be alive and well rather than killed seem more important than anyone’s right to own the kind of weapon that took away their lives, and could surely be given up leaving literally hundreds and hundreds other guns for the owner’s pleasure? Sure, there are other issues that add to the compelling importance and complexity of this matter, including mental health, and laxity in applying laws that already exist. But there is one issue that is of more importance than any of the above, and that is the balancing of our personal right to own guns, with our personal responsibility toward the rest of the members of our American human family, especially our children.

To conclude: first, I affirm that the right to own a gun is very American. Secondly, I strongly affirm that the right to enjoy life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is also very American. But when the former above begins to deny the latter, something is wrong and needs to be changed. It comes best when we recognize the problem and are willing to give up precious rights, in this case just one gun right among many.

From time to time my Quaker dad would remind me and my brothers of a truth which required us to reassess many a personal and relational issue, to wit: “You guys aren’t the only ones who live on the face of the earth.”    

 

       

One World Government? Yes, for Heaven's Sake!

      Before some readers (if there are any) call the authorities to have Bill Wagoner arrested for treason, he needs to say that the topic above as stated depends on the science of semantics. The English language being what it is, you can use scores of words that are spelled the same and sound the same but have vastly different basic meanings. Such is the case here. In fact, in this case, it’s not just one word, but three: “one world government.” 

     In almost any day and age conspiracy theories abound. They can be intriguing, if not far-fetched, especially when they have to do with our national leaders. These days some United States citizens, including some well-meaning Christians, believe that President Barak Obama is working secretly with the United Nations to establish a one-world government, in which our   U.S. Constitution will no longer be valid, our independence as a nation will no longer be honored, our American individual .liberties will no longer be daily privileges, and our dollars and cents currency will be thrown in the trash. This is not a political blog, so I won’t make any comments---except to say that’s nutty.

     But let’s return to the topic, which is not nutty. Should there be a one-world government? Yes, of course. In fact, for Christians everywhere, there is a one world government already in place which we should acknowledge as having the highest and greatest personal and national authority. It is the realm of God’s rule. It is the Kingdom of God.

     There are more implications to this issue than this one blog can chase down. So I invite your comments, and I might make a few more later myself. But for starters: asserting the above and living it out can be two different things, because it is often easier to say than obey. For example, there isn’t a nation on the face of the earth whose Christian citizens have not struggled with whether to obey the laws of their land, or the laws of God as they understand them. Of course some Christians have casually solved this problem by simply asserting that the laws of their land and the laws of God are one and the same. But many a martyr’s blood has been spilled because they have refused to acknowledge that often dubious fact.

     But there is another important issue posed by the kingdom of God being the one realm of God’s rule for all of God’s people on earth, and it is this: how do all of God’s people within this one realm handle their diversity? The short answer is, of course: sometimes not very well. But we can still appreciate and accept the diversity in understanding and living out the rules of God’s realm between the Quakers of Indiana, and, for example, the newest Christians in the deepest interior of Papua New Guinea. And yet we are all part of one family of God. On the other hand, some North American Christians might reply, “We just have to give those primitive Christians in New Guinea more time, and then they can be like us.” That can be scary. And so is diversity, to a lot of us. What should it look like among the one people of God? Care to pursue that with me?

     In Christ, the people of God all hail one King. In Christ, the people of God should be members first of his one kingdom whoever we are and wherever we live, studying and living by his Word and empowered by his Spirit. That’s a start in what it means to build and be a part of God’s one world government---for heaven’s sake.

THY KINGDOM COME!.....DAY BY DAY

Some of the disciples of Jesus would fit perfectly well into our instant gratification society. Following his 40 days of post-resurrection meetings with his them, as he was about to ascend into heaven, they asked Jesus if he was going to restore the kingdom to Israel now. “Is this the time?” they asked. Jesus replied that they didn’t get to know that kid of information, because timing was the Father’s business. But he went on to tell them what they did need to know, and that was his agenda for them: “…be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world.” Though they may not have comprehended what “the ends of the world” fully meant, it did sound like a rather long term time consuming job.

 It wasn’t going to be done today. They were going to need some day by day spiritual resources. That’s why Jesus told them to go back to Jerusalem and wait for those resources to come, in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. They did just that, and the Holy Spirit did come. Following that they spilled out into the streets and by-ways, and began the task of bringing his kingdom to bear upon earth---day by day.

I don’t know exactly how many days have passed since that one---just a lot. But I do know that the commission upon God’s people to make his kingdom evident and active on earth has not been lifted. We still need to be at it day by day.

That doesn’t have to happen in great and grandiose ways. Of course we can contribute to or assist in any way we can efforts to bring peace and justice on earth, eliminate suffering wherever we can, and by all means support efforts to bring the good news of the gospel to all nations.

But there are dozens and dozens of day by day ways right next to us where we can help bring his kingdom to earth. These have to do with family relationships---spouse with spouse, parents with children, siblings with siblings, and on and on. It also has to do with how we treat our neighbors, how we spend our money and time, and how we take care of our earth, just to mention a few…and there’s no other way these can be done than day by day.

There are of course all kinds of other things we have to do on a day by day basis. Life is so…daily. But even as we live and move and have our being, let us as God’s people work day by day to bring in his kingdom.

 

More later....

But for now, dear God, help us not to be in so much of a hurry that we miss even the smallest thing we might do that will help bring in your kingdom.... day by day. Amen.

 

A Date with Life

  If you knew you had just so many days left before you died, how would you live them?

Today is Ash Wednesday, the annual day in the Christian calendar that ushers in the season of Lent, the time many Christians use as a period of spiritual preparation for Holy Week, Good Friday, and Easter. While it was invented to give Christians a way of preparing for and experiencing the meaning of the death and resurrection of Jesus, it wouldn’t be anything, of course, without the death and resurrection of Jesus in the first place.

So let’s use the days of Lent and try to put ourselves in that original scene. At some point in time in the closing months of his life, Jesus was in fact 47 days away from his resurrection. He was also 45 days away from his death.

Was he aware of that? Many Christology scholars will say he was, that he had foreknowledge in all things, particularly that appointment with his divine destiny to die for the sins of the world. Others will say he didn’t necessarily know, though he did know he was probably walking into trouble when he went to Jerusalem for the last time. The gospel writer Luke suggests Jesus knew death awaited him when he reports of Jesus that, “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” (Luke 9:51 NRSV)

We all have a date with death. What a nice thing to say, Bill. Well, we do. In fact, by virtue of perhaps an unwelcome  medical diagnosis, some people with a terminal disease know they have just ”so many” days or months left to live.  On the other hand, not to be offhanded about it, we are all “terminal” cases. Some of you will have heard me use this story. Vin Scully, the eloquent announcer for the Los Angeles Dodgers, was commenting on an ankle injury sustained by outfielder Andre Dawson. In terms of his playing condition, he went on to mention that Dawson was listed “day to day.” And then after a pause in his voice, Scully added, “But then aren’t we all?” Yes, aren’t we all.  

 But in spite of the inevitability of death, a good spiritual exercise for Lent is in fact to walk with Jesus through his days ahead, beginning with Luke 9:51, as he set his face toward Jerusalem, and see what keys there are to Life with him and in him---not because death is imminent for any one of us, but because life can be full for everyone of us.

 

We’ll have to explore that some more.