Seminary Conversation on Guns & Violence

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INTRODUCTION

I (Jeff Boyd) have been invited to spend 90 minutes leading a seminary class discussion on violence and guns. Before I join the crew, the doctoral students will have read Beating Guns (Claiborne & Martin, 2019) and will have watched Us Kids (documentary, 2020). The professor has also highlighted The Fallout (R, 2021).

This is the description I was given for our session together: “In addition to thinking about God’s calling across the life span of individuals, we are also examining God’s calling to church organizations throughout their history, especially as they navigate cultural disruptions and transitions.” And the invitation is to spend an hour and a half exploring “the intersection of Peace Studies and Adventism and how we might discern God’s calling amid the unspeakable violence violence that is all too common—from American schools to Ukrainian cities and towns.”

Below are some of the themes and resources we will likely cover, but we’ll see where the conversation leads…. For this conversation, we presume the best intent in each other’s comments and hearts.

PREAMBLE

Isaiah 2:4 — He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.

Joel 3:10 — Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weakling say, “I am strong!”

Micah 4:3 — He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.

Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 110.2-3 (Rome, mid-second century): For we Christians, who have gained a knowledge of the true worship of God from the Law and from the word which went forth from Jerusalem by way of the Apostles of Jesus, have run for protection to the God of Jacob and the God of Israel. And we who delighted in war, in the slaughter of one another, and in every other kind of iniquity have in every part of the world converted our weapons of war into implements of peace – our swords into ploughshares, our spears into farmers’ tools – and we cultivate piety, justice, brotherly charity, faith, and hope, which we derive from the Father through the Crucified Saviour.

Ellen White, The Great Controversy, 589: Satan delights in war, for it excites the worst passions of the soul and then sweeps into eternity its victims steeped in vice and blood. It is his object to incite the nations to war against one another, for he can thus divert the minds of the people from the work of preparation to stand in the day of God. [compare with mass shootings and Psalm 46]

Art Gish holding a plow. Screenshot from “Old Radicals” (https://youtu.be/oHpTUhF_l3A).

PRESENTATION & DISCUSSION

DEFINITIONS OF PEACE:

SELECT PEACE/VIOLENCE THEMES: Nonviolence, pacifism, conscientious objection, selective conscientious objection, just war theory, Constantinian shift, self-defense, R2P responsibility to protect (UN), forgiveness, reconciliation, justice, interpersonal conflict, intrastate violence/war, interstate violence/war, terrorism, torture, conflict transformation, death penalty, just peacemaking, racism, intimate partner violence, mental health, interfaith issues, economic issues, gun violence….

FIVE-PART JOURNEY pastors should be aware of, with each level or sector influencing the others: individual/personal, congregational (sidebar to “cliche” below), denominational, national/societal (culture trumps religion. always?), and global.

CLICHE: Pastor holds a Bible in one hand and a newspaper (shorthand for info about the world, whether in current events, cultural values and movements, or history) in the other. The pastor who is concerned about peace can organize content from these sources (broadly defined) into three buckets: (1) pro peace, (2) anti violence, and (3) “but what about…?”

  • BIBLE:

    • Peace & violence in the Hebrew scriptures and the Christian New Testament

    • Narrative theology and the trajectory of scripture (trajectory hermeneutics)

  • HISTORY BOOK: The Early Church, later Christian history, early Adventist history, and recent Adventist history/culture.

  • NEWSPAPER: Gun violence in schools and wider society, and intrastate and interstate war. (Guns now leading cause of death for kids in the U.S. Fox News, WebMD)

SELECT ADVENTIST STATEMENTS on VIOLENCE:

ARTICLES:

PODCAST: Adventist Peace Radio

ADVENTIST PEACEMAKERS: Adventist Peace Fellowship List

See also: Lyndi Fourie Foundation, Story at The Forgiveness Project, Adventist Review (2006), Beyond Forgiving (documentary short)

APF PEACE CHURCH NETWORK:

DOCUMENTARY FILMS:

SELECT BOOKS:

By Adventists

  • Church and Society (Maier, ed., 2015)

  • Adventism and the American Republic (Morgan, 2001)

  • Adventists and Military Service (Hasel, Magyarosi, Hoschele, eds., 2019)

  • The Promise of Peace (Scriven, 2009)

  • Anarchy and Apocalypse (Osborn, 2010)

  • Seventh-day Adventists in Time of War (Wilcox, 1936)

  • The Peacemaking Remnant (Morgan, ed., 2005)

  • Should I Fight? (Bussey, ed., 2011)

  • I Pledge Allegiance (Phillips, Tsatalbasidis, 2007)

  • I’m Not Leaving (Wilkins, 2011)

  • Flee the Captor (Ford, 1966)

For Congregations

  • A Culture of Peace: God’s Vision for the Church (Kreider, Kreider & Widjaja, 2005)

  • Peace Ministry: A Handbook for Local Churches (Buttry, 1995)

  • Christian Peacemaking (Buttry, 1994)

  • Shalom Church (Nessan, 2010)

  • Just Church (Martin, 2012)

  • Jeff Boyd, Additional Books (YouTube, 2017)

General

  • Jesus for President (Claiborne & Shaw, 2008)

  • Peacemakers in Action: Profiles of Religion in Conflict Resolution (Little, ed., 2007)

  • Peacemaking Power of Prayer (Robb & Hill, 2000)

  • Just Peacemaking (Stassen, 2008)

  • Peace Reader (Sider & Keefer Jr., eds., 2002)

History

  • The Early Church on Killing (Sider, ed., 2012)

  • Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace (Bainton, 1986)

  • Christian Attitudes to War, Peace and Revolution (Yoder, 2009)

Theology

  • Neglected Voices: Peace in the Old Testament (Leiter, 2007)

  • Covenant of Peace (Swartley, 2006)

  • Shalom: The Bible’s Word for Salvation, Justice & Peace (Yoder, 1987)

For Kids

  • My Daddy, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (King III, 2013)

  • Teaching Peace to Children (Charissa Boyd, Jan. 24, 2020, Adventist Peace Radio podcast)

Sweeney Issues Statement on Cycle of Violence in the Middle East

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On December 2, Ian Sweeney, president of Seventh-day Adventist Church in the UK & Ireland released the following statement about violence in Iraq and Syria.

A CALL TO END THE CYCLE OF VIOLENCE

2nd December 2015

The increasing levels of violence and numbers of displaced people resulting from atrocities in Iraq, Syria and other war torn parts of the world fill our hearts with sorrow. We stand in solidarity with those who have lost loved ones, livelihoods and homes. Our fervent prayers are with all those who suffer.

Today (2 December), the UK Parliament has voted for our armed forces to engage in air strikes in Syria. While there is full recognition that the issues surrounding the fight against terrorism are complex and nuanced, the Seventh-day Adventist Church is nevertheless committed to pursuing and exhibiting peace.

As a Church we express our grave concern about the ongoing violence in Syria which continues to bring loss of life, misery and suffering to innocent men, women and children and the displacement of some 3 million Syrians.

We call on all sides engaged in the Syrian conflict to cease military activities and resort to peaceful methods of resolving the conflict. It is our belief that dialogue and negotiations, however difficult, are preferable to violence and war.

While we understand that peace cannot be found in official statements, we will nevertheless seek to bring some measure of peace, wherever we can, to those whose lives have been touched by war.

The belief that violence should be repaid with violence is against our Christian biblical understanding and does not deliver the intended results. We endorse the sentiments of the late Dr Martin Luther King Jr when he said,

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that."

SEE ALSO: 2003 Adventist World Church statement on the War in Iraq. Pray for Paris, Pray for France.

Killing in the Name

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Jeff Carlson, associate pastor of the Fletcher Seventh-day Adventist Church in Hendersonville, NC, wrote the following reflection on the recent violence in Paris, France. The god in who's name people are dying in Paris tonight is not Allah, though they mistakenly use that name to describe him.

He is actually the same god in who's name the KKK and other American Christian white supremacists killed their victims. And though they invoked the name, Jesus, to describe that god, that is also not his name.

He is the same god who demanded the blood of Jews at the hands of Russians, Germans, Polish and every other European Christian who stretched out their hand against the "Christ killers" in the name of Christ. Though Christ is also not his name.

He demanded the blood of Protestants at the hands of Catholics; Protestants at the hands of other Protestants; teenage girls called witches at the hands of those who themselves had fled the death-grip of that god on their life in a distant land. Though they all did so in the name of the Trinity, this is not a three-part god. He is one.

His voice has been heeded by secularists of the guillotine; He received the blood sacrifice from the hands of Communists, and Nazis, and Fascists, though he transcends them all.

He held out his hands in the guise of Molech and the people of the ancient world sacrificed their own children to him. That, also, is not his name.

He is not the ancient serpent, or the devil, or Satan or any other name by which he is called.

He is religion; he is secularism; he is totalitarian; he is democratic freedom.

His name is "me." But he never uses that name. He always speaks of "them." And the moment I hear his voice I am least likely to know it is his voice calling for blood. Because he whispers simply that if "they" were gone, "I" would be better, or holier, or righter, or safer.

I heard his voice tonight as the news flowed out of Paris. And I heard his voice whisper in my own soul when I thought "they should just throw all the muslims out of Paris."

If Satan ceased to exist; if all religion, or beliefs of non-religion, political philosophy were erased; if all nationalistic belief was extricated from the human soul and we were left in the state of no beliefs what-so-ever fulfilling the dreams of John Lennon this god would still call out for blood.

His voice transcends all beliefs and time because so do we. And his voice is much too absurd and demanding that we would never listen to him, until we do.

May we hear the one alternate voice tonight. The one that called out on the cross "father forgive them they know not what they do." The voice that calls not for the blood of the "other" for the imagined gain of the "I" but would rather see the blood of "me" flow for the hoped gain of the "other."