Sunday, January 20, 2013

The NRA's dangerous theology

A good article from Jim Wallis on "The NRA's Dangerous Theology."

A couple of good quotes...

  • Martin Luther King Jr. said, "...people often hate each other because they fear each other, they fear each other because they don't know each other, they don't know each other because they cannot communicate, they cannot communicate because they are separated." ("and then they seek guns," adds Wallis)
  • Jim then makes a comment in regard to the notion that "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." He calls this out as not only being factually flawed, but "morally mistaken, theologically dangerous, and religiously repugnant." As he says, the world is not full of good and bad people ("that is not what our scriptures teach us"). It is full of people who are sometimes good and sometimes bad. Personally, I always think it's funny when people talk about there being "good" and "bad" people. Because they almost always put themselves in the "good" camp. The truth is, we all have our good moments, but we also all have our bad moments. We all make mistakes, or exercise poor judgment from time to time. So... yeah... this allowing people to take matters into their own hands is dangerous stuff.
Peace seems to be getting harder to come by. You can't shoot your way to a peaceful society. At least I don't think you can. I can't even fathom how that makes sense. But... that's just me.

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