Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s imagination apparently can\u2019t reconcile legal gun ownership with Christianity, and Joy Behar thinks Christianity is mental illness.<\/b>
\nIn the wake of last week\u2019s school shooting, some elements of the American Left are reaching new depths of callous desperation in their attempt to exploit tragedy for more gun control. After all, facts and argument have failed them long ago, just as anti-gun measures have largely failed to deliver on their promises of security. Too many have been shot to death in gun-free zones for us to put much trust in creating bigger ones.
Their tearful rhetoric is likewise wearing thin, for we are now accustomed to the sad fact that every mass shooting is accompanied by shameless leftists intruding on the grief of a nation to demand decisive action before we\u2019ve had a chance to process. While medical professionals routinely advise us not to make major decisions while grieving, the Left tellingly prefers that Americans govern our nation with clouded judgment.
It is therefore with a certain irony that, following the senseless murders at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, professional psychiatrist and amateur entertainer Jimmy Kimmel has diagnosed anyone who questions gun-control advocates\u2019 rushed decisions with mental illness. While those who give more weight to authenticity than to wisdom and reason tend to fall in with whoever turns on the most convincing waterworks, the rest of us are content to treat Kimmel\u2019s sermon as more of that same tearful rhetoric.
Within those comments and accusations, Kimmel took aim specifically at Christians\u2014or at least at \u201calleged Christians,\u201d as he described some prominent Second Amendment supporters. Kimmel\u2019s beleaguered imagination apparently has trouble reconciling legal gun ownership with Christianity, just as it had trouble reconciling it with mental health.
Some people assume that Christians shouldn\u2019t support or participate in gun ownership. Most secular liberals fail to understand Christian ethics on matters like this because so few are familiar with anything Jesus actually said. Their mental image of a good spiritual teacher proceeds from a vague and trite recollection that Jesus thought love was good and judging was bad. It has little to no root in any of Jesus\u2019 actual teachings that his first disciples recorded.
Kimmel isn\u2019t the only media figure plagued with hallucinations of mental illness. Earlier last week, \u201cThe View\u2019s\u201d Joy Beher put Vice President Mike Pence in the same category because he, as a Christian, learns Christ\u2019s teachings. She made her diagnosis based on some snide comments (bereft of detail) from a former White House staffer on \u201cCelebrity Big Brother\u201d about Pence believing Jesus tells him things. Plenty of liberals think President Trump is basically the antichrist, but others are apparently more troubled about Pence believing in the actual Christ.
As astonishing as it may be to coastal elites who have segregated themselves from ordinary Americans, Christians do generally believe Jesus still teaches his church today. Christianity\u2019s various traditions may differ on how many ways Christ speaks to us and which are more ordinary, but we all agree that he does and that the Bible is one of the most important ways\u2014very often the definitive way, as my own Lutheran tradition teaches, along with that of most Protestants. Indeed, trying to read the Bible every day is the only way Pence mentioned hearing from Jesus.
This is hardly surprising to anyone who is actually familiar with what Jesus taught, for this is precisely how he treated scripture. When rebuking the Pharisees, he says, \u201cGod commanded\u201d before quoting both the fourth commandment and Leviticus (Matt. 15). Likewise, when rebuking Satan, he does so with an authoritative \u201cit is written\u201d every time he responds to Satan with scripture (Matt. 4).
Of those who would go on to write the New Testament, Jesus said things like \u201che who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me\u201d (Luke 10:16) and \u201c[the Holy Spirit] will guide you into all truth\u2026 for he will take what is mine and declare it to you\u201d (John 16:13-14).
Anybody who follows Christ is also going to follow what he said about the Bible, so Christians believe Jesus speaks to us. One might reject Jesus as a bad teacher for teaching this. Or one might\u2014in defiance of the historical record\u2014refuse to believe he taught any such thing. But that doesn\u2019t mean that believing Jesus\u2019 teachings is mental illness in any meaningful sense.
What, then, of the charge that preserving the right to bear arms conflicts with Christ\u2019s teachings? What does Jesus have to say to Christians about modern issues of gun control and gun ownership? Not as much as either side of the political aisle might like. Christianity does not demand any specific political platform. On the contrary, Jesus made it quite clear that his kingdom is not of this world. Christ founded his church to deliver the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation to the world, not to rule over it.
Yes, Christ\u2019s kingdom does not bear arms. After all, sinners like us are saved by faith in Christ rather than relying on our good works. While the edge of the sword (or point of the gun) may coerce outwardly good behavior, it can do nothing to create that faith.
This does not mean, however, that Christians are forbidden from gun ownership, or from being soldiers, police officers, or rulers. Even as we live in the Kingdom of God by faith, we remain citizens of this world as well. Among Christ\u2019s teachings is that God has provided the kingdoms of this world with means to restrain human wickedness, including the use of violence in some circumstances (Romans 13).
So while the Bible clearly condemns murder\u2014the deliberate killing (with any weapon) of innocent or guilty people one is not authorized to kill\u2014it just as clearly grants the sword to civil authorities for the sake of punishing wrongdoers and protecting people from them.
In America, the citizens who govern this country have empowered ordinary people to carry out that role as well by allowing us to arm ourselves. This was a wise decision from our founders and all who have defended our Constitution in subsequent generations.
Police are important in keeping the peace, and we generally rely on them to enforce the law so we do not endure the chaos of vigilantism. But when we come under attack, the attackers are virtually always closer to us than the police are. Americans have decided that we also want to be protected in those crucial minutes (or hours) before the police arrive.
So no, Jesus has not forbidden his followers from being armed or from allowing our neighbors the same privilege. He has not demanded that we ban guns. It is a matter of Christian freedom, and there are innumerable good reasons for Christians to exercise that freedom in a way that preserves our constitutional rights.
Far more important than the specific issue of gun ownership, however, is the role that Christian faith plays in the way we respond to tragedy\u2014an advantage that likely has some bearing on why so many faithful Christians support the Second Amendment. Rather than a form of mental illness, modern research soundly indicates that religion is associated with both better mental health and better recovery from mental illness. It appears faith in general and the Christian faith in particular (most of that research is done in the largely Christian West) are actually quite helpful to America\u2019s ability to deal with tragedy in a mentally healthy way.
This shouldn\u2019t be terribly surprising. Inasmuch as we, as a culture, have despised faith, we have also crippled our ability to mourn. When tragedy strikes, too many of us respond like mechanics wondering why an engine broke down. We try to find the cause, replace the part, and re-engineer our way to a better engine that never fails.
When feelings are hurt, we want to outlaw words. When children go missing, we want tracking devices on every child and cameras in every corner of the world. When people are murdered, we want to ban whatever was used to kill them. All this we do out of a childlike desperation for a world in which nothing bad ever happens. Instead of taking time to grieve with one another, we cry out, \u201cWe must do something\u201d and vow to do whatever it takes until the pain finally goes away.
But that never makes it go away. Our own efforts neither bring back the dead nor create a world without death and suffering. For that, we can only trust in God\u2019s promises. What\u2019s more, doing \u201cwhatever it takes\u201d without regard for the consequences often inflicts even more pain by stripping away the protection of wisdom and dispensing with love.
It is loving to want to help those in need, but this kind of desperation knows nothing of love. Love seeks the well-being of the beloved, and it depends on truth and wisdom to guide it. But desperation seeks only its own comfort\u2014it wants the tears and sadness to stop by any means necessary. The bloody history of the twentieth century amply demonstrates what \u201cany means necessary\u201d ultimately becomes in the hands of faithless utopians. The same impulse is at work in our own would-be tyrants who would surely fix the world if only they were allowed to control every aspect of it.
Faith, in contrast, is the golden mean between complacency and desperation. Rather than sit idly by in tragedy, we love our neighbors because God first loved us. We also know there is a higher power than humanity at work in the world. This means that the buck does not stop with us, and we are not burdened with engineering a salvation we can never achieve.
We are therefore free to do what it right and loving without making false promises about solving all the world\u2019s problems. We try to do all that we can to help our neighbors and make life better for them, but we do not take on the impossible and infantile task of recreating the world so nothing bad can ever happen\u2014an endeavor that has inflicted hell on millions for the sake of giving them paradise.
It\u2019s easy to spot desperation in action because it never really cares what is done as long as it\u2019s something. You can see it in the fashionable contempt for \u201cthoughts and prayers.\u201d These people want \u201creal action\u201d instead. But it\u2019s hard to take such complainers too seriously when their idea of real action is to harass people on the Internet until they take real action. Some have even stooped to harassing a shooting victim\u2019s father because he supports President Trump.
In exchange for tripe like this, the desperate would strip away the public expressions of solidarity and commiseration that remind victims and survivors that they are not suffering alone and unheard nor beneath the notice of the Almighty. Even if one believes religion is just a crutch, what kind of person goes around kicking away injured people\u2019s crutches?
You can also see desperation in the calls for change that never count the costs and benefits of that change. The latest calls to ban guns aren\u2019t accompanied by realistic evaluations of how effective such laws would be in the hands of investigators who were given advance warning about Nikolas Cruz twice and failed to take action. They aren\u2019t accompanied by consideration for all the lives that would be lost once targets of violent crime no longer have the means to defend themselves. They aren\u2019t accompanied by any awareness of the long-term consequences of eliminating American freedom and an essential bulwark against tyranny.
They don\u2019t even acknowledge the simple fact that gun ownership has been increasing even as violent crime rates have fallen. On the contrary, all these rhapsodies about non-existent \u201ccommon sense gun laws everybody wants\u201d are deliberately oblivious to the massive controversy surrounding the issue because of the heavy cost of curtailing legal gun ownership. It is no different from banging on the dashboard of a car that won\u2019t start\u2014you do it because you think it\u2019ll make you feel better, not because it will actually help.
Every tragic shooting that grabs the public attention shows us anew that the desperate always try to prey on those in mourning because their grief leaves them vulnerable to sharing in that desperation. But the faithful know there is a better way.
For now, the wisest course of action is one prescribed by Christ\u2014mourn with those who mourn. The time will come\u2014as it always does\u2014to make a rational and loving decision about what needs to be done. Liberals claim that waiting does no good because it has consistently failed to produce any action, but the better explanation is that cooler heads have consistently recognized that the actions leftists want are not what is best for our nation. There\u2019s nothing mentally ill or unchristian about recognizing that.<\/p>\n

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