On Sunday December 9th, a gunman shot two people outside New Life Church in Colorado Springs, and then charged inside apparently planning to kill many more. Because of earlier shootings at a nearby Youth With a Mission Base, there were armed security guards in the church. One of them was Jeanne Assam, who confronted the man as he came inside and eventually shot him dead. She credits God for helping her take him down. (See story and related videos here)Not surprisingly Jeanne is being hailed as a hero as her act likely saved hundreds of lives. While I understand where this is coming from and why she did it, I find it all fascinating. I've come to the place where I guess you could label me a "pacifist". And while I know I am definitely in the minority, as a Christ-follower I don't believe Jesus taught us to use violence, but instead to radically love our enemies. Easier said than done I know, but it's what I believe and hope to live out. Out of interest I did a google search to try to find out if anyone else had a problem with what Jeanne did and surprisingly I found almost nothing... only articles and blogs about how this shows how ridiculous pacifism is and how guns save lives.
While I'm not here to judge Jeanne Assam and understand that lives were lost in this tradegy, I still have a hard time with the fact that so many Christians don't think twice about the fact that she also took a human life. What do you think?
6 comments:
Could it be that most Christians believe and see it as :"Greater love hath no man than this,
that a man lay down his life for his friends"? John 15:13 Ms. Assam was laying her life on the line, she knew not what the outcome would be. I for one am grateful that God had a former trained police officer there at the right time and in the right place. And to think she just came off a spiritual 3 day fast. By the way she was a civilian doing volunteer security work at the church, she was not a certified security guard. Had she been certified she would not have been allowed to carry her 9mm semi-automatic weapon which took the obvious evil perpetrator down. Security officers in that city are only legally allowed to carry single action revolvers. Even then she was out-gunned. A 9mm handgun is small beans compared to what the killer was carrying.I'm wondering Julianne about that awesome picture you posted of yourself surrounded by those beautiful innocent children...had a mad man come into your village with a machete or worse and you had the means to protect those children do you think you might have responded just like Ms. Assam? Of course we'll never know but it would be nice to think you'd do whatever it took to protect those innocent ones. Pacifism doesn't understand that one can't always negotiate with evil.
Hi Phoebe,
Thanks for comments and for reading my blog! Have we met? I definitely don't question tht Jeanne was brave and put herself out there, risking her life, and I understand your point of view. I still can't justify in my mind her killing the gunman. What makes that different then him killing others? Maybe it's different, I don't know. I just don't see any of the teachings of Jesus that point towards using violence to promote peace. Jesus lay down his life, but he didn't do it violently. It seems backwards to me. If I claim to follow Christ, I want to do what He did, and from the little I know about him, I can't imagine that would be his response. You ask about someone attacking the children I worked with in Zimbabwe... I can't say exactly what I would do, but would hope I would do my best to protect those children but I honestly don't think I would kill the attacker. The gunman in Colorado was young and obviously had some issues. It makes me sad that he'll never have a second chance, to change, to be restored. Who knows if he would have, but we'll never know.
Thanks for the dialogue.
I agree with you Julianne. The idea that we have to arm our churches with guns seems completely insane to me. It is HORRIBLE what happened that day - but the church's response was not what I believe would have been Christ's response. Christ called us to live differently than the rest of the world. They're to know us "by our love." I am glad that this woman helped prevent more deaths - but it's a shame that it couldn't have happened another way.
Hey Julianne -- very thought provoking!
A couple of thoughts:
Phoebe raises a classic challenge to pacifism -- what to do when those we love are threatened by lethal violence. And, typically, I have heard pacificists respond or avoid the question by saying, it is an extreme situation and very unlikely to happen. However, given this situation in Colorado, clearly, these things do happen. But, still some of Phoebe's rationales raise some questions for me.
First, how far do we take numbers thinking. That is, if we read into her argument it is okay for one to die to possibly save more than one, if not many more, from dying. But, what if we project the same thinking onto armed conflict -- is it okay to kill a thousand people to save ten thousand? At what point do we draw the line? Second, does allowing civilians to carry semi-automatic weapons make our communities more or less safe? Third, Phoebe describes God's hand in this life-saving act. If this is in fact true, how does God decide when God will use violence to intervene? Why this situation and not at one of the other shootings that has made news recently? Was it because of Assam's fast? Fourth, a somewhat unrelated point: I find the example of you and the children to be strikingly ironic. There is a "mad man" attacking that village. "He" happens to be AIDS and starvation. And, you are doing something about it.
All these points said I don't think there are simple answers to these questions. Our society definitely is permissive of some violence and condones other forms. In my own work with justice system related people I meet people who use both types. Violence, whether it is allowed or illegal, tends to create new problems, for the individuals involved, as well as rippling out into the community. But, this said, I can't help but think, if my children were attending the church and Assam saved their lives, I'd be pretty relieved.
Great post and discussion!
cheers,
jude
Wow - great discussion. Good on you, Julianne, for having the guts to open this up on your blog. Mind if I link to this on mine?
I happened to write some thoughts on the subject tonight for our application with MCC. This isn't exhaustive of what I think on the subject. Jude has covered some of the points well, too, so I won't elaborate.
But I do want to share a couple things that I wrote tonight....
The positions of peace and non-volience are the two aspects of Anabaptist doctrine that I struggle with most. This is not because I disagree – on the contrary, I fully embrace the notion that Jesus calls us to live peaceful lives, loving and forgiving our enemies, and actively working towards peace and reconciliation. I don’t struggle with the fact that while the Old Testament is filled with stories of God-directed war, Jesus came to set a higher standard and to call us to a new way of living. I have no difficulty in stating that I personally will never go to war, but would rather follow in the footsteps of some of the great Anabaptists before us who followed God’s call to peace over the government’s call to war, and suffered for that stand. I can honestly state that I would personally choose death over active engagement in wars of state.
That is not to say that I believe that governments should be pacificist. I believe that a nation without a military will soon be no nation at all. I believe it is wishful thinking to suppose that governments who refused to ever exert military force would survive. The fact is, we live in a fallen world, full of evil that is intent on taking over and suppressing others. And yet, I believe that God is sovereign and above all nations. He allows this world to run it’s course of sin, and he calls his followers to the role of reconciliation and counter-cultural living.
I would relate my position on governments engaging in military action to my position on sin: the church should not expect non-Christians to live by Christ’s ethic. On the contrary, we should expect that sinners will, by nature, sin. In the same way, if we do not believe that nations can be “Christ-followers” (people are followers of Christ, not organizations), then we should not expect them to live like Christ. In this way, I do not expect governments who are “of the world” to live “apart” from the ways of the world. We should expect them to engage in ways that are “of the world.” And that is, unfortunately, a fallen world, full of evil people who desire to harm others. In that world, filled with government, it is the role of a government to maintain order and to protect it’s interests.
That is not to let the church, however, off the hook. It is my belief that God calls the church to model a “new way”, just as Christ came to do. In relation to war, I believe that Jesus modelled the way of peace and self-sacrifice, even to the point of death. It is, therefore, our role as followers of Christ to carry on his way of peace and self-sacrifice, and challenging others to follow the way of peace.
Ironically, I was just doing some personal reading this week about the subject, and was deeply challenged by one particular point made by the author. Caleb Miller, Assoc. Professor of Philosophy at Messiah College, writes the following in his article “How Can You Just Sit There and Let the Innocent Suffer?”
“Pacifists, as I have presented things, benefit greatly from non-pacifism. Non-pacifism is essential, I take it, for maintaining social order. Isn’t there something wrong with benefiting so willingly from violations of one’s own moral principles? It smacks suspiciously of relying on someone else to do our dirty work for us. It is dirty work, not only in the sense that it is morally problematic, from a pacifist point of view, but also in the sense that it involves, or can involve, considerable risk and sacrifice.
It seems to me that this charge seriously undermines the integrity of pacifists unless two things are true of their pacifism. First, pacifists must be willing to live with the chaos that would, I believe, reign, if governments were unwilling to exercise deadly force. They must be such that they would not resort to deadly force even if their doing so were required to prevent their living with civil disorder. Second, pacifists must be willing to undertake risks and sacrifices in service to their fellow human beings that are as great as those undertaken by their non-pacifist fellows. Without these two commitments, pacifism is deeply hypocritical.”
It is with this in mind that I choose to embrace pacifism. I am absolutely committed to promoting peace. In fact, I believe that while military force is, at times, necessary for governments to use to maintain civil order, peaceful reconciliation is actually often the better means of conflict resolution. I am committed, as a follower of Christ, to model and teach the “Jesus” ethic of peaceful living, rather than the “world’s” way of conflict.
Miller concludes with the follow statement, which for me reflects the position I will spend my life wrestling with, and working to hold to.
“How many of us would really be willing seriously to risk our lives in service to others or to live without effective legal protection against violent crime? I submit that unless pacifism is a commitment for while one is willing to die, it is immoral.”
I believe that peace is the way of Jesus, and as such, I chose to promote peace, and to choose non-violence/non-resistance. It is my prayer that God will guide me into a deeper understanding of how this needs to be played out in my life on a daily basis.
end.
Interestingly, I learned from that article that historically, Anabaptist pacifism has held to the position that they should not try to coerce others to convert to pacifism. we've certainly strayed from that, i think, over time.... because we believe that all christians should embrace non-volience.
anyway.... it's an ongoing debate and internal struggle, and it's not ever gonna be an easy answer.
peace through christ,
jamie
Sorry... one more thing....
in response to phoebe's last comment...
"Pacifism doesn't understand that one can't always negotiate with evil."
Actually, it does understand this. It tries it's best to negotiate with evil. Failing that, it lays down it's life to evil.... just as Jesus did.
Wow - if that isn't being "in the world and not of it", I don't know what is.
That doesn't address the EMOTIONAL pull of protecting the innocent. I, as a father, certainly understand that. I guess God the Father understood it, too... as he watched Jesus be tortured and killed.
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