To Stop
Gun Violence in America,
We Must
Acquire “the Mind of Christ”
by Pastor
Paul J. Bern
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I
could start by writing at length how sick and tired people have
become of America's gun violence problem. I'm skipping all that. The
news media is already filled with the opinions of those who, in the
long run, matter little if at all. I'm skipping the psychoanalysis
too. Don't hand me all the utterances of the do-nothings who spend
their days pointing out problems without making any effort at coming
up with any solutions. You all know the ones I'm talking about, and I
don't mean everyone reading this, either – not by a long shot. I'm
talking about all the TV and radio pundits who make their living by
agitating and provoking people. I know the gunman in the Thousand
Oaks, California mass shooting had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I
suffer from PTSD myself, but the source of my disorder is from
growing up in an abusive foster-care situation rather than from the
battlefield. There are a lot of people who have PTSD, but none of the
rest of us has arbitrarily decided to go out and mow down a dozen or
more people. I can't imagine doing such a thing myself. I find the
very thought revolting.
They
can call whatever they do whatever they want. I call it 'violently
anti-social behavior'. And yet the majority of these agitators on
radio and TV are church goers. That's the part that drives me nuts –
from the vantage point of the pulpit, that's what I'm seeing – that
people today would rather fight each other than help each other. Soon
after, the acquisition of such argumentative mindsets devolves into
violence because intolerance devalues others to the point that simply
killing a few is somehow OK. Taking a life – any life – just
because one has deemed it to be necessary, is never OK. We have lost
sight of the fact that life is sacred because it comes from sacred
origins, whose name is the Almighty God.
The
Bible does have some things to say about this. The apostle Paul wrote
about this in his letters to the Corinthian churches, and I quote:
“6)
We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not
the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming
to nothing. 7) No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been
hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. 8) None
of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would
not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9) However, as it is written:
'What no eye has
seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived —
the things God has prepared for those who love him' — 10) these are
the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.”
(1st
Corinthians 2: 6-10)
The first thing we
can derive from verse 6 is that we should not wait on the government
to fix our problems because the government lacks the wisdom to fix
anything as it currently stands. There it is, right there in the
Bible. God holds the solutions we seek, not government. As for the
rest of us, it's not so much that we lack the wisdom, it's that we
can't seem to agree on how to go about ending gun violence in
America. We cannot reach a consensus because many of us refuse to
acknowledge the existence of a Higher Power. Never mind the Christian
concepts of a risen Christ and an Almighty God for just a minute –
and all my Christian brethren please bear with me for a moment,
because I'm seriously going somewhere with this today. It is an
indisputable fact that there are sources of Higher Power in the
universe. A refusal to acknowledge or remain in touch with this
Higher Power – the forces of Light that we call “God” –
leaves a vacuum in the human heart that causes the forces of darkness
to take its place. You are either from the Light, as I am, or from
the Darkness, which is all that is negative. It is evil, which is the
power of Darkness that never penetrates the Light unless it is
allowed to, that is the motivator for America's gun violence problem.
But
the evil I'm writing about isn't psychological, it's not mental
illness, nor is it pathological at all. The source of this evil is
spiritual. People who give in to evil and so carry out horrible evil
such as this epidemic of mass shootings do so because they have made
a conscious effort to put their Higher Power – just in case they
profess disbelief in the existence of God – out of their lives.
When you put the Light out of your life, the Darkness inevitably
takes its place. Those who do not believe in Spiritual forces make
themselves all the more vulnerable to it. “9)
However, as it is written: 'What
no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has
conceived — the things God has prepared for those who love him' —
10) these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.”
The apostle Paul was quoting Isaiah 64: 4 as if to say, if only you
will stick with God, his reward for you will be greater than anyone
can imagine. Never give up on God, and He'll never give up on you.
And even if you do give up, God sticks with us anyway because that's
how much he loves each of us. Even if we're in sin, God will still
stick with us – but only for so long, if you get my drift.
Paul clarified this still further
further down in this same passage when he wrote: “13)
This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in
words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with
Spirit-taught words. 14) The person without the Spirit does not
accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them
foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned
only through the Spirit. 15) The person with the Spirit makes
judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to
merely human judgments, 16) for, 'Who has known the mind of the Lord
so as to instruct him?' But we have the mind of Christ.”
(1st
Corinthians 2: 13-16) Now I ask you, how can we continue to have the
“mind of Christ” when we have our minds focused on who we can
take vengeance upon and kill? Never mind whether we think they
“deserve it” or not. I am simply trying to emulate Paul by
“explaining spiritual
realities with Spirit-taught words.”
America's
mass shooting epidemic is a symptom of a country that is turning to
the forces of Darkness. If America was still attuned to the forces of
the Light like she used to be, there would have been no more than a
handful of these mass shootings before they would have been brought
to an abrupt halt. Granted, when it comes to all these shootings,
America's gun laws clearly need to be strengthened, that is true. But
the ultimate responsibility lies with the individual, as Paul wrote,
“The person without
the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of
God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them
because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with
the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not
subject to merely human judgments....”
OK, so if any given person systematically rejects the things of God,
or of their Higher Power, and/or refuses to recognize the authority
thereof, then is it any wonder that such people wind up doing such
ungodly things as mass murder? It should come as no surprise at all.
All
right, so we can safely conclude that those who act out on violent
impulses, or who cannot or will not keep their angry feelings in
check, to the point where they cannot help but hurt or even kill
others – long term incarceration is the only thing that will stop
such people. And that's assuming they survive being arrested, and
many choose not to. Let's not forget there are some who, as the
novelist John Milton put it, “....would rather rule in hell than
serve in heaven.” Actually for me, it's the other way around.
Keeping in mind that I would rather serve forever in heaven than
roast forever in hell is what keeps the forces of Darkness out of my
heart, mind and soul. In effect, I and others like me “have the
mind of Christ”. Not the person, you understand, but the mindset of
the man, the Savior and Redeemer. Only Christ gave his life for you
and for me – Jesus Christ the Son of God and no one else. Only the
forces of the demonic take lives, they never give anything.
And
so in closing, it is vitally important that we all take on “the
mind of Christ”. No one can be just like our Lord and Savior
because only Jesus lived a sinless life – none of us even comes
close to that. But we can overcome our bad natures – especially the
propensity to kill – by keeping the “mind of Christ” tucked
inside our brains as we go about our daily routines, and as we meet
and work with all kinds of people. Some of them are good, some are
evil, and still more simply don't care. As long as they're getting
their usual, that's all they worry about. They couldn't care less
about anyone else but themselves. Although the killers are awful
enough, and dangerous enough, it's the ones who don't care who do the
most damage of all. That's because the only way evil can flourish is
for cold and uncaring men and women to look the other way.
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