[Magdalen] Fwd: Acts of Faith: Have guns become our modern-day idols?

Tue Mar 20 14:40:15 UTC 2018

WasPost rolls out new approach to their “Religion section” and starts with this reprint of a DC “area” Episcopal priest’s sermon. 
Lynn 

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From: The Washington Post <email at washingtonpost.com>
Date: March 20, 2018 at 9:31:50 AM CDT
To: houstonklr at gmail.com
Subject: Acts of Faith: Have guns become our modern-day idols?
Reply-To: The Washington Post <email at washingtonpost.com>

Religion headlines that matter

Hello readers!

We’re trying something new here at Acts of Faith. We have adapted a sermon from a Washington-area priest for today’s newsletter. The topic of guns has flared up in the news for the past several weeks, and the Rev. Susan Flanders, an Episcopal priest at St. Columba’s Episcopal Church in D.C., raises the question of whether guns have become an idol in this country.

What do you think? Have you had interesting conversations in your communities about this issue? As always, feel free to write me at spulliam at gmail.com

— Sarah Pulliam Bailey, editor of Acts of Faith

Semi-automatic AR-15's are for sale at Good Guys Guns & Range on Feb. 15, 2018 in Orem, Utah. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

Have guns become our modern-day idols?

Rev. Susan Flanders

There is a bizarre story in the Old Testament, in the Book of Numbers. It’s about how Moses, while leading the people of Israel through the wilderness, makes for them a bronze serpent to be held up on a pole to heal snake bites. This is after we learn that it was actually God who sent the snakes to bite the people! What kind of God? What kind of cure? Looking at a bronze snake? This makes no sense today, either in terms of our understanding of God or what we know about snake bites. But for God’s people then, the snake was a good snake, a sign of deliverance and protection, a miracle that God had ordered. The bronze snake had healing powers; it would protect God’s people.

But then things changed. If we jump ahead hundreds of years, to the reign in Judah of King Hezekiah, a faithful follower of God, we learn that he tore this bronze snake down and broke it in pieces. It was no longer a good snake, but a bad snake — it had become an idol in the temple, and people worshiped it, lit incense before it and completely forgot what purpose it had served originally. The bronze serpent had lost its power to save; it had become a false savior. And as with any change, particularly when it comes to cherished idols, some people were mad — they probably formed a “Save our Snake” committee!

In order to make some sense of this passage, to once more search for God’s word in a puzzling story, I have come to understand the story of the bronze serpent as a story about idolatry and of how a true savior can become a false savior.

Perhaps we can think about our country’s relationship with guns as a similar kind of story, especially in light of the widespread outrage and demand for action after the latest gun massacre and the daily death toll caused by guns all over the country. Could our national history with guns be a story about idolatry?

Guns were so important at the time our Constitution was written. They allowed for hunting, a necessary activity for many to be able to feed their families. But beyond that, guns were important for self-defense, and sadly, for conquest of native populations as we gradually took over a new continent. And for the Founding Fathers, guns were deemed necessary to enable a militia to protect the citizens’ freedom against any who might try to reintroduce tyranny in their young democracy. Hence the Second Amendment to our Constitution protecting the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Guns started out as a kind of savior, a source of protection — like the bronze serpent.

But, like the bronze serpent, guns have become an idol for many, and the right to have guns — of any kind, in any amount has become a near article of worship for some. The NRA and gun makers can be seen as the priesthood — elevating our guns to sacred status, equating them with a power and potency that must be maintained.

I’m hoping that perhaps now we are in a Hezekiah moment, a time like the one so long ago when the bronze serpent was destroyed. Can we begin to see guns for what they have become, far too prevalent, too high-powered, false saviors in, too often, the wrong hands? False saviors — not only with no power to save but with horrific power to destroy. Can we recognize the worship of assault weapons as the idolatry that it is, and can we stand up to those who continue to bow down at the shrine of unfettered access to murder weapons? I hope we are at a turning point, and the activism, particularly of young people who aren’t willing to stand for continued inaction by our political leaders is heartening. I almost don’t dare to hope this because we’ve been here before, and nothing has happened. But, maybe, maybe, this time.

The passion and energy of so many young people continues and calls to us adults to make up for years of inadequate responses to gun violence. It’s time to turn away from the hold of these weapons and the daily violence they foster; we need to bring down these false saviors.

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