Again
this past weekend we have been confronted with the evil and violence of human
brokenness and sin as 49 people were killed and 53 injured by a gunman at an
Orlando nightclub. According to those who knew him, the shooter appears to have
been a troubled, angry man prone to violence. He was also given to angry
anti-gay rhetoric. And he expressed a somewhat confused affinity for groups
espousing violent versions of Islam.
There
is no doubt this was a calculated terrorist attack. The groups with whom the
attacker verbally aligned himself are evil perversions of Islam specializing in
terror. While these groups represent a strain of "extremist" Islam, we need to be clear that they do not represent all of Islam or the
majority Muslims. And we need to be wary of responding to their violent rejection
of all who differ with them with a similar rejection of those with whom we differ.
We must counter their ideology and theology of death with an ideology and
theology of life and peace (Romans 8:6).
There
is also no doubt that it was not a random attack. It was a targeted attack
against gay and lesbian people – people who are all too often the targets of
physical violence and violent, disdainful rhetoric. We can give thanks that
another attack apparently targeting a Gay Pride parade in Los Angeles was thwarted by
police. But, we also need to recognize that the Orlando shooter did not need
inspiration from foreign terrorists to conclude that the presence of gays and
lesbians is somehow an egregious moral threat. Rhetoric like that is common
enough in America – and in American churches. We need to find better ways to talk
about and to one another, regardless of our convictions about human sexuality.
I suggest that the best way to respond to the Orlando shooting is with the basic Christian disciplines
of hope, love, and peace.
Hope. If we have died with
Christ in baptism with the promise of sharing in his resurrection, we have
a hope stronger than life or death or anything in between. With St. Paul, we
can live convinced that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of
God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). With that assurance, we can dare
to live without fear, including without fear of those who are different from us
or with whom we disagree.
Love. Free from fear, we
are free to learn to love. The love Christians are called to practice is not a sentimental
feeling, but a determination to die to self in order to make space for the
other. It is the way of the cross that calls us to love even our enemies and
those who wish us harm. And it is a love that challenges us to consider where
we have hurt or offended others. Love seeks more to understand than to be
understood. Love demands that we take care how we carry others in our hearts
and on our tongues. How we think and talk to or about one another matters (Matthew 12:36; cf. Matthew 5:22, James 3:2-9, 1 John 4:20)
Peace. As with love, there
is no sentimentality in following the way of the Prince of Peace – it is the
clear-eyed determination to bless rather than curse, to seek peace and pursue
it (Psalm 34:13-14 & 1 Peter 3:8-22), and to not be conformed to this world, but
transformed into a people who return good for evil (Romans 12). There have been mass
killings in the United States inspired by violent strains of Islam. But, there have
been more that had nothing to do with Islam or any foreign terrorist group. We need to
come to terms with the violence of our society. We need to reconsider our own
ready embrace of violence as a solution and the idea that if we all just armed
ourselves more we would be safe. That is not the way of Jesus.
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