Guns as Idols?

Are guns idols? According to a number of Christian leaders and theologians guns certainly are, at least for some people. The gun, they, claim is a particularly American idol, and one that must be challenged and called out. This post looks at some of those figures and the various ways they have made their cases.

Rev. Dr. David Gushee (Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics & Director of the Center for Theology and Public Life) has recently published a "prayer" on the website, religionnews.com, titled, "Let us all now pray to the Almighty Gun." (I use the quotations marks around "prayer" intentionally, and in a way that I think reflects the spirit of Dr. Gushee's post.) 

At the top of the poem, Dr. Gushee includes a warning to his readers:

"Some will find this post sacrilegious. What is truly a sacrilege is our devotion to an Object that keeps killing us and our children."

His poem begins this way:

"Early in the morning we rise to greet You, O Gun Almighty. With all due reverence we bow before You.
You alone are great. Mighty are Your deeds. Awesome is Your power.
There is no one like You. In You do we place our trust.
With one press of Your trigger, we unleash Your power, a power almost too great to imagine.
Power to pierce flesh and shatter bone.
Power to bring down the strongest man.
Power to end the most vibrant life.
Who can fail to bow before Your great power?
Who are we that You should entrust Yourself to us?
We do thank You for delegating Your power to us, mere mortals.
However weak we are in body or in mind, when we hold You we share in Your great power.
However insignificant we are, when we hold You we are great indeed.
We too gain authority over life. We too can bring death with the mere press of a trigger.
We are grateful, O Gun Almighty, that with the exception of just a few bad humans, we can be trusted with Your great power.
There are doubters, O Almighty Gun.
They do not trust You as we do.
They certainly know Your power, but they do not trust Your goodness as we do.
They claim that You make us less not more secure.
But we know, O Gun, that only in You can we find true security.
They claim that it is too easy for people to get access to You.
But we know, O Gun, that only when everyone has access to You will we find true peace.
They claim that You kill, and often kill wrongly.
But we know, O Gun, that it is not You that kill, but instead we who kill, and certainly we who kill wrongly.
They claim that we would be safer if there were fewer guns.
Be we know, O Gun, that it is only a well-armed society that is truly secure.
And so we implore you, O Gun, to strengthen your priests and ministers as they pursue Your work in the world:
May they find success in weakening Gun control efforts.
May they find success in deflecting blame from You after every mass killing in which people wrongly use You.
May they find success in securing the right to bear arms in all public places: schools, churches, malls, airports, bars, restaurants, streets, movie theaters, train stations, buses, airplanes, post offices, city halls, and everywhere people gather.
May they find even more success in funding and electing legislators who will faithfully serve You, O Gun.
When we doubt, O Gun Almighty, strengthen our faith in You.
When the number of killings rise, strengthen our faith in You.
When children are murdered in large numbers, strengthen our faith in You.
Though You slay us, yet will we trust in You.
As for me and my house
As for us and our nation
We will trust in You alone, O Gun Almighty."

See more at: http://davidgushee.religionnews.com/2015/08/31/let-us-all-now-pray-to-the-almighty-gun-2/#sthash.wbywBnoc.dpuf

By offering this "prayer" to the gun, Dr. Gushee joins a number of other religious leaders who claim that guns can be treated as idols or gods. Gushee doesn't use the word, "idol" in his poem, but a brief glance at it indicates that he doesn't need to; that he thinks guns can be idolatrously worshiped is clear from the text's prayerful tone. Form speaks just as loud as content. 

Other faith leaders who have also adopted the "idolatry" argument include the Presbyterian Church USA pastor emeritus, James Atwood, whom I recently interviewed. Atwood's arguments are most comprehensively stated in his book, America and Its Guns: A Theological Expose (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2012). Atwood is clear that "Not for one minute do I believe all guns are idols, but I do believe that some guns are idols. I'd never say that all gun owners are idolatrous, but I insist some gun owners are" (Atwood, 20). In Chapter 3 of his book, he offers a detailed description what he means by "idol," and why he interprets some guns in this way. The interview I did with Atwood lays out these arguments as well, albeit in a more conversational tone. 

Rev. Peter Marty (St. Paul Church, Davenport, IA) makes his case in The Lutheran, a subscription-based magazine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. His article, "Guns in a Culture of Idolatry" (The Lutheran, Nov 2014), claims that, "Among many Americans, the gun now claims nearly divine status. Our fascination with its powers has turned it into a small ‘g’ god. If Martin Luther’s definition of a god has any enduring truth to it—’A god is that to which we look for all comfort and take refuge in every time of need’—the gun has risen to achieve godlike prominence . . . You don’t question a god that requires human sacrifice and guarantees your security and safety. You revere this god even when it can’t sustain such guarantees. You enshrine its divinity in an impenetrable temple called ‘my rights.’” A review of this article was done on the Faith and Firearms Project You Tube Channel.

Finally, I would draw your attention to a YouTube video by the online preacher, David Williams, who has posted hundreds of videos on a whole variety of topics related to Christian living, including guns. In his video, "God and Guns: What Jesus Stated," Pastor Williams refers to the use of guns in self-defense as "false religion"(see 4:36-4:50)--not quite idolatry but close! He goes on to say, "Either Jesus is gonna protect me, or he's not . . . It's my faith that prevents me from having a sidearm" (5:12-5:24). Later in the video he says, "You take the gun, you take the spirit of death attached to it" (9:08-9:12). Even though Pastor Williams doesn't claim that guns are idols, he comes close enough to warrant his inclusion on this ariticle. 

The use of idolatry in religious polemic is deeply grounded in the faith of these four Christian men, and most especially in the literature of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Many texts in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible label unacceptable worship practices as idolatrous. The Ten Commandments themselves condemn idolatrous worship (Exod 20:3-6; Deut 5:7-10). The prophet Jeremiah condemns the inhabitants of Judah for trusting in idols that "cannot speak . . . have to be carried . . . [and] cannot walk" (Jer 10:5). And the famous Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical story of Bel and the Dragon depicts Daniel cleverly demonstrating to the king that Bel, the king's deity, is nothing more than an idol.

Standing here at the intersection of guns and religions, one sees how profoundly complex it actually is. Do religion and guns intersect? Yes, but in many different ways.