ChurchNext Online Course: A Christian Response to Gun Violence

Two Episcopal Bishops, Eugene Sutton and Ian Douglas, are offering a free, online course that seeks to explore the issue of gun violence from a Christian perspective. I'm enrolled in this course and will continue to blog about it as I find time.

The class revolves around four video presentations:

• The Unholy Trinity (Eugene Sutton)
• Violence and the Bible (Eugene Sutton)
• A Theology for Challenging Gun Violence (Ian Douglas)
• Christian Responsibility (Ian Douglas)

Pedagogically, the course is not monolithic, but deploys a number of different learning strategies, including lecture, prompt-based conversation, personal reflection, and even self-assessments. What I'm most looking forward to are the discussions that follow upon the lecture. Gun violence conversations online are notorious for their vitriol, but I'm hoping that the professors are able to create a space for honest dialogue around this contentious issue, dialogue that is inviting to a whole range of views. This is a challenging thing to do, and one that I've often failed at. My hope is that they succeed in this venture.

A bit about the teachers: Bishops Sutton and Douglas are also involved in the leadership of Bishops against Gun Violence, which advocates for the following policies:

We urge our cities, states and nation to adopt policies and pass legislation that will reduce the number of Americans killed and wounded by gunfire. These include:

1. Expanding the federal background checks system to cover gun shows, internet and commercial sales
2. Making gun trafficking a federal crime
3. Encouraging the development of “smart gun” technology to reduce accidental shootings—especially among children
4. Requiring that guns be stored safely
5. Improving access to mental healthcare for all Americans.

From what I can tell, the course reflects similar values.