On the front of today’s Houston Chronicle editorial section is an editorial entitled: “Native Texan, avid hunter and pastor speaks: Today’s gun culture has little to admire”. This editorial was written by Nathan Bledsoe who is pastor of St. Peter’s United Methodist Church in Katy, Texas. This is an excellent editorial that addresses the gun culture issue very thoughtfully and directly by someone who is a gun owner, who grew up hunting and continues to hunt, and who obviously takes his belief in Christianity seriously. Unfortunately the editorial is behind the Houston Chronicle paywall here, so if you subscribe to the Chronicle please read the entire editorial—you won’t be disappointed. For those who don’t, I will include and discuss the most important parts of this fine editorial following.
The editorial begins:
Following the murders in San Bernadino, I found myself in a peculiar situation. I was sitting in a deer blind sick to my stomach about the problem of guns in America.
I am a Texan, a United Methodist pastor, and I’ve been a deer hunter my whole life.
He then talks about growing up with guns and hunting from his grandfather and father on. How hunting is his favorite hobby, but then also realizes that every week there seems to be another mass shooting and that regardless of the ideology or mental status of the shooter, “guns are at the scene each and every time.”
And now to the meat of the editorial, Pastor Bledsoe offers his thoughtful analysis about what this means from his hunting and Christian pastoral perspective:
In reflecting on guns, I’ve realized that while I may be a hunter, I don’t like what guns mean in America. I don’t like that they’re a status symbol, something to collect and be proud of, and something we’re so emotionally invested in that we won’t even have a conversation about regulating them. And I say that as someone who has some of these feelings myself.
My religion teaches me that if we are so invested in our personal ability to have something that we won’t consider its effect on society, that thing is an idol. And America’s relationship with guns is nothing short of idolatrous. As a United Methodist pastor, I have a profound belief that part of my role is to help make meaning of the world we live in, and to try and speak truth that brings us closer to the world as God wants it to look: the Kingdom of God.
And every time we have the same shouting match about guns, we delay any kind of real conversation, and more people die.
He then continues his pastoral theme:
One of my favorite theologians is Paul Tillich, and Tillich used a helpful term for situations like this one. He called them demonic. Demonic to Tillich meant that something was evil enough to be coercive. Something truly demonic plays on our insecurities and self-destructive tendencies.
There’s a demonic tendency in our culture that’s doing two things: It’s inspiring more and more and more people to go on killing rampages with guns, and it’s convincing most of us that there’s nothing we can do about it.
Then Pastor Bledsoe talks about prayer and politics and says that prayer is important and significant, but only if also accompanied with action and purpose. He then talks about political solutions he supports like gun buyback programs, and that guns, like cars, ought to have titles that can be transferred or reported stolen. He also supports strengthened background checks and longer waiting periods.
He closes his editorial with:
But what’s more important than any of my ideas is a willingness from our political leaders to set aside their partisan biases and have real, significant conversation on gun control. Now.
Now this is one of the better editorials I have read on the gun control and gun culture issue, and from a very Christian perspective. I wish it will have some effect on our politicians in Texas and the nation, but I also sadly believe it won’t. Which is a real shame, because something serious needs to be done on gun control. Now.
