It appears as though Evangelical education at its best pops up within Liberty University's shooting range. Just as Jerry Falwell never led a moral majority - as it was neither - so now his son, Jr., is helping the students at Liberty follow Jesus with a sidearm ready to protect their lives. Once again, this form of Evangelicalism doesn't know the meaning of Jesus Saves. Jesus doesn't save my skin. Jesus doesn't save me from the demons I condemn for my advantage. Jesus doesn't buy into the whole notion of God and Country because this is usually a god and not God. Jesus doesn't brew anxiety about all those people out there. Rather, Jesus of Nazareth saves us from our warring selves - our desires to do anything to have life as we want it - our self-indulgent and consuming lifestyles that always, always, conflict with the life of the Reign of God.
But, Jr. is raising up an army - quaint. The idolatry of weaponry has always been a sidearm of frightened Christians. Rather than follow the Jesus -who spoke of the healing and radical love of the Reign of God in both the sermon on the mount and the sermon on the plain and then put to life his own words - it appears Jr. wants to follow the way of self-defense and self-preservation. Pick up those guns and be a packing follower of Jesus. I don't think it is Jr.'s idea to assist the students out in the woods and fields during hunting season. I think it has more to do with the notion that a pistol or a rifle can make you a hero for Jesus - or simply keep your ass alive. Wow, never heard that notion in the teaching of Jesus. But then, there's much within the Jr's Evangelical business that seem to bother with the sacrificial love of Jesus that is meant to become our love and our way.
I wonder if the gun-toting students and faculty are preparing for Armageddon - another blunder in biblical interpretation. But that end-time violence really triggers good-old, Christian violence against anyone and everyone who is not in on that interpretation. Bad theology is always at the root of violence in the name of a god or a prophet. Many folks point at the people of Islam as being raised up as agents of violence in today's world. I would simply say that Christian, Muslims, Jews, and people of other faiths who instigate violence or think they must arm themselves against others are all involved in teaching the faith without the heart of their faithful leaders in their own minds and hearts. In other words, we are being left to drown in a mire of poor theology and a self-serving reading of Scriptures that leaves the world on the edge of bitterness and hatred. Unfortunately, when folks are in that position, violence seems to be the only antidote - yet it never is. When we read holy books for our own good and for our own advantage and for our own protection, we become nothing more than another agent of a world turned-in-on-itself and ready to kill. Doesn't sound like Jesus to me.
Onward Christian Soldiers is a terrible metaphor for the followers of Jesus that is taken quite literally by many 'good news' people. But we are not a people to be marching off to war. We are invited to stand in the midst of the shit that may be around us and prayerfully consider how the love of Jesus makes for peace. We are a people who step into the shit - not plow through it - side step it - or start flinging it at others. We step into it to make sure no one is there alone - forgotten - left to die a smelly death without a loving hand to comfort them and - if need be - to die alongside them as the beloved within God's Reign. Falwell Jr. can sow all the seeds of violence he wants, but when he does that he does it without being a Good News (Evangelical) school. I would encourage the followers of Jesus to put down the false gods that continue to lead us toward violence and then - risk living the love of Jesus - without limit. That is Evangelical - in a biblical sense.
TRRR
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