Category Archives: Social Commentary

Guest Commentary on Minnesota Public Radio today

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Click THIS LINK to read today’s Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) commentary “A ‘Well-regulated militia’ has little in common with the arsenals of today” – a short version of yesterday’s “The Meth Shows” published here on Views from the Edge.

I invite you to read the MPR piece. Then add your views as a “comment” on the MPR site and here on the blog.

Every view is important to hear. Mine is my own and mine alone. It represents no one else. The members of Shepherd of the Hill and members of my family are of different minds about this vexing issue. What we share in common is the belief that only honest, open public discussion of the causes and remedies of increasing violence in America will lead to something that better fulfills the Declaration of Independence’s three basic human rights: “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” I look forward to your comments.

God’s Countin’ on Me

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The Meth Shows

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Gun show

Gun show

Gordon C. Stewart, February 15, 2013

Had I grown up on a farm or a ranch, I might see things differently. Had I had a good use for a gun – to protect the sheep from the coyotes or to put down an injured horse – I would likely feel differently.

We all see things through our own eyes. It’s difficult to see through someone else’s eyes when talking about the Second Amendment: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

Walk into a gun show or a gun shop. What do you see? Do you see the arms of a well-regulated militia necessary to the security of a free state?

The photos of gun shows send chills up my spine. What I see is a drug store for addicts – precision, man-made machinery. Do the tables have on them the equivalent of Methamphetamine or crack cocaine to a gun aficionado?—ready to take the shopper into the illusionary highs of power and invulnerability, the cocoon of god-like power over life and death?

A bow and arrow is a hunting instrument. One shot at a time is all you get or need. The well-regulated militia seen as “necessary to the security of a free state” assumed arms like that: load, shoot…re-load…. Equally important, the “well-regulated militia” in the Second Amendment was a concession to the demands of the slave-holding states whose plantation economies were threatened by slave revolts. Those “states” insisted on the right to state regulated militias. Once the slaves were freed, the militias took another form: they moved under the white sheets and hoods of the not-so-well-regulated militias of the Ku Klux Klan, burning crosses on the lawns of uppity blacks, and of whites who had forgotten who they were as members of a superior race. “The people” were white supremacists then—are they white supremacists still? Their weapons were midnight torch parades; burning crosses left on unbelievers’ lawns; rifles; and the white militias’ hanging nooses and trees that secured their sorry state of mind.

My experience with guns is shaped in no small part by playing cops and robbers and cowboys and Indians with the neighbors in the back yard of the small town where I grew up. The closest we came to a gun was a water-pistols or a cap-gun. “Bang, bang! You’re dead!” and the victim would fall down playing dead…and then we’d get back up to play again. We were also trying to make sense out the world of cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers – shorthand for “good guys” and “bad guys” but even then we sometimes wondered whether maybe the Indians with their bows and arrows were better than the better-armed “good guys” who had conquered them and their land.

When I see a convention center filled with tables of every imaginable pistol, rifle, and semi-automatic, I see an unregulated drug store filled with shoppers sorting through the different brands of methamphetamines. I see a form of legal insanity: the fascination with power and the worship of power over another life.

A friend posted on Facebook a photograph of a hunter posing proudly with the wolf he had killed with his bow and arrow. The arrow was still protruding from the wolf’s left eye. The wolf was dead. The archer was alive and smiling.

What would a shaman say about this picture? Would the totems of a tribal people use the image of the conquered wolf with an arrow protruding through its left eye as a symbol? A symbol for what? Their bravery? Their marksmanship? Where is the sacredness in this picture?

I have no answers, just images to share: The picture of tables with addiction written all over it? “Good guys” protecting themselves from the “bad guys”? “Cowboys and Indians”? The bow and arrow in the wolf’s eye? A well-regulated militia necessary to the security of a free state?

Home of the scared and the land of the tyrannized

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This afternoon from 3:00 to 4:00 Protect Minnesota will host a demonstration in the MN Capitol Rotunda in support of state legislation re: gun violence.

As part of its efforts, Protect Minnesota invited individuals to write letters to MN Senate and House Judiciary Committee members. This letter went out this morning.

Greetings,

I am a Christian Pastor. I write you out of deep concern for the unrestrained violence taking place in the name of “the right to liberty” that imperils “the right of life…and the pursuit of happiness”. The three rights proclaimed in The Declaration of Independence are intended to be mutually supportive, not mutually exclusive. The right to liberty was never intended to take the other two rights hostage.

I strongly support legislation and enforcement of laws that place gun ownership in its proper place in our common life. The Second Amendment does NOT grant unlimited rights for anyone to purchase and use a gun anywhere anytime any more than the First Amendment on free speech allows speech that slanders or libels, lies under oath, or yells “Fire!” in a crowded theater.

As Senators and Representatives, you were elected by the people in your districts. Once you took the oath of office, your responsibility changed. You entered the halls of representative democracy where leadership requires you to act by your own consciences, not by public opinion polls in your districts. We are a representative democracy, not a pure democracy). Your responsibility as Senators and Representatives is to LEAD WISELY not only for the sake of your own constituents but for the greater good of the entire State of Minnesota.

We are quickly becoming, if we are not already, an armed camp in which the “neighbor” of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic teachings is regarded as an anachronism. Unless you plug the holes in our background check system by requiring a check for every pistol or assault weapon sale, the rights of life and the pursuit of happiness will be held hostage by unrestrained liberty, and the home of the brave and the land of the free will continue on the way to become the home of the scared and the land of the unrestrained individual tyranny.

Thank you for listening.
Respectfully,

Gordon C. Stewart

Sermon on the Sane Man

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This sermon was recorded Sunday, Feb. 17. It was delivered to the congregation of Shepherd of the Hill Presbyterian Church in Chaska where we had concluded regretfully that a second scheduled community program on gun violence in America would not serve the purposes of constructive dialogue.

Two texts interact in this sermon. The first is the traditional First Sunday of Lent account of the temptations of Christ in the wilderness. While two later Gospels, Matthew and Luke, tell the story of three temptations in the wilderness, the earlier Gospel of Mark describes the entire wilderness temptation with one curious phrase: “he was with the wild beasts.” The second text (Mark 5:1-20) is the encounter of “Jesus, the Son of the Most High God” with the insane man living alone among the tombs, “possessed” by the “Legion” (a Latin word in a Greek text, the word for a unit of the Roman occupation forces). The story ends with the man who had been possessed/occupied by the Legion “sitting there, clothed and in his right mind” to everyone astonishment.

Gun companies playing hardball

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“Six gun companies have announced plans to stop selling any of their products to any government agency in states that severely limit the rights of private gun ownership. Click HERE to read the story.

A Critique of the State of the Union

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The climax of last night’s State of the Union Address was the President’s call for an up or down vote on proposals to curb gun violence in America. The applause was uproarious and continuous.

This violence must stop.

But what of the underground stream of violence that erupts in gun violence in the nation that prides itself on the greatest military the world has ever known and the greatest economy the world has ever known?

Is it a coincidence that the geysers of unprecedented school, mall, and street massacres in the homeland have come at the same as America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Is the world’s greatest military something to celebrate?

How does one measure a military’s greatness? By its superior capacity for violence over other militaries, or its ability to subject foreign nations to the American will for freedom and democracy? By the number of dead it leaves behind in other military ventures?

Is an economy’s greatness measured by the size of a nation’s Gross National Product?

The measure of an economy- from the Greek word oikonomia, the management of a household- is how well it serves the inhabitants who live in the house.

How well is the American economy serving its members?

An economy is not measured by the amount of stuff it produces. It’s also measured by the fairness of the distribution of those goods within the one household, the oikonomia.

By that measure, can we really declare that the American economy is the greatest in the history of the world?

During last nights State of the Union Address the loudest shouts came in response to a call to end to gun violence in America. But it doesn’t mean we want to stop the violence. The applause through the rest of the night took for granted the essential goodness of the underlying systemic violence of the American military-industrial-corporate-complex and the military whose superior capacity protects those interests abroad while creating Rambos on our own streets at home.

The home of the brave and the land of the free is neither so brave nor so free. We will only be brave and free when we connect the insanity that shoots innocent school children here at home with the carnage the world’s greatest military has left overseas.

The American republic was born in the violent occupation by Western Europeans who believed they were God’s special people. That belief has morphed over time. But it continues to be the case that violence is as American as apple pie. While we applaud the attempt to end gun violence in our schools, malls and streets, the underground stream of violence rolls on undetected beneath the the nation’s delusions of grandeur about the exceptional greatness of our economy and our military. Violence is enthroned as the god of the not-so-free and the no-so-brave.

An Ash Wednesday Question

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What do we do? How do we stop this?

“Motorists and walkers scattered in terror Monday night as a gunman fired two bursts of bullets at passing vehicles near an Oakdale grocery store, killing a 10-year-old boy and wounding two other people. Click HERE for the Start Tribune story.

We can‘t stop it. America is an arsenal with an open door. And any attempt to close the door is “unconstitutional”. Liberty, one of three basic rights outlined by The Declaration of Independence, is killing the other two. “Liberty” trumps not only “the pursuit of happiness” but “life” itself.

“At least two vehicles struck by bullets sped into the parking lot of the nearby Rainbow Foods at 7053 10th St. N. seeking help.”

Responsible gun owners did not do this. An irresponsible gun owner did this. But it would have made not one ounce of difference if the passersby had been armed. They were sitting ducks, like the ducks in a carnival booth. There is no protection against irresponsible use of a firearm.

Is the concern about violence in America – about life and the pursuit of happiness – equal to the concern for the constitutional right to bear arms? Can we talk about what is happening on the streets and in the schools across America without shouting that guns are not the problem – that people are the problem?

People are the problem. So are the lethal weapons like the one that made its way into the hand of the man who stands on a corner and fires at passers-by. These are not water pistols. These are not cap-guns. These are not bows and arrows. Can we talk about the problem of people using guns to kill their neighbors? Can we even have a discussion without the NRA holding us hostage?

Today is Ash Wednesday when Christians ponder the mystery of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ on the way to the cross.

“And while [Jesus] was still speaking, Judas came, one of the twelve, and with him a great crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the elders of the people. …And they came and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. And behold one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword, and struck the slave of the high priest and cut off his ear. Then Jesus said to him, ‘Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.’ “ (Gospel of Matthew 26:47-52)

In Luke’s version of the arrest, Jesus tells the disciple ‘No more of this!’ And he touched his ear and healed him.” (Gospel of Luke. 22:51)

“The 33-year-old gunman, who was in police custody Monday night, began firing a handgun about 6:10 p.m. while standing in the street near Hadley Avenue N. and 7th Street N….” – Star Tribune, Minneapolis, Minnesota, Feb. 12, 2013.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are the three core rights of the Declaration of Independence. Faith, hope, and love are the great spiritual values of the Christian tradition. Our freedom is not found in a weapon. It is found in Jesus of Nazareth for who was executed after the angry crowd yelled for the release of the other criminal, Jesus Barabbas, the armed insurrectionist.

It’s Ash Wednesday. At his arrest, the Jesus who is arrested by an armed militia tells his uncomprehending disciple to put his sword away: “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”

“No more of this!” Please, for the sake of God, stop this!

The State of the Nation

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Tonight President Obama delivers the State of Nation address.

What is the state of the Nation?

In a word it’s fear. We live in a seething caldron of fear. Anger is everywhere. The sense that life is out of control. We are clamoring for safety. Arguing about guns, drones, the Patriot Act provisions that suspend due process, and so much more. The right fears the left. The left fears the right. The middle fears both. The fears are not without some justification. The America the President will address tonight is in a chronic state of mass hysteria.

This is not new. G.A. Studdert Kennedy, affectionately known as “Woobine Willie” because of the cheap Woodbine cigarettes he gave the stressed troops as a British Army Chaplain in World War I, addressed it during a time of hysteria in England in 1926:

“There is, and there must be, a plane upon which we can think and reason together upon questions arising out of our wider human relations, social questions, that is, apart from and above party prejudice and sectional interest. If it is not so, and there is no such plane, and we cannot think of these big questions outside the prejudices and passions that arise in party strife, then it is safe to assert that there will never be any solution of the problems whatsoever. The idea that politics in the true sense – that is, the art of managing our human relationships on a large scale – must remain a separate department of life, distinct from morals and religion, is ultimately irrational and absurd, and is an idea with which no responsible teacher ought to have anything to do. – Sermon, “The Church in Politics: a Defense.”

The issue way back then was capitalism and socialism. Studdert Kennedy dared to ask the question of what these words mean – he called for a more reasonable discussion apart from the stereotypes and name-calling.

As I listen to the voices these days and watch the videos of public hearings here in Minnesota and elsewhere, I wish Woodbine Willie were here to take the microphone with the questions instead of the answers. I realize that some things never change.

I scratch my head and wonder whether we will ever learn. Then the music and words come up from memory:

Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our foolish ways;
Re-clothe us in our rightful mind,
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence praise.
…
Drop Thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress,
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.
…
Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm!”

My prayers are with you, Mr. President.

Our helper amid the flood of mortal ills prevailing

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I am perplexed by the call to conscience and the call to compassion which often pull against each other. God, help me.