Should Christians Practice Self-Defense and Should Churches Be Armed?

Recently, there was another shooting at a church, this time at West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, TX.  A man stood up among the pews with a shotgun and open fired, killing two people.  The damage he could have done, however, was greatly mitigated because he was promptly shot within seconds by another church member, Jack Wilson, who was also serving as volunteer security for the church.

This unfortunate event has triggered the typical arguments about gun control, which I have no interest in rehashing right now.  What I do want to explore is this question that I’ve seen discussed: Should Christians practice self-defense, even if it might result in lethal force?  Interestingly, though the church member who killed the shooter is being almost universally praised as a hero, the few people who are critical of him and his church are actually Christians who believe in an extreme form of pacifism.

On face value, many of their arguments are almost laughably naive, with some claiming that Wilson should have sneaked behind the shooter to tackle him, shot the gun out of his hand, or disarmed him in some other creative way.  It is clear that such people think life is a Hollywood movie where it is easy to disarm gunmen with Batarangs or shoot guns out of their hands with inhuman precision.  It is therefore hard to take such claims seriously.  Others appeal to God’s will, saying that if a violent man breaks into their home to kill them and their family, then clearly God means for them to die.  Again, this one is hard to take seriously because if it were “God’s will” that this gunman open-fired in this church… it is also plausibly God’s will that the gunman was shot.

That said, underneath some of the above silliness may lie an interesting biblical argument.  Several Christians throughout history have argued that the Bible prohibits Christians from practicing self-defense or defense of a loved one, or at least, defense that has even a moderate chance of killing someone.  After all, didn’t Jesus let himself be killed?

What I will argue here is modest: The Bible does not prohibit self-defense and permits defense of oneself or others when in a physically dangerous situation.  The reason I say this is “modest” is because I am not arguing here that the Bible commands self-defense, so it leaves open the possibility that Christians can decide to not practice their right of self-defense for specific reasons.  Nor am I trying to tackle more complicated subjects like whether pre-emptive attacks are a form of self-defense or if there’s ever such a thing as a just war, which are related but distinct discussions.  I’m merely saying that, broadly speaking, Christians are permitted to use force in defense.  It is important to note this: An extreme pacifist position is universal in scope, so all it takes is one counter-example to refute it.  And I think we can find that example.

Review of Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker

Let’s do something more lighthearted: A movie review.  Or kind of lighthearted because opinions about this movie are divided once again.

I watched the new Star Wars movie, Rise of Skywalker, yesterday.  I avoided reading anything about it until I did, though I was aware that many critics didn’t like the movie compared to The Last Jedi.  It was something I frankly didn’t care about because I’ve long since lost respect for so-called professional movie critics, and their opinion of The Last Jedi was simply more proof that many movie critics think it’s their job to rate how woke and “groundbreaking” they think a movie is rather than if the movie is entertaining, coherent, faithful to its universe/source material, and well-written.

Christianity Today Part II: Now This is How You Write a Reasoned Article Into a Divisive Time

I reviewed Christianity Today‘s editor Mark Galli’s article yesterday and found it wanting on many counts.  As much as many people, particularly progressives, liked the article, it was an example of how not to argue with clarity or charity: He simply assumed that the facts against Trump were “unambiguous” though the evidence is simply not that clear, changed course in the middle of his article by collapsing the case for removal and the case for voting Trump out in 2020 (which are very different things), and made a quick and unexplained reference to the Ten Commandments.  His lack of charity showed in a subsequent CNN interview where he dismissed Christians who criticized his article as “far right” who didn’t read CT anyway.  This is in line with comments he has apparently made in the past where he blasted “white” evangelicals for voting for Trump and calling himself one of the “elite” evangelicals.  For all I know, Galli is a swell guy and faithful Christian (and I don’t disbelieve comments that he is), but perhaps Donald Trump is an issue that triggers the not-so-great sides of him.  People who know me know that I am far from a Donald Trump fan, but even a big critic of Trump like me was able to see Galli’s missteps.

Because of how poorly argued and uncharitable that article and Galli’s following words were, there was a big backlash among conservatives who felt they were misrepresented, attacked, and defamed (there was even a brief and admittedly unnecessarily harsh dismissal by William Lane Craig on his Facebook page because he recognized like I did that Galli’s article had little substance).  Honestly, they had a point.  It was into this “whirlwind” that CT’s CEO Timothy Dalrymple wrote, and I must say that I applaud this contribution by CT.  For sure there will still be Christians angry at it, mostly the ones who are gung-ho Donald Trump fans, but I think many of those conservative Christians who felt slighted by Galli will see that Dalrymple was way more nuanced, charitable, clear, and careful.

Christianity Today weighs in on impeachment

Yesterday, the magazine/website Christianity Today (CT) published an editorial by Mark Galli, its editor in chief, that called for Donald Trump’s removal from office.  It has led to quite the reaction: Leftists have generally been pleased with the article (though it takes swipes at the Democratic Party too), while Christian supporters of Trump are none too happy.  CT was founded by famed evangelist Billy Graham and the article invoked his name, whose son Franklin is a well-known Trump supporter.  Franklin Graham responded on Facebook by stating that his father voted for Trump, by arguing that the impeachment was clearly partisan, and by calling CT a biased leftist magazine now.

I haven’t weighed in much on the impeachment proceedings because A) I was busy with end of semester and church stuff and B) The impeachment was a stupid circus that was very uninteresting.  There hasn’t been a lick of substantial new evidence for a while, and it was also pretty obvious what was going to happen: Trump was going to get impeached by a Democratic-controlled House.  Also, in all likelihood, he’s not going to be removed by the Republican-controlled Senate unless something new comes out (on a side note, it is both entertaining and sad how many people do not understand that impeachment does not mean Trump was declared guilty or will be removed from office).  This outcome has been obvious for a while; in fact, the Democrats know it too, which is why they are now trying a hilarious game of not sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate because they’re concerned it wouldn’t be a “fair trial” (so, in other words, the result wouldn’t be what they wanted).  These are your politicians, folks.

In any case, what I want to focus on more is CT’s article and its usefulness in arguing a case for Trump’s removal from office.  How well does its claims stack up?  Is it right that all Christians must agree on pain of being inconsistent with Christian principles?  Since I’m someone who is staunchly conservative (though not Republican) but also has always disliked and criticized Donald Trump, perhaps I can use some of my philosophy training to give a fair look at Galli’s argument.