What Does the United Methodist Church Think About . . . Gun Control and War?
The next topics for discussion in the Sunday Afternoon Study are gun control and war.
In preparation for our discussion:
What are your initial thoughts about these hot topics?
Why do you feel that way?
Have your opinions changed over the years concerning these topics? If so, how and why?
Are these topics related at all? Why or why not?
What, if anything, does the Bible say about these topics?
Back in the early 70s I decided I was a pacifist. I don’t believe in “just war” but some individuals might have just reasons for fighting.
I have a hard time with our government paying people to go and destroy other people’s homes, families, health, and lives. In modern war there is far too much “colateral damage”. One human rights organization’s statistics for Iran says that 60% of dead and wounded are women and children. At what point will we become guilty of genocide?
As for guns, I’ve heard arguments on both sides and see the different points. For me and my house no guns allowed.
This is a very sticky subject. On one hand I am so happy to live in such a safe country and know that it would not be possible if it were not for our military. On the other hand, it seems that Jesus wanted us to seek non-violent justice. How do you survive in such a violent world without responding violently? I really struggle with this.
Guns: The Constitution seems to allow guns although I am not sure it meant the way it is being interpreted by NRA and others. Hunting guns I have no problem, assault rifles, machine guns (multi shot) and hand guns I do have a problem. Those guns are made to kill people and that flies in the face of Christian Teaching. I have heard some say, “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” My take on that is that “People with guns kill people.” We must have inforceable hand gun control.
War: War is hell to say the least. To offer youself up to be killed in a war is something I have done but think that there must be a peacable way to settle conflicts. I look at Ghandi, MLKing and others and see it is possible when you use it. I have no peacable answer for some of the wars of my lifetime, WWII, Korea, but I see no need for Vietnam, Iraq. We have to do something about Afghanistan, not sure we have been doing anything until recently. War must be avoided. Thank God for Barrack Obama, just wish he had a stronger will to push his stances.