“Where Are The Christians?”

A man stops to pray at memorial site for the three children and three school staff members who died in a mass shooting at Covenant Christian School. (Photo courtesy of National Catholic Register)

Perhaps like me, you are still reeling from two consecutive weeks of mass shootings in two great American cities, Nashville and Louisville. It seems none of us are safe at a school, bank, church, synagogue, outdoor concert, Walmart, discoteque, supermarket, parade route, park … just fill in the blank.

It was a sad commentary on our values when the Tennessee legislature expelled two members for disorderly conduct for daring to demand gun reform after three children and three adults were murdered with a semi-automatic rifle at a Christian elementary school. A majority of legislators apparently was more concerned about decorum than the lives of nine-year-olds being snuffed out.

It was enough for the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus Chair Steven Horsford to cry out in one interview, “Where are the Christians?”

His question has haunted me ever since. That these mass shootings unfolded during Holy Week and the Octave of Easter underscores just how far we’ve wandered as a nation from the gospel values of loving one another, mutual respect and forgiveness.

What happened in Tennessee was only one piece of a distressing drama. Consider also the spectacle of an ex-president lashing out against his accusers and vowing vengeance. Consider a governor willing to pardon a man convicted by a jury of shooting a Black Lives Matter protester he said he felt threatened by. The same man who bragged beforehand he might have to kill a demonstrator, who used racial slurs against black citizens.

We’ve got to return in this country to some kind of sanity that sees reality for what it is. Where are the Christians?

Among those gunned down at Covenant Christian School in Nashville were three 9-year-olds, the school principal, a maintenance worker and a substitute teacher.

The bank shooting in Louisville struck me in a special way because just last month I guided a retreat outside of that city for a wonderful, committed group of people who take their faith and service to others seriously. The retreat was on the campus of the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, whose own good works span the globe.

Louisville is about 45 miles from the Abbey of Gethsemani where the great spiritual teacher Thomas Merton spent 27 years as a monk. It is no stretch of the imagination to assume that if he were alive today, Merton would be writing tirelessly about our American obsession with guns. He envisioned church as a community practicing gospel-based non-violence, a community of peacemakers. He saw Jesus as our model.

Writing presciently in a 1960s essay called “Blessed Are The Meek,” Merton said:

“The non-violent resister is not fighting simply for ‘his’ truth or for ‘his’ pure conscience or for the right that is on ‘his’ side. On the contrary, both his strength and his weakness come from the fact that he is fighting for the truth, common to him and to the adversary, the right that is objective and universal. He is fighting for everybody.”

I keep reflecting on Jesus’ actions in the gospels of Holy Week and Easter. Instead of vowing vengeance, Jesus gives himself over peacefully to authorities. He tells Peter to put away his sword and heals the person Peter struck. He washes the feet of his disciples and directs them to dedicate themselves to service. He forgives.

What do these actions mean for us who face so much division and crisis in our country?

Five bank employees were killed in the mass shooting at Old National Bank in Louisville. The same type of automatic rifle was used in the Nashville school shooting . States like Tennessee and Kentucky have resisted banning semi-automatic weapons.

There are some signs of hope. Christian clergy joined a protest in downtown Nashville after a majority of legislators voted down a proposed “red flag” law to keep firearms out of the hands of those deemed a danger to themselves and to others. A Christian group gathered 12,000 signatures demanding the resignation of the Speaker of the Tennessee House who has allowed the legislature to drag its feet on gun reform.

In Kentucky, groups like “Moms Demand Action” continue to seek gun reform. There have been prayer vigils in both Louisville and Nashville. Still, as my friend the artist and theologian Patricia Pickett of Ashland, TN often says, “We need more than prayers. We need action.”

Gun reform is an issue that every priest, minister, rabbi, and imam should address from the pulpit on a regular basis. It astounds me that religious institutions so concerned about protecting life in the womb are not equally dedicated to protecting lives after birth. Can we not organize rallies, write to legislators, file lawsuits and look upon gun reform as another pro-life issue?

When I ask, “Where are the Christians” I am really asking, “Where am I?” Where are we on these issues tearing at our nation. What actions can we take this week — whether large of small — to help end the scourge of gun violence?

How can we be a source of healing wherever we are?

How can we imitate Jesus and wash the feet of others?

Where are the Christians?

Memorial in front of Old National Bank, Louisvillle honoring those killed in a mass shooting. (Photo courtesy of Louisville Business First).