Afraid and Reaching for a Gun

AFTER MASS a few months ago, I asked a member of my parish how her search for a new apartment was going. She said, “I’m so scared where I’m living right now that I went out and bought a gun.”

I was shocked. “I hope you didn’t buy any bullets to go with it,” I quipped. She gave me an eye-roll; I gave her a hug.

Like many Americans (dare I say most)—from President Obama on over—I despair of our country ever regaining sensible gun-ownership standards.

If I had my way, society would have no guns. Period. My motto is: The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is...the unarmed cross of Jesus Christ.

However, I recognize that in rural areas a gun can be a tool for wildlife maintenance.

I recognize that a well-ordered society relegates certain uses of force to the state—generally understood as police and military—for the protection of its members, especially the vulnerable.

I recognize that the U.S. Constitution has a Second Amendment—controversial as it may be—that allows for people to “keep and bear arms” (in the context of a “well-regulated militia” that was deemed “necessary to the security of a free state”). It’s a system of checks and balances built into our democracy’s operating manual.

My co-parishioner, however, didn’t buy a gun to shoot copperheads or preserve democratic principles. She bought it because she was afraid. Fear is a spiritual issue, not a political one.

Marilynne Robinson summed it up eloquently in an essay last fall in The New York Review of Books, “First, contemporary America is full of fear. And second, fear is not a Christian habit of mind.”

Fear is a natural response to actual or perceived lack of safety. In my friend’s case, she’s a woman in her early 60s, living alone on a limited income in a rooming house. Last year, the lodgers changed. The new ones are chaotic and possibly criminal. She feels threatened in the one room she has of her own.

I admire that she acted on her own behalf to offset her fear. I despair that her church didn’t help her find safety and courage in a manner consistent with her faith.

Catholic priest Richard Rohr describes fear as a kind of demonic possession. “The only cure for possession,” he writes, “is repossession.”

Fear of this type, according to scripture, is not individual, it’s communal. There is a demonic system in place, a “devil in the corner,” that dominates through fear to thwart human liberation toward God. Driving out those demons and “repossessing” the individual and communal soul for God is what Jesus does. It’s also part and parcel of what Catholics mean when we commit to challenge the culture of violence and encourage a culture of life.

HERE’S ONE SMALL proposal (nine months early): Every year, let’s make the second Sunday of Advent, “Sandy Hook Sunday,” a day to turn in unwanted guns and ammunition at churches across the country. Pastors might preach on fear, faith, and the theological ambiguity of gun ownership. Prayer groups may ask what makes us most afraid and “pray the devil out.” Education and family life ministers can teach about nonviolent communication, reducing anxiety, and diffusing anger. Youth groups might survey the church’s neighborhood to determine who wants to rid themselves of a gun or ammunition and distribute “be not afraid” buttons.

How many guns will this get off the streets? Probably not that many. But for every gun “repossessed,” a soul is saved.