I have lived in Allen, Texas, for almost 15 years, next-door neighbor Plano for 21 years before that. This is my community. It’s where I shop, eat, get together with family and friends, and so on.
On Saturday, mass shootings in America morphed from long-distance events to a tragedy played out just down the street from the restaurant that my son, granddaughter, and I had left only moments before, after eating a late lunch. Too close to home!
On Sunday morning, my U.S. congressman, Republican Keith Self, appeared on CNN. The Washington Post reported that the interviewer challenged Self’s promise of “thoughts and prayers” for the victims and their families: “Many people argue that prayers aren’t cutting it.”
Self responded, “Well, those are people that don’t believe in an almighty god who has, who is absolutely in control of our lives. . . . Prayers are important, and they are powerful in the families who are devastated right now.”
With those words, Congressman Self impugned the faith of any who disagree with him on this issue. Because I don’t believe that prayers are enough to stop future mass murders, Self claims to know my heart and mind – that I don’t believe in God!
Maybe I’m not being fair to him. After all, he didn’t say that we don’t believe in God . . . what he said was that we don’t believe in a god “who is absolutely in control of our lives.”
Come to think of it, he’s right . . . I don’t believe in the “god” that he says “is absolutely in control of our lives.” He and I obviously believe in two different, distinct gods.
Let’s get something clear right now. I am a professing Christian, too. My Christian faith is central to my life, including my family life, my ethics, my politics, my priorities.
I agree with Self that prayers are important. But I question whether any Christian who believes that God “is absolutely in control of our lives” has any understanding of who God is or of God’s relationship to humankind or of what God expects of us. Self is impugning not only the faith of millions of believers.
He is impugning the character of God!
On his website, Self declares, “It is crucial that we not give rise to those who wish to incrementally strip away our right to self-defense. I will remain steadfast against any effort to restrict our Second Amendment rights.”
Huh? Self-defense? If God controls our lives, then God will either protect us or let us die, right? Why buy guns and take other protective measures if “God is absolutely in control of our lives”?
Think about the other implications of such a belief. If God controls our lives, then it means that God is the author of the sin in our lives. It was God who pulled the trigger, over and over and over, on Saturday, and wrought death and terror at the Allen Outlets Mall.
Some Christians try to have their cake and eat it, too. They want to believe that “God is in control” (which we have heard from numerous athletes after they win – but, curiously, not after they lose), yet they also want to believe that “God is love.”
If God controlled the actions of that shooter on Saturday, then God is not love. If God is in control of all our lives, then what about the millions in this country and around the world who are starving and without a roof over their heads, just trying to survive another day? If God is in control, then God apparently rejoices in the pain suffered through broken marriages, broken friendships, domestic violence, and I could go on and on. Our lives are just a horrific video game to such a god.
Anyone is sick who would worship a god who is “in control” yet causes innocents to die at the hands of hatred. That is not a god of love but a god who hates.
My fellow Christians, think about the witness we present to the world when we say that God “is absolutely in control of our lives,” as the congressman did. Think of our witness to the world when we claim that “thoughts and prayers” are sufficient, yet the world can see that “thoughts and prayers” haven’t done a thing to stem the violence; instead, it has only increased. If we claim that “thoughts and prayers” are all that’s needed to stop these mass murders – yet they see with their own eyes that this is all a lie – then they have to start wondering what other lies we’re telling about God.
Jesus didn’t preach a God who controls our lives. In Matthew 25: 31-46 (NIV), Jesus said that “eternal punishment” was reserved for those who saw others hurting and turned the other way, but those who saw others hurting and cared for them, ministering to their needs, were showing their love for Jesus and would gain “eternal life.”
If God is “in control,” what choice do we have? But if God is not in control, as Jesus makes very clear, then our choices, our actions, mean everything.
When we see mass murders day after day (199 already this year, and it’s only May 9), with the vast majority of these murderers using automatic weapons and magazines with unlimited ammunition capacity, and do nothing to keep these weapons of war out of the hands of civilians, we are the “goats” of Jesus’s telling, who turn away from people in need. (When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, . . . he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. . . . Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’ Matthew 25: 31, 32b, 33, & 41 NIV)
As for Self’s impassioned defense of the Second Amendment, here’s what Warren Burger, the conservative retired chief justice (appointed by Richard Nixon), wrote in a December 1991 Associated Press article, which was reprinted in the Spring 2023 issue of the Christian Ethics Today journal:
“The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that the ‘state armies’ – ‘the militia’ – would be maintained for the defense of the state. In order to do that, it was necessary to grant each citizen the right to maintain arms. . . . The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires. . . . even where the militia was concerned, it is clear that the framers contemplated that the use of the arms could be ‘well regulated.’”
God is all-powerful and could control our lives but chooses not to, allowing us to make choices that define who we are and how we relate to both God and people. I trust in God, who guides and comforts but does not control.
So who IS in control, who is responsible for allowing these tragic killings to multiply, year after year? We are. As long as there is hatred in the human heart, killings will continue. But we could make it much more difficult to kill so many so quickly. Despite the prompt action by the police officer who killed him, the shooter was able to kill eight people (at last count) and wound seven others, and it could have been much worse.
Sensible gun reform laws – including banning the sale of AR-15s and similar weapons of war; limiting the ammunition capacity of magazines; and establishing mandatory background checks, including for buyers at gun shows – can save hundreds, if not thousands, of lives each year.
If God is not in control, who IS? Listen to Warren Burger, who wrote in the aforementioned article, “Of course, some of these observations will be challenged by weapons and ammunition manufacturers and other members of the so-called ‘gun lobby.’ That there should be a vigorous debate on this subject is a tribute to our freedom of speech and press, but the American people should have a firm understanding of the true origin and purpose of the Second Amendment.” Who is in control? Guns, to judge from the cowering of our public officials before the gun lobby.
Let an informed debate begin in Congress and our state legislatures. It’s too late for Saturday’s victims but not for tomorrow’s.