Kimball Shinkoskey
Columnist
Conservative evangelicals have been taught that only a special few have been touched by God. Liberals believe all are equal before God and deserving of his compassion. Conservatives feel free to exercise their special chosen condition by possessing whatever guns they want, and liberals believe there is a need for society-wide action to curb wanton activity largely hurting the poor.
What did Jesus say?
Jesus taught in his Parable of the Wheat and Tares that evil exists and there are “enemies” in every society working to destroy the righteous efforts of everyone else. He said whoever or whatever those enemies are that wreak havoc should be gathered together and cast into a furnace of fire. But was Jesus targeting common crime and criminals, bad public policy, enemy seditionists, Roman legions, or all of the above?
To any Roman ears that may have been listening, he seemed to suggest that a major judgment day, or rebellion, should not happen any time soon … not until “the end of the world.” That protected his movement in the here and now.
On the other hand, he clearly did not say that society should wait forever to take action against destructive forces. After all, in the parable, the burning was to take place annually at harvest time.
Jesus’ judgment against a woman taken in adultery is a perfect example of his approach to crime and “enemies.” Public action should not be delayed, but compassion for circumstances should always be exercised by the judge.
In the matter of gun control, Jesus would see a clear cause for action to protect so many innocents who are dying, but would consider the need not to injure the reasonable prerogatives of the citizenry trying to live righteously according to their beliefs.
The annual harvest time has come for mass shooter crime events in America. It is time to remove the offending factors from among us. America has completed such harvest times before to save the lives of many. We first enacted state by state prohibition of alcohol, and finally national prohibition for over ten years. After much suffering, we finally took a strict approach to the advertising of cigarettes and the problem of lung cancer. Mothers against Drunk Driving went from state to state and took harvest-time action to tighten up laws against out-of-control DUI behavior.
The system of democracy and our own history provide a clear avenue to proceed. Individual states should decide their own laws and make them stick, because any federal action is likely to be one-size-fits-all, and therefore reversed before long like prohibition.
Kimball Shinkoskey is a historian of religion and democracy. He can be reached at [email protected].