The uniquely American epidemic of gun violence: Where is the faith community?
By Bryan Miller
A couple of years ago, the Ebola epidemic in West Africa caused an explosion of concern and fright in the United States. The response, led by the federal Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention, was successful and, at the cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, resulted in zero loss of American life.
That same year, more than 33,000 Americans were shot and killed. These deaths included suicide, murder, mass and unintentional shootings. More than 11,000 were gun murders, the vast bulk of which were committed with illegal guns. The CDC, whose mandate includes seeking ways to mitigate death and injury of all kinds, had no role in trying to limit the damage to families, neighborhoods, cities and towns by this epidemic of gun violence. The US Congress has long prohibited it from doing so.
While our country suffered thousands of gun deaths from murder and mass shootings, no other developed country had as many gun homicides as each of several American cities. On a per capita basis, the United States leads the rest of the developed world in gun death and injury by many times.
Communities of color are impacted at a much higher rate than others, with African American young people killed at an unconscionable rate. The epidemic has a horrific effect on entire swatches of cities and towns, as local economies wither and poverty is sustained when businesses eschew operating in areas deemed too dangerous — many of them communities of color.
Meanwhile, a virtually all-white gun industry (manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and their lobby) profits by a highly efficient illegal distribution system that puts gun on the street and in the hands of those all agree shouldn’t have them. These are the illegal guns used to wound, maim and kill.
The American faith community has a dire responsibility, based in scripture, teaching and defined purpose (more than putting people in seats at worship) of its component traditions, to adopt and lead a movement seeking the end of an epidemic that is part and parcel of the evils of murder, profit from same, suicide, racism, poverty and more.
This responsibility should be so patently obvious to any person or body of faith that it needs no long citation of scripture. As a Christian, I have no doubt Jesus would both weep deeply over the carnage and its attendant damage and be at the front of the movement to end it.
Where is the American faith community in relation to the epidemic? Faith leaders have long been adept at deploring mass shootings and the everyday and more consequential “slow massacre” playing out in our cities and towns. In fact, virtually every faith tradition is on record abhorring the violence and calling for change — for public officials to address the issue and legislators to pass new laws to regulate gun possession and commerce. And, of course, we have become familiar with faith leaders standing up and calling for grief and prayer.
Grief and prayer are appropriate but not enough to lessen the damage. Calling on public officialdom and politicians is critical but has proven of insufficient effect to date. And, allowing a small portion of congregants to derail any activism is comprehensible, but is neither moral nor helpful. It is cowardly and sustains evil.
The sad truth is that the major missing component of the gun violence prevention movement is the faith community.
The sad truth is that the major missing component of the gun violence prevention movement is the faith community. Unlike most historic national social movements for change, the faith community has largely been absent from this one. Its calls have been on others (public officials, politicians, etc.) and not on itself and its members and institutions. Its glaring absence from the movement cripples the campaign to save lives from gun violence.
What to do? It’s time for the entire American faith community to get up out of the pews and into faith-based activism for change. Not only does the movement need it, but a commitment to and action toward saving the lives of others may bring more people, especially the young, to sit in those pews in worship, respecting and joining in what God has demanded of us, to love our neighbor.
Bryan Miller is executive director of Heeding God’s Call, a faith-based organization that seeks to end gun violence, which has published resources on how to motivate people and communities of faith to act to end gun violence. See also “Gun Violence, Gospel Values: Mobilizing in Response to God’s Call.”
The views expressed are those of the author or authors alone, and not those of the American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
