The shooting, which left 26 people dead and at least 20 more injured, has convinced many Christians that the risk of worshiping unarmed has become too great. But the question of deadly force in the sanctuary, itself\u2014while we are engaged in the most sacred of activities\u2014is uniquely thorny.<\/p>\n Why? Because at first blush, it seems contrary to the example set in the New Testament. Jesus says \u201cBlessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God\u201d (Matthew 5:9). He tells His disciples to \u201cturn the other cheek\u201d (Matthew 5:38-40).\u00a0 He rebukes Peter and tells him to put away his sword, \u201cfor all who take the sword will perish by the sword\u201d (Matthew 26:52). Paul tells us that the weapons of our warfare \u201care not the weapons of the world\u201d (2 Corinthians 10:4), and that \u201cwe wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world\u2026\u201d (Ephesians 6:12). More broadly speaking, the apostles endure imprisonment, beatings, torture, and martyrdom at the hands of their enemies, and never once lift a finger to defend themselves through violent means.<\/p>\n Some take this precedent as a requirement for pacifism\u2014no violence, at any time, for any reason. You have, in other words, an obligation to be a victim. While most Christians outside the Anabaptist, Mennonite, Quaker, and Amish traditions wouldn\u2019t go this far, we do have to ask ourselves: If these examples don\u2019t prohibit Christians in the very act of worship from drawing the sword in defense of themselves and fellow worshipers, what do they prohibit?<\/p>\n A fuller reading of Scripture further complicates things. God prescribes death as the penalty for murder in Genesis 9:6 (\u201cWhoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.\u201d). Exodus 22:2 instructs that a homeowner who strikes a thief in the night and kills him \u201cis not guilty of bloodshed,\u201d in contrast with a homeowner who strikes and kills the thief during the day. This is because, as Swiss scholastic theologian Francis Turretin remarks, the master of the house cannot be expected to know whether a thief in the darkness is there to kill or merely to steal. Under the Law of Moses, self-defense was an appropriate grounds on which to kill. Property-defense was not.<\/p>\n In the closing chapters of Esther, Xerxes grants the Jews permission to violently defend themselves against the plot of Haman the Agagite, and God\u2019s people come to celebrate this as a feast day. This legal, national self-defense is the implied reason for which Esther was brought into the palace \u201cfor such a time as this.\u201d<\/p>\n Then there is the less well-known corollary to the \u201clive by the sword, die by the sword,\u201d passage\u2014the reason Peter was armed at Gethsemane in the first place. Luke 22 records that Jesus gives the disciples new instructions about their traveling accoutrements:<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026let the one who has no sword sell his cloak and buy one.\u00a0<\/sup><\/strong>For I tell you that\u00a0this Scripture must be fulfilled in me:\u00a0\u2018And he was numbered with the transgressors.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The disciples respond, \u201cLook, Lord, here are two\u00a0swords.\u201d<\/p>\n Jesus, replies tersely: \u201cIt is enough.\u201d<\/p>\n Both John Calvin<\/a> and John Gill<\/a> call the disciples \u201cstupid\u201d for taking Jesus\u2019 instructions about swords here literally. Rather, \u201cIn metaphorical language,\u201d writes Calvin, \u201c[Jesus] threatens that they will soon meet with great troubles and fierce attacks\u2026And yet he does not call them to an outward conflict, but only, under the comparison of fighting, he warns them of the severe struggles of temptations which they must undergo, and of the fierce attacks which they must sustain in spiritual contests.\u201d<\/p>\n However (and this is the part where I stop raising new questions and start suggesting an answer) it\u2019s important to note that even if Jesus was making a spiritual point by referring to \u201cswords,\u201d He nowhere condemns defensive violence as such. He never tells Peter to get rid of his sword, any more than He tells the Centurion in Matthew 8 to get rid of his. Rather, He tells Peter to \u201cput it back in its place,\u201d implying, as another commentator points out<\/a>, that swords have a proper use. Presumably, Peter and at least one other disciple had these swords on hand for the defense of their little band during the sometimes dangerous travels from Galilee to Judea. We have no record that Jesus was ever bothered by this.<\/p>\n All of these passages come into sharper focus when we recall a foundational truth of Christian worldview thinking: All believers, even Christ Himself during His earthly life, occupy what Augustine called the two cities<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cRender unto Caesar what is Caesar\u2019s, and unto God what is God\u2019s,\u201d Jesus famously said in Matthew 22, setting up a distinction that would inform Christian theology for the next two millennia.<\/p>\n We live simultaneously in the city of man and in the City of God\u2014in society and in the Church\u2014in creation and New Creation. We have duties and roles in each, and where they don\u2019t conflict, we must carry out both. In fact, being a good citizen of God\u2019s City usually means being a good citizen in man\u2019s, insofar as it depends on us.<\/p>\n![\"George-Henry-Boughton-Pilgrims-Going-To-Church\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/703\/2017\/11\/George-Henry-Boughton-Pilgrims-Going-To-Church-300x155.jpg\")
But objectively, guns were used to defend life as well as take it on Sunday. CNN reports<\/a> that Stephen Willeford, a Sutherland Springs resident who lives next door to First Baptist used the very same rifle type as the shooter to exchange fire with and ultimately kill him. \u201cHe\u2019s a hero,\u201d said Wilson County Sherriff, Joe Tackitt Jr. \u201cHad he not done that, we could have lost more people.\u201d<\/p>\n