People screaming. 

One class can’t lock their door, so they block the entrance with furniture. The door gets kicked in.

Eventually, the shooter is stopped. 

Everyone is taken to a safe location to meet up with parents.

But the location isn’t safe. 

An angry parent shows up with a gun and starts shooting. 

Some run, some freeze, some huddle together screaming and sobbing in fear.

Thankfully, this wasn’t a real school shooting. 

It was a required emergency drill for all teachers and school staff in my county (including my wife who is a teacher) – which ended up being a surprise active shooter drill.

Students practicing active shooter drills is disturbing.

To require school staff to go through police shooting blank bullets in the hall and kicking in doors is beyond disturbing – it is traumatic. 

Traumatic enough that therapists needed to write notes requesting their patients be excused from the required drill. 

As a Christian in the United Methodist tradition, my baptismal vows require me to resist suffering, injustice, and evil in the world – which includes putting people through traumatic situations. As a Christian Pastor, I am often with people going through painful and harm-full situations. I regularly see the hurt and scars from the pain and trauma people face in their lives. 

I am grateful our police department, sheriff department, and schools care about the lives of our students and staff. I am grateful they want to prevent school shootings and to be prepared in case something happens.

But I’m heartbroken that the best we can do is put people through terrifying and traumatic situations to prepare them.

In January, a Boing 737 jet lost a rear door plug in flight, as one article said, “terrifying people on board.”

Thankfully, nobody was seriously hurt. 

But the result wasn’t to put people through live action drills of doors being ripped on mid-flight to ensure everyone knows how to react. 

The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) halted other similar planes from flying altogether and launched a non-stop investigation. 

After learning there were issues with their quality control, Boeing was told they had 90 days to create a plan addressing quality-control because the FAA has “non-negotiable safety standards.”

Boeing must “ensure that safety is the company’s guiding principle.”

I am grateful we take air travel safety so seriously.

The Boeing incident grounded planes and required a 90-day plan to address changes – all for an incident where nobody actually died.

Just because people were terrified. 

Meanwhile, students and teachers are being terrified as a method to help them be prepared. 

I wish we took gun violence just as seriously as we take air travel. 

If we did, we would “ground” all guns used in mass shootings until we could address the issue of safety. Just like Boeing 737s were grounded. 

Our lawmakers would be given 90 days to create a plan to address these issues because we have “non-negotiable safety standards.” Just like Boeing was given.

We wouldn’t wait for people to die. 

We would require these changes right away…simply because what’s happening is “terrifying people on board.”

Life & Death

I’m reminded of the women in the Gospel of Mark who find the tomb empty. 

They are told Jesus has been raised from the dead and then they are told to go tell the disciples about it. Mark says they are terrified, run away, and tell no one…

The earliest versions of Mark’s gospel end there. 

A cliffhanger, inviting us to decide what we do with our own terror and fear. 

Do we run away and avoid?

Or do we share the truth about death, pain, and suffering? 

This is not the way God intended things to be. 

The FAA is pretty clear that people’s lives are what is most important, and they aren’t afraid to require drastic changes to make sure it happens. 

We know from other gospels that the women also weren’t afraid to make drastic changes in order to champion life. 

We should take some notes (and so should our lawmakers). 

We must not champion trauma, suffering, pain, and death as a way of protecting life.

This is not the way of Jesus. 

We must become champions of life. 

This is the way of resurrection. 

This is the way of God. 

May it be our way too. 

Here’s why we did it. 

The event was part of a global movement with similar walks happening in over 200 cities around the world, in every continent including Antarctica.  Our message is simple.  End the genocide – we need a permanent lasting ceasefire, now.  Let in the aid – collective punishment and forced starvation are evil and morally indefensible.  Release all the hostages.  And stop sending weapons and funds to Israel, weapons like those made at Lockheed Martin.  

On October 7, some 1200 precious lives were lost, every one of them a sacred child of God, made in the image of God.  The world stood with Israel against the merciless slaughter and terror of October 7.  And we must not hesitate to stand against anti-semitism today.

But in the days since October 7, we have watched the State of Israel pour out its wrath on the people of Gaza, killing around 200 a day, one child every 10 minutes.  Often using the Bible as a weapon to justify their revenge.  

Two wrongs don’t make a right… that’s what my momma taught me.  

In the past 170 days since October 7, over 32,000 people have been killed… 15,000 of them are children.  And over 74,000 people have been injured.  Thousands are missing under the rubble.  We are watching a genocide, ethnic cleansing – livestreamed on social media, and most of our leaders are silent or even complicit.  As Palestinian pastor, Munther Isaac has said, “Gaza has become the moral compass of the world.”  

To speak out against the violence of October 7th does not make you anti-Palestinian.  It makes you decent, human, moral, and compassionate.  To speak out against the violence since October 7th is not to be antisemitic or pro-Hamas… it is to be decent, human, moral, compassionate.  

One of the central convictions of Christianity is that there is a God who is near to the suffering, to the poor, the widows and orphans, and to all those who are victims of violence.  Jesus left all the comfort of Heaven to be born as a brown-skinned, Palestinian, Jewish baby, born as a refugee during a genocide under King Herod… born homeless in a manger, from a town called Nazareth where people said nothing good could come… arrested, terrorized, tortured and executed on a cross.  On Good Friday, Christians around the world remember in a special way that Christ is God’s act of solidarity, as he endured the most horrific violence on the cross, and subverted it with love, forgiveness, and an empty tomb.  It is Christ who said, “Blessed are the peacemakers for they are the children of God. It is Christ who rebuked his own disciples when they wanted to call down “fire from heaven” on the people of Samaria. And it is Christ, who scolded Peter when he resorted to violence, saying to Peter, “Those who live by the sword, die by the sword… put the sword away.”  

In the Easter story, Pontius Pilate washes his hands as Christ is being killed, attempting to wash the blood off his hands and pretend he was not responsible.  So that was part of our message at Lockheed Martin on Good Friday. Our lead banner read:  Lockheed Martin, YOU HAVE BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS.” 

Ironically, Lockheed Martin covered up the large signs at their main entrance with large blue tarps and duct tape, making the point even stronger.  They literally tried to hide any evidence of their corporate logo as we gathered.   You can’t make this stuff up. 

We also made a banner with the numbers on it: “Over 32,000 killed.  Over 13,000 children killed.  Over 74,000 injured.”  And we all added our handprints in red paint, even little Eli added his for the babies in Gaza.  Many folks left the paint on their hands as a reminder that the genocide in Gaza is not just being done by Israel.  It is being done with funds from the United States and weapons made in the United States, by companies like Lockheed Martin.  

The US gives Israel $4 Billion a year.  And Lockheed Martin makes billions more from weapons sales, with contracts that did not begin after October 7 but have a decades old history.  Since the 1970s, Lockheed Martin has provided the F-16s and more recently the F-35 fighter jets used in Gaza.  In 5 years, Lockheed sent 102 F-16s and 50 F-35s.  They also make the M-270 Multiple Launch Rocket System, and the Hellfire missiles that have killed so many people.  In the recent assault in response to October 7th, the US and Israel agreed on a new weapons package (two months into the genocide) to supply even more F-35 and F-15 jets as well as Apache helicopters.  So yes, Lockheed Martin has blood on its hands. They have made a killing off killing.  They have turned war into a billion-dollar business enterprise.  The old saying is correct: “If you want to stop war, figure out who is profiting from it.”  

That’s why we gathered at Lockheed Martin on Good Friday.  As many fellow Christians bless the bombs falling on Gaza, weapons made at Lockheed Martin… we say NO, not in our name, and not in the name of our Savior.  As many Christians try to defend the violence of Israel being done in planes made by Lockheed Martin, we are calling for a ceasefire, and an end to the violence in the name of Christ, the Prince of Peace.

To be clear, it was a diverse, interfaith gathering – with people of all faiths and folks who aren’t religious at all but are compelled by their conscience to stand against the violence in Gaza.  We had dozens of children of all ages.  I’m guessing my little baby, Elijah, was one of the youngest at 12 weeks old.  One of them held a homemade banner that read, “US Bombs Kill Children.”  The young and young at heart put a rhythm to our call for ceasefire, as they beat on large drums together.  

And we carried the signs and banners.  We had posters with large images of the devastation from the bombing, and the shattered lives… each one branded with “Made In the USA.”  And we carried six large black signs with the names of the children, a reminder that they are not just numbers.  Every one of them has a name, a precious child made in the image of God.  We carried thousands of those names onto the property of Lockheed Martin… an act that was part religious ceremony, part street theater, part public lament.  

As we crossed over the blue line that designates where the public property ends and the private property of Lockheed Martin begins, we were given a warning that we were trespassing and could face arrest.  The folks with the names of the children laid down on the ground, a profoundly moving posture in the rich tradition of “die-ins.”  Others of us began to sing.  Several participants unrolled yellow “Crime Scene Do Not Enter” tape and roped off the entrance, calling it what it is – the scene of a crime, a war crime. On the other side of the boundary we laid several dozen red roses.  One after another, kids and adults brought those flowers over the blue line and laid them on the names of the children – it was all so powerful and moving.  

As the police began arresting us, we sang hymns and freedom songs – “Down by the Riverside” and “We Shall Overcome” … and “Ain’t Gonna Let Lockheed Martin, Turn me ‘Round.”  And we said the “Lord’s Prayer” which had a new ring to it as we said the part about forgiving us “our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” as we were arrested for trespassing.  

As we began the procession onto Lockheed Martin, I reminded the group of these words of Martin Luther King (whose assassination we remember on the anniversary this week), as he said this: “There is nothing wrong with a traffic law which says you have to stop for a red light. But when a fire is raging, the fire truck goes through that red light, and normal traffic had better get out of its way. Or when a man is bleeding to death, the ambulance goes through those red lights at top speed.”  

There is a fire raging in Gaza, and we need brigades of ambulance drivers who will ignore the red lights of the present system until the emergency is solved.  That’s why we were willing to go to jail.  

And it was also Dr. King who reflected on how he was initially troubled to go to jail – but then he looked at history and saw what good company he had.  Indeed, all the way back to Jesus on that first Good Friday.  And Christians have been making good trouble ever since, stirring up holy mischief and challenging the systems that crush other people.  So, it was an honor to go to jail on Good Friday.  As John Lewis once said, when we get into good trouble we can smile in our mugshot because we know that we are on the right side of history.  

Without a doubt, our children and grandchildren will ask us what we did to try to stop the genocide in Gaza.  I am trying hard to be able to honestly answer them – everything we could, including going to jail.  In fact, I’ll tell my little boy Eli – it was your first protest.  And I know it will not be his last.

On the citation we were given, we have been charged with Disorderly Conduct, and underneath the charge is a section called “Nature of Offense” and they wrote that the police officers wrote this in that section: “Defendant created a physically offensive condition by an act which served no legitimate purpose”. 

There was a crime committed at 230 Mall Blvd, but it was not prayerfully putting our bodies in the way of the flow of weapons of mass destruction.  The crime was happening inside the headquarters of Lockheed Martin.  And that was the act that was “offensive” to God and to all of us who care about life.  

We will not build a better world by killing other people’s children.  It’s time to get in the way of the business of war.  And for many of us, we do this holy work in the name of our Savior… that brown-skinned Palestinian refugee from Nazareth… Jesus the Christ.  

Violence is always evil, no matter what flag it’s wrapped up in. 

Let us continue to work for peace… and do all we can to interrupt the war… and grieve every life lost… and commit ourselves to building a world where every person is sacred.

Several years ago, my wife received a phone call from our daughter who was living in Charlston. She told my wife that our son had been shot. He was in a hospital in Savannah. We were told that he was in a coma and in critical condition and that the next few hours would determine whether he would live or die. We were in DC, so we had to find a flight to Savannah. The whole time we were booking a flight and getting packed, we were talking with and getting updates from our daughter. We got on the plane and followed the procedure, turning our phones off. We spent the next two hours out of contact. Unless you have experienced it you cannot imagine the anguish of being on a plane for two hours wondering if, when you land, you would get a text saying that your son was dead. Thankfully my son survived. 

We have heard this story many times and know the predictable script, from our political leaders especially from those who oppose any gun regulations, that follows a mass shooting. 

• First there will be statements of how terrible this is and offers of “thoughts and prayers” for the victims and their families. This will be followed by 
• Attacks and outrage at those who speak out for more gun control. The attackers will say this is not the time to talk about this. They will accuse the gun control advocates of using the crisis for political purposes.
• Then there will be statements from political leaders about how this has nothing to do with guns but rather it is a mental health issue. 
• Then nothing will happen.
• Then there will be another episode of gun violence and the process will begin again. 

In an article published in Psychiatric News in 2021 the author Katie O’Connor writes: “Only 4% of the violence that occurs in the United States can be attributed to people with mental illness, yet when incidents of gun violence occur, they are almost immediately associated with psychiatric illnesses.” In another article published in 2021 by The Harvard Review of Psychiatry, “Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, and the Future of Psychiatric Research into American Gun Violence”, the authors write: “Still, “mental health” remains the focus of many existing regulations as well as proposed policies to prevent gun violence in the community. Despite evidence that there is no strong connection between gun crime and mental illness.” In 2022 Dr. Jeff Temple, a psychologist and founding director of the Center for Violence Prevention at the University of Texas Medical Branch wrote: “Making psychiatric disease the bogeyman is politically expedient – it allows policymakers to shy away from the true culprit. It also fits into how the public often views mental illness – as something to fear. Afterall, what else would cause someone to do something so heinous? The problem with this thinking is that it’s wrong.”   

Putting aside the fact that most of the scientific evidence shows very little connection between mental health and gun violence, a number of studies have shown that only around 25% of mass murderers had exhibited a mental illness, but most of them had not appeared on the radar of either the mental health or law enforcement systems. Similarly, as reported in the Harvard Review, a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) study found that only approximately 25% of shooters were known to have been diagnosed with a mental illness of some kind, ranging from minor to more serious disorders. The study concluded that “formally diagnosed mental illness is not a very specific predictor of violence of any type, let alone targeted violence.” One would think that if politicians are going to blame mental health for gun violence, they would do everything possible to ensure there was proper funding for mental health programs. 

In May of 2022, after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at a Uvalde elementary school, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott stated that the Uvalde school shooter had a “mental health challenge” and the state needed to “do a better job with mental health”.  He then proceeded to cut $211 million dollars from the state’s budget for mental health programs. In 2023, the Wisconsin the Republican-led budget committee proposed cutting more than $276 million for mental health services in schools. The House Republicans proposed cutting $300 million from programs that address student mental health issues. In 2022, 210 House Republicans voted against the American Rescue Plan, which provided $12 billion to address mental health needs. 

It is interesting that approximately 88% of the members of Congress claim to be Christian. But one has to wonder how many have actually read the Bible or heard the words of Jesus. The sin that is most often mentioned in the New Testament is the sin of hypocrisy. It is mentioned more than 25 times in the New Testament. From Matthew Chapter 23: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!”, to Matthew 23:28 “So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness”. I don’t know about you, but I believe a very clear example of hypocrisy would be claiming that gun violence is a mental health issue then proposing budget cuts in mental health programs. Kind of makes you wonder what would Jesus say about that. 

When I reached the side alley of the building, I noticed a car backed in beside an emergency exit door. The car had no license plate. The terrorist attacks weighing heavily on my mind, I was afraid someone may have been hiding in the store. In order to make sure that my night crew was safe, I called the police.

Three to four minutes after calling 911, three or four police cars abruptly surrounded my car. I had no clue what was going on. The drivers were shining their high beams into my car, and the light completely blinded me. I did not know who was there, how many of them were surrounding me, or whether they had guns drawn on me. I froze. Then I cried. I didn’t want to die.

Eventually, they yelled through a megaphone to roll my window down and place my hands outside the vehicle. My car didn’t have automatic windows, so rolling the window down meant dropping my hands below their line of sight. I couldn’t see them, what they were doing, or how close they were to me. I assumed they had their guns drawn, so I stayed frozen. Then I cried more. I didn’t dare move a muscle. My fear for my own life told me that as soon as I reached down, they would kill me. So here I was in an alley on the side of a store preparing to meet my Maker because I was certain I was about to be shot.

After what seemed like an eternity, one lone officer approached my car. He must have told his fellow officers to turn off their lights, then he tapped on my window and told me that I was going to be okay, and he kindly asked me again to roll down the window. I was terrified, and he knew it, and he saved me and the other officers from reacting in a way that could have ended my life. I was thankful that he didn’t let fear control him or the situation. He did not know me. He did not know that I was the person who made the initial call.

As I reflect on the encounter, two factors played a significant role in the way I reacted: I am Black, and I am autistic. What I wish I had known back then is that many people who are neurodivergent process information differently than those who are neurotypical. Neurodivergence usually includes autism, ADHD, and other neurological differences. One way that neurodivergent brains operate differently has to do with executive functioning, or how the brain absorbs information, organizes it, and acts on the information in a manner that is safe and effective. In intense and high-stress situations, executive functioning can become challenging, if not impossible.

I don’t tell this story very often because for so many people these are not unusual occurrences. They happen regularly. I am grateful that those officers spared my life when all the ingredients for a fatal shooting of an unarmed, young Black male were present. I have lived to talk about it, but so many others have not.

In August 2019, police in Aurora, Colorado, approached twenty-three-year-old Elijah McClain after they had received a 911 call reporting a “suspicious person” walking down the road in a ski mask and behaving strangely. When officers confronted McClain, he repeatedly asked the officers to let go of him and announced that he was going home. Elijah was a young, Black, autistic man.

Those who have sensory-processing challenges, which are common in autistic individuals, are often averse to touch, especially when they do not initiate contact. The body camera transcripts of the event record McClain repeatedly asking the officers to let him go, pleading with them, “Please respect the boundaries that I am speaking.” We can also hear McClain explaining his plan to go home. Another common characteristic of autism is difficulty switching from one activity to the next without a thorough transition or additional time to adjust to the new expectations. The random police officers approaching McClain for an unknown and undisclosed reason most likely interfered with his internalized plan of simply going home.

Finally, we hear Elijah stating, “I’m just different, that’s all. I’m just different.” Many believe this was Elijah’s way of trying to explain his autistic behavior and neurology to officers who deemed his behavior strange and, eventually, dangerous.

Officers at the scene eventually restrained McClain, who weighed only 143 pounds, using a choke hold. When paramedics arrived, an injection of ketamine was administered to calm him down. Because of the strength with which he resisted the officers, they wrongly suspected McClain was on drugs at the time of their encounter. Ketamine is a powerful sedative, and the paramedics administered Elijah a dose that was nearly twice the amount recommended for an individual his size. Shortly thereafter, Elijah stopped breathing. They then took him to the hospital, where he would die three days later.

Elijah McClain had no weapon. His family later reported that Elijah suffered from anemia, which made him cold, so it was not uncommon for him to wear a ski mask in order to keep warm. The investigation found that the Aurora police had no legal basis to stop, frisk, or restrain Elijah. Essentially, Elijah died because of implicit racial and ableist biases.

Implicit racial bias strongly shapes the treatment of people of color in the US judicial system. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, the NYPD, from 2002 to 2011, conducted stop and frisk procedures on millions of citizens, about 90 percent of those being Black and Hispanic people. Eighty-eight percent of those minorities who the police profiled and stopped had no weapons or contraband. Often, what leads to such practices is the perception that Black and Brown bodies and the behaviors they display are inherently more aggressive—and therefore more dangerous.

There are several research studies that have found that compared to White people, Black people are far more often subject to automatic and subconscious negative stereotypes and prejudice. These thoughts usually extend beyond just negative attitudes; Black and Brown bodies are associated with violence, threatening behavior, and crime. Black men are also more likely to be misremembered for carrying a weapon because of this bias.

Let’s be honest: The stories I am sharing with you are not unusual. There’s nothing new about the statistics that prove racial bias is a reality in our country. There’s nothing new about Black authors, scholars, activists, and clergy speaking up about these issues. What is new, and what I am aiming to bring to this ongoing discussion, is that racial bias in America is not simply an issue of race. It is not simply an issue of skin preference. It is not just an issue of a lack of diversity. Race-based slavery and the enduring racial bias and discrimination it created are about disability discrimination as well. Our issues with racism are in fact issues of ableism— and American Christianity has played a significant role in influencing ableism in our present cultural context.

Content taken from How Ableism Fuels Racism by Lamar Hardwick, ©2024. Used by permission of Brazos Press.

Mike McIntire of The New York Times recently reported that “The Guns were said to be destroyed, instead, they were reborn.” They were made new. They were dismantled and deconstructed so they could be put back together again.  There is a company, Gunbusters, that contracts with numerous police departments to destroy their confiscated and turned in firearms. But only kind of.

Split Cross by Scotty Utz

Part of the problem with regulating firearms is the multiple styles of firearms: from handguns to rifles to shotguns, and more. But it’s also the components they are made of. The Gun Control Act of 1968 defines a firearm as the receiver or frame of the firearm.  Its what receives the serial number and what everything else connects to – trigger, stock, barrel, and other mechanisms that when all combined, create what many of us would visually recognize as a gun.

What Gunbusters does, and to their credit, don’t try to hide it, is disassemble all the pieces and parts, and only destroy the receiver or frame, the part with the serial number on it. The rest of the pieces are sold as a kit.  They destroy firearms for free because they can sell the parts to make money. So popular they are, as McIntire reports, that the most popular online site to sell firearms, GunBroker, has frames and receivers for sale referencing which of GunBusters kits can be paired with it to make a functioning firearm. 

Xylophone by youth in Albuquerque

Some of those frames and receivers can be bought without a serial number because they follow the 80% rule. If a frame or receiver is under 80% complete, it doesn’t need a serial number. So toolkits are made to sell a receiver that isn’t fully complete, but can be made complete by a buyer, then paired with a gun kit like those that Gunbusters sells, and be born again.

McIntire tapped into some theological language many of us are familiar with. In fact, the gun industry does this, too. Advertisements that tap into fear and moral superiority that justify pulling a trigger in almost any instance.

J. Warren Cassidy, a former NRA Executive, once said “we should approach the NRA as one of the world’s great religions.” I’d expand that to the gun industry and the culture it has created. 

In McIntire’s article and subsequent segment on NYT’s The Daily, The afterlife of a Gun, has put a stir among municipalities and nonprofits, especially faith communities, who have hosted gun buybacks in partnership with police and have since found out the firearms turned in at their events, were “processed” by GunBusters.

Garden tools and cooking tools made from guns arranged in a peace sign.

All of this is so transactional. Like a “get out of hell” free card.

But there are folks doing this in a more transformative way. RAWtools and their partners have been destroying guns for free.  Except we’re not taking them apart and reselling their parts a-la-carte. We’re making the cuts through the firearm with everything intact.  We’re not just cutting through the receiver and frame, we’re cutting through the trigger assembly, barrel threads, stocks, springs, and other moving parts.  The plastic and soft metal of modern firearms are melting as the cuts are made. The steel of old rifles and shotguns is glowing orange and red as it is destroyed. They are not dismantled, but wholly destroyed as a firearm. And in many cases, folks who have been directly impacted by gun violence, who have lost loved ones, are the ones helping destroy the firearms.  It’s an opportunity, as so many of them tell us, “to physically do something with my hands to make a difference.”  “It’s the healthiest thing I’ve done with the anger of my grief in 30 years,” another told us.

And yet, the destroyed pieces remain. These are what is transformed. Not back into guns, but into a plowshare, or jewelry, or piece of art that begs us to live into another way. Those affected by gun violence participate in this, too. Those affected by the mass trauma of mass shootings are learning how to blacksmith. Retired and bi-vocational clergy who feel need to practice what they’ve preached.

Many of them took part in a forging marathon in June of 2023, laboring one minute for every life lost to gun violence in 2022 – over 44,000. In all, 50,000 minutes were logged by dozens of makers. Much of what they have made is on display at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center in an exhibit, “Another Way is Possible.” Select items from the exhibit are available through auction to support this growing national movement of turning guns into garden tools.

Hawks can become doves.

But its more than the tangible transformation of a sword into a plowshare. It’s also our participation in that process.  To not just heal the elements that make a gun, but to heal our hearts from the trauma we have experienced and the trauma we have caused. Not to create a machine that does this for us, but to accept the invitation to help destroy a firearm or pick up a hammer that beats on the metal from a gun on its way to a plowshare. Because we need to transfer the energy of our pain into a process that transforms that energy into life.

This is how we are reborn. Another way is possible.

(Adapted from the Introduction)

I am a white male and was a police officer for twenty-four years in a racially diverse urban community. I was born and raised in the same community and lived most of my life in the city where I served. As a teenager, my high school had a dense population of African Americans. My wrestling team was coached by an African American man and most of the athletes were African Americans. Although only a few Caucasians earned spots on the team, I was fully welcomed and even loved. I developed friendships with my teammates, some of which have endured to the present day. After high school, I married an African American woman, and we have now been married for over twenty-eight years and have six children.

I am acquainted and even immersed to some extent in a diverse cultural context. I also have deep and meaningful relationships with African Americans. Yet sadly, neither my experiences nor my context freed me from the blindness and moral enslavement of police culture. For decades, I refused to accept what was painfully obvious for so many—police brutality against minorities is not an issue of a few isolated and disconnected incidents but a systemic condition of a compromised institution.

My Journey to the Light 

I began my law enforcement career at twenty-two years of age. I spent four months in the police academy, learning laws and standards of conduct as well as training in defensive tactics, driving, and firearms. The academy also indoctrinated me into a particular culture. For the most part, police academies are managed by police officers, and the training is shaped by the stories and experiences that the instructors tell. As a cadet, you’re not just learning the curriculum, you’re absorbing the officers’ attitudes, vocabulary, and mannerisms, and the instructors are seasoned cops, which is the future every cadet hopes to achieve. I remember one instructor whose extensive experience in street crimes captivated me. As a young man, I admired him and hoped to be just like him. Looking back, I can see how my experience in the academy began to reshape my thinking, speech, and even who I perceived myself to be.

After the academy, I spent four months with training officers. Approximately eight months after I first walked in the door of the police department, I was on my own in a police cruiser. My grasp of the power I possessed did not run much deeper than a single, superficial thought: I cannot believe they are letting me do this. Within my first year of experience, I found myself involved in car chases and fights with suspects who resisted arrest. I was on the scene at bar brawls and arrived in the aftermath of rapes and murders. On one occasion, I witnessed an officer shot and later stood less than fifty feet away as two other officers killed the suspect. This was my new normal, yet I still had not meaningfully reflected on the implications. But then something happened during one of my night shifts that forced me to reckon with the power I possessed.

Domestic violence calls are common at night, but this one would turn out to be anything but. The female victim was screaming so loudly that the dispatchers could hear her as the neighbor across the street reported the incident from their front lawn. I was only a block away when I received the call, but my backup officer was blocked by a train. When I arrived at the residence, I could hear the visceral screaming, and I was alone.

I walked up the broken steps that led to the front door, which was open but obstructed by a screen. I pulled it open and stepped inside the residence. Ten feet away, I saw a couch facing the door where a woman crouched as an African American male loomed over her. They were involved in a struggle, and she was screaming. The motion of the man’s arms and the intensity of the woman’s screams made it clear to me that she was being stabbed. I unholstered my gun and pointed it at the man, yelling for him to stop and to get on the ground. Instead, he turned toward me. In less than a second, he had closed the space between the couch and the doorway, leaving me no time to retreat.

My academy training had taught me that deadly force was the appropriate response to a knife attack. I knew that I could not stop him with my left hand alone, but I had no time to holster my weapon to free my right for self-defense. So I took the slack out of the trigger, preparing to fire.

But I never pulled the trigger.

For reasons that I could not explain at the time, I chose instead to grab the young man’s right hand with my left hand, knowing full well it wouldn’t be enough to stop the knife. To my surprise, he didn’t resist. I turned him toward the wall and handcuffed him. Still, there was no resistance. Finally, I turned him around to secure his knife.

It wasn’t there.

Despite my certainty seconds earlier, there was no knife, and there never had been.

Once I realized he was weaponless, I asked him, “Why didn’t you listen to me? Why didn’t you get on the ground?”

With anger and utter sincerity, he yelled, “I’m tired of her! I came out so you could take me to jail.”

I walked the man down the front steps I had crossed only a few moments earlier and placed him in the rear of my police cruiser. When I sat down in the driver’s seat, my hands began to tremble, but not because of stress or concern that my life had been in danger. I was used to those feelings by that point. Instead, I trembled at the realization that I nearly killed a man who had no intention to harm me.

For many years, I couldn’t explain why I never pulled the trigger and ended that young man’s life. My choice was completely inconsistent with my training. I was fully convinced that he was about to stab me and knew I couldn’t stop him by grabbing his hand. More than twenty years later, I now see that my faith was a key part of my response. Because I believed that young man was intrinsically valuable and created in God’s image, I valued his life. My values countered my training, tipping the scales in that encounter, and I am forever thankful they did.

Here’s what I’ve learned from that call and other experiences over two decades of law enforcement:

Police culture matters. Police officers are shaped by police culture, and that internal culture is present in every experience and every encounter they have as officers.

Internal culture shapes the ways police officers use force. If the culture does not promote valuing people and relationships within the community, the exercise of power—and specifically the use of force—can have catastrophic consequences.

Change is not impossible. Influences both within officers and in the culture of their department can reshape police officers and reorient the choices that they make.

The police will continue to use force, and officers will be in in situations like the one I described where their choice is literally a matter of life and death. Unfortunately, this is a consequence of living in a fallen world. We cannot change that reality; however, we can take meaningful steps to ensure officers are shaped in a way that truly promotes valuing the lives of people—particularly people of color.

Adapted from Rethinking the Police by Daniel Reinhardt. © 2023 by Daniel Reinhardt. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press. www.ivpress.com.

Transcript:

Prophetic Peacemaking: Closing Plenary at the Parliament of the World’s Religions (Chicago 2023)

By Shane Claiborne 

[The Parliament of the World’s Religions was founded in 1893 around a common vision of people from different faiths working together with mutual respect to build a better world.  Shane was honored to be among the Parliament’s featured “luminaries” in 2023.  The 2023 gathering had over 8000 attendees from 90 different nations, representing 200 different religious traditions.]

I have the privilege of working with a movement called Red Letter Christians. Many Bibles have the words of Jesus highlighted in red and that’s where we get our name. We like to say that we’re trying to “live as if Jesus meant the stuff He said.” 

When Gandhi was asked about Christianity, he said – “I love Jesus, I just wish the Christians acted more like him.”  That’s what we want… a Christianity that looks like Jesus, that acts like Jesus… We want to live out a version of our faith that loves like Jesus… that lives like Jesus… that stirs up good trouble like Jesus did. Many Christians are good at worshipping Jesus, but not as good at following Jesus. 

Jesus did not just come to make believers.  He came to form disciples.  

Many Christians have used our faith as a ticket into heaven and an excuse to ignore the brokenness of the world we live in. Too often, Christians have promised people life after death, while many people were wondering if there is life before death. Christians have been obsessed with saving people from hell while ignoring the hells that they are living through right now.   We’ve talked about souls, but not as much about systems.  And I believe in personal salvation, but I also believe in social transformation.  

Almost every time Jesus opened his mouth, he talked about the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God that Jesus talked about was not just something we go up to when we die, but something we are to bring down on earth – we are to bring God’s dream “on earth as it is in heaven.”  So, it is a gift to represent Red Letter Christians here at the Parliament of the World’s Religions.

I also was given a very particular task at this year’s Parliament – to turn some guns into garden tools with all of you!  So we brought the forge. And the anvils.  And we brought hundreds of chopped up gun parts!  Hundreds of you took the hammer to gun barrels this week and helped us turn them into garden tools.  And hundreds of you made pieces of art from chopped up guns, and planted seeds with our tools so you can take them home to bring new life. 

Over 12 years ago, RAWtools was born – we get our name from flipping “WAR” around, and that’s what we do – we turn guns into garden tools and other life-giving things.  We are inspired by the vision of the prophets Micah and Isaiah who cast this vision of a world where people beat “swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks.”  Literally, turning the tools of death into tools of life.  

This cross that I’m wearing is made out of the barrel of a gun.  Next month we’ll be delivering one to Pope Francis!  It reminds me that the gun and the cross give us two very different versions of power.  The gun says, “I am willing to kill.”  And the cross says, “I am willing to die.”  There is something worth dying for, but nothing worth killing for.  As the early Christians said, “For Christ we can die, but we cannot kill.”  This cross also reminds me that Jesus was a victim of violence.  As one mother who lost her 19-year-old told me, with tears rolling down her cheeks, “God knows what it feels like to lose your son. God knows what it feels like to be me.”  As a Christian, I believe Jesus is God’s most profound act of divine solidarity.  God leaves all the comfort of Heaven and joins the suffering here on earth.  Jesus enters the world as a brown-skinned, Palestinian, Jewish, refugee… born in the middle of a genocide.  Jesus came from a town called Nazareth, where people said, “Nothing good could come.”  He was homeless as he said, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”  And Jesus was a victim of violence.  He was condemned, humiliated, tortured, executed. On the cross, Jesus absorbed all the violence of the world.  He made a spectacle of death.  He put death on full display… and he subverted it with love, forgiveness, and an empty tomb.  That’s why I wear a cross made from a gun.  We cannot love our enemies as Jesus commands and simultaneously prepare to kill them.  We cannot hold the cross in one hand, and a gun in the other.  Love is willing to die but not to kill.  Love is a force more powerful than all the weapons in the world.  

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Herschel has taught me much about the prophets.  One of the things they have taught me is that we often misunderstand the prophets. We think of the prophets as if they were fortune-tellers, trying to predict the future. But the prophets weren’t fortune-tellers.  They were truth-tellers. And they weren’t trying to predict the future. They were trying to change the future, by waking us up to the present. They are inviting us to imagine another future – that’s what my brother Dr. Walter Brueggemann calls the prophetic imagination.  The prophets are always trying to wake us up, and say, “It doesn’t have to be this way.”  Another future, another world… is possible!  It takes faith to believe despite the evidence, or as one of my friends puts it, “Faith is believing despite the evidence, and watching the evidence change.” 

Interestingly enough, the passage about beating swords into plows ends by saying that “nation will not rise up against nation… people study war no more.”  It ends with a vision of a world where people live without fear and have everything they need.  But if you look closely you notice, the vision that the prophets speak of does not come from the top down.  It comes from the bottom up.  It’s not those in power – the kings and presidents, or the prime ministers or politicians who lead us to peace… no they keep creating the wars.  It is the people of God who lead the politicians to peace.  It is the people of God who are the prophetic conscience of the nations.  It is the people who begin to beat their swords into plows.  It is the people who are fed up with war and violence.  And they take things into their own hands.  

The people are tired of violence. The people are tired of excuses. The people are tired of politicians who do nothing. The people are tired of “thoughts and prayers” without action.  So the people take things into their own hands and begin transforming the tools of death into tools of life. The people refuse to accept the world as it is and insist on building the world that God dreams of.

It reminds me of something my mentor told me years ago, “Sometimes we are waiting on God, and God may be waiting on us.”   When we ask God, “Why don’t you do something?”… if we listen closely, we may hear God say, “I did do something… I made YOU!”  When you ask God to move a mountain, God may hand you a shovel.  When you ask God to do something about gun violence, God may hand you a hammer and give you a forge!  The truth is that one of the greatest mysteries of our faith is that God does not want to change the world without us.  God is inviting you, and me, to join the holy work of healing and redeeming the world.  

It has been especially powerful to beat guns into garden tools here at Parliament, with people from 200 different religious traditions, because the best of our faiths has been manipulated, abused, distorted, twisted in order to justify hatred and violence and bigotry. Hitler had the Bible in his hand as he carried out his evils… all you have to do is twist the cross and you get a swastika.  

Over and over, people have used religion to camouflage their own hatred. No one kills with more passion than someone who believes that God is on their side. That’s why it has been so marvelous to take the same hammer together across all of our different faith traditions, and declare a common vision for peace and love and compassion. Hundreds of you have taken the hammer and beaten guns into garden tools together this week.  And we are dedicating this shovel made from a gun to the Parliament of the World’s Religions as a symbol of that common vision we share, of a world free of violence.  Sometimes I tell my evangelical friends (holding a shovel made from a gun):  “This is what a gun looks like when it gets born again!”  All things can be made new.  Metal that has been crafted to kill can be made new, recrafted to protect life.  And a person who has killed someone is more than the worst thing they have ever done.  They too can be made new.  People can be made new. Policies can be made new. Our world can be made new!  

Some 50 years ago Dr. Martin Luther King said that these are extreme times in which we live. Dr. King said that the question is not whether we will be extremists but what kind of extremists will we be.  Will we be extremists for hatred, or extremists for love?  The world has seen enough religious extremists for hatred.  But the world is longing to see a new generation of extremists for love.  May we rise to the occasion at such a time as this… as extremists for love.  

Let us be the change we want to see in the world.  Amen.

I feel guilty of hoping for that “yes” every single time- because I know so many others are not so lucky. And as a mom of a young child with type 1 diabetes, I am acutely aware of the added danger he faces in a potential violent situation. In kindergarten my son experienced his first lockdown drill just a few days into the school year and what happened broke my heart. As the teachers turned out the lights and gave the children instructions, my son’s continuous glucose monitor began to alarm. He was having a dangerous low blood sugar in the middle of an active shooter drill. He described to me what it was like to quietly sit under a window in the dark while eating his gummies under his mask- after all, it was the height of the delta variant of covid 19. As the minutes slowly passed, he hid his monitor under his shirt and attempted to muffle the sounds. My heart sank as I realized, I forgot to teach him how to turn off the volume. He told me that he was panicked, and worried that if there really was an active shooter, he would be the one to ruin it for everyone because he was the one making the noise. What an enormous weight for a kindergartener with a complicated diagnosis to carry.

That afternoon, he cried in my arms. “I tried so hard mommy. There were just so many ways to try to stay alive. I tried so hard.” And he was right. Between diabetes, a pandemic (we were in the middle of a surge in 2021), and now a potential active shooter, there were just too many ways to try to stay alive for one little kindergarten boy. And that was only a drill.

During the drill, the school nurse (who is amazing by the way) watched him closely from outside his classroom door. We texted each other back and forth and waited for it all to end. She went in when she was able to, once she did, relief flooded me. The policy for schools is when the students are practicing or engaging in a lockdown situation- the door stays shut. Even if a young child is experiencing a medical emergency- the door still stays shut. The school did everything it was supposed to. I would also like to add that we love our school. They are incredible partners and the whole place feels like such a loving and welcoming community. But the afternoon after my son graduated from kindergarten was the Uvalde massacre. And I confess I could not bring myself to send my children for the last two days of school that year. I kept them all at home. Not because I was irrational or scared- but because as a parent, sometimes this is all too much.

Whether you are a parent of a medically marginalized child like I am, or just a parent of a healthy school aged child researching bullet proof backpack liners and GPS watches, I just want you to know that I see you. I am you. You are not alone.

I am not sure how exactly I will gain the strength to send my kids back to school, but I will. And I will pray, and cry, and surely round the block occasionally to ease my anxious thoughts. Because when you love someone, you do everything you can to champion their flourishing and keep them safe. I hope as we start the year with a range of emotions and a range of experiences that we can see each other’s humanity- really see each other. I daydream about the day when our school yards are once again unarmed, and our children can laugh and play without looking over their shoulders. I am praying for the day where these kids change the world for the better- because I am convinced that at this point, they are the only ones who can. I will be cheering them on and doing everything in my power to keep them alive in the meantime.

He shall judge between the nations and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. (Isaiah 2:4)

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. (Matthew 5:9)

And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. (Hosea 2:18)

 
It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and it shall be lifted up above the hills; and peoples shall flow to it, and many nations shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between many peoples and shall decide disputes for strong nations far away; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore; but they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken. For all the peoples walk each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the Lord our God forever and ever…. (Micah 4:1-13)

He makes wars cease to the end of the earth; he breaks the bow and shatters the spear; he burns the chariots with fire. (Psalm 46:9)