A Deeper Problem

 Once again, our nation has been shocked and outraged by yet another mass shooting in a school. Nineteen children — nine and ten year olds — plus their two fourth grade teachers, all killed in an elementary school in Uvalde, TX, by an eighteen year old wielding an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. This shooting came less than two weeks after a nineteen year old — in an openly racist hate crime — targeted and killed ten African Americans in a community grocery store in Buffalo, NY. The day after the Buffalo attack (May 15), a gunman opened fire in a church in California in another hate crime targeting people of Asian descent.

Many are saying we have a gun problem in our country. While I agree with them, we have a deeper problem than guns. Guns are indeed a contributor to the problem, but focusing on guns will not solve the problem. Addressing the gun issue will help, but only in superficial ways.

We as a nation have a spiritual problem. We are addicted to violence.

As with all addictions, the addiction itself masks deeper problems. The addiction keeps us from facing the deeper problem and addressing it. The underlying problem is the fear, anger, and hatred we harbor in our hearts — individually and collectively.

Our current functioning as a nation reflects emotional-relational-spiritual immaturity rather than maturity. We seemingly have abandoned trained reason, rational thought, and respectful dialogue. Our functioning expresses the most base of our instincts as humans.

We are acting like self-absorbed preschoolers throwing tantrums to get our way. We insist on “my rights” – my constitutional rights, my second amendment rights, my personal rights. We complain about and resist any “government overreach” that infringes on our rights — even to protect our nation from a world-wide COVID pandemic or our children from mass shootings. We view those who are different from us through the eyes of fear. We see them as a threat that will displace us and take away what is “rightfully ours.” Our fear fuels our anger toward “the other” — illegal immigrants, gays, Muslims, Hispanics, Asians, Blacks — and anyone who would dare speak for them — the radical left and their socialist agenda, those protesting in the streets, those promoting Critical Race Theory, those calling for gun control. Our fear-fueled anger has hardened into hatred for and disgust with any who do not agree with us. We attack them, demean them by calling them derogatory names, and attempt to discredit everything about them. We see no good in them. We reject anything “the other” advocates. We have become rigid in our thinking, unyielding in our positions, and arbitrary in our demands. We think in terms of either-or, black-and-white, ignoring the complexity that underlies every issue. We demand that our “Christian” beliefs and values be written into law, making them the law of the land — a “Christian” Sahara law.

The way we function personally is played out in our political arena. Our elected representatives seem to have abandoned the common good in favor of holding onto power at any cost. Dark money, pouring in from corporate interests like the NRA and Big Oil, lines their pockets, influencing legislation and votes. They refuse to work together to make progress on any front, choosing instead to blame the other party. To stay in office, they appeal to our fear rather than our intellect, keeping “their base” motivated with anger toward and fear of “the other.”

Our unrecognized and unaddressed fear, anger, and hatred then get projected onto “the other” through violence. Violence is using our power to attack, overpower, defeat, and destroy “the other.” We use our power against “the other.” We seek to win, regardless of the cost.

Our addiction to violence is reflected throughout our culture. It fills our movies and TV shows. It is the pattern in our video games. We exalt it in our sports. Our image of a hero is a John Wayne or Clint Eastwood who single handedly use violence to defeat the enemy and make everything right. Our guns are the symbol of our addiction to violence.

Our anxiety-driven, violence-prone functioning reflects emotional regression. We are going backwards rather than making progress — as individuals, as a society, as a nation.

What is in our hearts — the fear, the anger, the hatred toward “the other” — and our addiction to violence go against the clear teachings of Jesus.

Violence is the way of the world — power used over, down against the other, for personal benefit, at the other’s expense. It is not the way of Jesus. “You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:42-45, emphasis added). Jesus’s way is to use power to serve. It is to use power the way God uses power, in life-giving, life-nurturing ways.

Our functioning out of fear, anger, and hatred reflect a self-focused, self-serving spirit. Such a spirit is inherent to our human condition, but it is not the way of Jesus. The way of Jesus is the way of the servant. When his disciples were arguing about which of them was the greatest, Jesus said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). The servant spirit is the measure of greatness in the kingdom. The servant spirit is expressed in self-giving love that seeks the good of the other. It is the opposite of our self-focused, self-serving, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit.

Love is the way of Jesus — self-giving, servant love. He taught us to love God, love neighbor. Viewing another through the eyes of fear, seeing them as “other,” is not the way of Jesus. It is the way of our most immature human nature. In Galatians 5:20, the Apostle Paul identified “enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions” as works of the flesh, that is, of our basic, anxiety-driven, self-focused human nature. We don’t have to work at fearing and hating “the other.” It comes naturally, automatically. The polarization in our nation and in our communities is an expression of our self-focused, self-serving, what’s-in-it-for-me nature. It is not the way of Jesus. Loving our neighbor is the way of Jesus. We love God by loving our neighbor.  

Regression — functioning out of our most base instincts — is the path that leads to destruction. It destroys our personal emotional-relational-spiritual health. It destroys relationships. It will destroy our nation and our democracy.

I believe we have a gun problem in our nation. I believe we have too many guns. I believe we need to limit who has access to guns. I believe we need to limit what kinds of guns we have access to. I also believe that until we address what is in our hearts and the violence that manifests it, talking about guns and gun violence is fruitless.

We as a nation have a heart problem. We as a nation have an addiction problem. We are addicted to violence. We as a nation have a spiritual problem.