Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

The Naked Jesus

Home
Progressive Christian
It’s Not Just a ‘Heart Problem’

It’s Not Just a ‘Heart Problem’

Last updated on: June 13, 2016 at 1:07 pm by John O'Keefe

It’s Not Just a ‘Heart Problem’ 2016-06-13T13:07:59-05:00 John O'Keefe

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

As this latest abomination on humanity opens deeps wounds, Social Media is filled with people posting memes saying things like, ‘Cain killed Abel with a rock; It’s a heart problem, not a gun problem.’ At some level I would agree, it’s a ‘heart problem;’ but knowing it’s a ‘heart problem’ opens the wider question, why are we giving people with a heart problem access to guns? Allowing people with a ‘heart problem’ access to weapons of such mass destruction seems counter to any reality I can grasp.

Call it whatever you desire, a terrorist act, a hate crime – whatever. Just don’t allow what you call it remove you from finding a solution. Because in my mind it doesn’t matter what you call it, taking the life of another because you don’t like who they are, is simply twisted. We can argue the value of mental health issues, the freedom of the 2nd Amendment, we can argue whatever – but we must, MUST, look past all the arguments and start addressing some core realities of our world. Saying, ‘it’s a heart problem’ without addressing the heart issues, simply puts the solution on the back burner. Because of all this violence we are redefining our norms.

If we live in a world where violence against another is the norm, we live in the wrong world.
If our faith encourages us to marginalize others, for any reason, we need to rethink our faith
If you think you are called to take a life, you need to check those voices in your head
If all we are doing is offering words, we rethink, and start action

If our actions marginalize some, we are the ones with the ‘heart problem’

Prayers? Yes, we need to be praying. Words? Sure, sharing our feeling, and expressing emotions, over this tragedy is important. While prayers, and words, are important, we need to embrace this shock to our human culture and move past words and take action to stop this kind of violence in the future, but I wonder if we will? I thought the Newtown massacre would take our collective Spirits over the edge of words, and move us to real action. But instead, our leaders bowed-down before the altar of the NRA, and did nothing. We moved past Newtown, without honest and real gun control, or background checks. Many simply allowed the conversation, and prayers, to end – we simply moved on to the next wave of violence. I remember thinking, when no one was truly hearing the voices of grieving parents, ‘If we’re not collectively moved at the killing of elementary school children, nothing will move us.’

While I tend to be the type of person who desires conversation, I think the time has passed for conversation and we need to start to take action. With each mass killing, the violence become worse and worse; the events in Orlando where 50 people died, 53 people injured, proves we haven’t moved any closer to truly understanding others, or addressing the issues. With religious leaders [no names, they don’t need the plug] proclaiming it’s a ‘good thing’ I see that we’re deeper into losing our way. When some of the Clergy [all faiths] teach human life is worthless, simply because they have a different lifestyle than what they think their god [yes, lower case intended] sees as ‘the right way,’ we’re deeper into losing our way. If we truly see this as a ‘heart problem’ and our religious leaders teach us to accept the ‘heart problem,’ we’re deeper into losing our way.

These events should cause more than sadness; they should sicken us at the core of our being. I have no ability to grasp, or understanding, such violence until I take the time to process the events. But in that, in that processing, I truly desire to stress that this is a gun issue, because giving people with a heart problem access to such weapons is simply crazy.

Previous Post

June 12, 2016

It is harder to....

Next Post

June 15, 2016 It Is About Religion, But Not In The Way You Think

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abuse bad Bad Theology Blue Christian Karma Christmas Church Clinton Coming Out Day Cruz Dance Dangerous Church Discrimination Disruptive Faith disruptive peace Disrutive Church Doctrine Dominionism Evangelism Faith Fun good grace Hell Hillary Inclusive Justice Keller Leadership love Messy Church Missional New Parable Open Peace Play Politics Prayer Progressive racism random Safe Church Sessions Story Theology Trump truth Uncategorized

Select a Month March 2019 December 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 February 2018 December 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 October 2015 August 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which Christian denomination places great emphasis on "justification by faith alone"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Orthodox Catholics Lutherans Methodists