Am I my brother's keeper?

Maybe I’m just feeling fed up with corruption and evil and deception and greed and this is making me more sensitive than usual towards the absurd idiocy of several prominent (Republican) politicians, but I am about to throw a chair through a glass window. Which I know would not be a constructive use of my rage. So instead I’m going to take to the page and try to gather my thoughts. 

First, some disclosure: My political ideology leans towards the right and will probably always do so, even though I would rush to join a more moderate political party if such a one existed in the United States. I am staunchly pro-life. I am also a Christian. I don’t support gay marriage. I oppose abortion. I also disagree with the death penalty. And I hate guns. 

But what I hate even more than the things I just mentioned are inconsistency, injustice, corruption and preying on the vulnerable. 

I have friends, dear friends, who I know disagree with some of the views I’m about to lay out, and that’s okay. I’m not trying to pick a fight. I just really need to say this: Consistency matters. It matters a whole lot. Because without it, we lose our credibility. We lose our authority, we lose our conviction, and with that the ability to fight the evil we profess to hate. 

I am pro-life because I believe that life is a good thing. It is something that is given by God and it is up to us to steward the gift of life in the best way possible. The most basic human right is the right to live. You can argue that education and nutrition and healthcare and free speech and all the rest of it are also legitimate human rights (and I wouldn’t disagree with you), but none of these matter if you’re dead. Hence, life. 

This worldview informs all of my beliefs. And herein lies the importance of consistency. If I adopt a pro-life stance on the issue of abortion because I believe that taking the life of unborn children robs them of their chance at life, that’s admirable. But life certainly doesn’t end at birth. If we who are ‘pro-lifers’ care about not taking the life of an unborn child, then we should also care about not taking the life of a convicted criminal. Not because the criminal doesn’t deserve to die, but because it’s not our place to take away life. Truthfully, there are a number of individuals, and not just criminals, that I would very much like to send straight to hell right now if I could. But it wouldn’t be my place. For those who read the Bible, it says in Romans 12:19 “Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord.” Additionally, it behooves us to remember that all of us deserve to die; we’re all guilty of wrongdoing in some form or another, but God has chosen to give us life anyway. As long as there is life, there is the chance of redemption. It’s not up to us humans to decide who gets to live and who gets to die. Because I am aware of who I am in relation to my Creator, this is a line I dare not cross. Therefore my pro-life stance cannot support the idea of the death penalty. 

And now to what actually inspired this conniption fit: I applaud, loudly and fiercely, President Obama’s executive move to tighten gun control laws. He’s not taking away our right to bear arms. He’s not even changing any laws. He’s just trying to dust off the ones that already exist. And what makes me so irate to the point of wanting to cry, vomit, crawl under my bed and disappear, and throw chairs through glass windows is the fact that Republican politicians, including presidential candidates (of whom most are professing Christians and pro-lifers!!!!!!) are SO QUICK to point fingers and say that watch out, he’s trying to take away your freedom people! 

Obama wants to 1) require background checks for all gun sellers and get rid of current exemptions (which seems perfectly reasonable and is something most Americans are in favor of anyway), 2) states to provide information on people disqualified from buying guns due to mental illness or domestic violence (I feel safer already), 3) an increased FBI workforce to process background checks (an acceptable expense - and hey, that would even create more jobs and improve the economy!), 4) improve mental healthcare in the US (um yes, please and thank you), and 5) explore smart gun technology to improve gun safety (tell me, how does that decrease my freedoms?). 

So my question is, why all the outrage? How can this possibly be a bad thing? Why are Republicans crying foul? And more troubling to me, why are Christians complaining about losing their ‘freedom’? We have an idolatry problem!! And this idolatry problem has blinded us to the real, sinister enemy. Money and corruption are what’s managing this whole ‘right to bear arms’ debate. The gun lobby has the money, it has corrupted our politicians, and it has planted and fed the seed of rebellion in millions of minds and hearts. Why are we not outraged? 

I am absolutely convinced that corruption is the single biggest threat to life there is. Corruption impedes justice. It preys on the vulnerable. It destroys our credibility. It weakens our convictions. It cancels our authority. It short-circuits the mechanisms that were put in place to make sure people could live their lives well. Why are we not outraged? 

Personally, I would go further and ask why we have allowed fear to rule us? And now I’m speaking primarily to people who profess Christ, who are also some of the staunchest second amendment advocates I know. What has us thinking that the most moderate check on gun laws will inevitably lead to the federal government taking everyone’s guns away (or whatever the hell it is that we’re so afraid of)? That oh-so-holy amendment was written in a time when war was literally being fought in people’s back yards. The point then was to stand up to the tyrant that was England and each person essentially became a soldier in order to protect his or her land. That era ended. Like, a really long time ago. We haven’t had a legitimate war waged on our soil for over 150 years. We don’t need to be soldiers anymore. So how about some progress and adaptation? I really don’t see how we can justify swapping the tyrant that was England for a new tyrant that is the gun lobby and be perfectly okay with that. If we really are Christians, then what have we to fear? “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love and a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7) Could it be that we’ve lost power because of our inconsistency? Do we love enough to abstain from taking advantage of our ‘freedom’ when we see how much it hurts others? And whatever happened to our sound mind? 

At the very beginning of the human story is a pair of brothers, Cain and Abel. Cain got mad one day because he felt God wasn’t respecting his ‘freedom’ to offer whichever sacrifice he wanted, so he took his rage out on his brother and killed him. And when the Lord confronted him, he shrugged and said, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” 

Well people, we have evidently not progressed at all since then. Because here we are, a hundred thousand something years later, asking the same question “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The answer is YES. We have always been our brother’s keeper. No man is an island. We are human beings together. And if circumstances show that a certain personal liberty is being abused over and over and over again to the detriment of society, then maybe we can have some generosity of spirit and say hey, maybe I can be willing to forego this freedom for a time in order to look out for my brother. This is what being pro-life is about, guys. It’s about life.