"That quietness of his is just a little deadly, like the quiet of a gutted building. It's the result of having laid his mind open to something that broadens the environment just a bit too much. Like polygamy. It wasn't wrong for Abraham, but one can't help feeling that even he lost something by it."
-CS Lewis, That Hideous Strength
I've been thinking a lot about weapons and self-defense, particularly in light of the bravado-filled, antagonistic speech given by Jerry Falwell Jr to the students of Liberty University, urging them to carry concealed guns. And I've arrived at a couple thoughts.
Killing, in and of itself, is not a sin. It can't be, because God actually commands killing in the Old Testament, and God cannot command a sin. The commandment is against murder in particular, and as Chesterton says, "Murder is a spiritual incident. Bloodshed is a physical incident. A surgeon commits bloodshed." All murder is killing, but all killing is not murder: There are instances, such as warfare and self-defense, where killing is just...indeed, there are instances where killing seems to be required of the people of God, at least in the Old Testament.
And yet...there is something about killing - not murder, but killing - that changes a person. Something that makes them...less. And we see this most clearly in the person of David, a man after God's own heart. David desired to build God a temple, a great House...but God told him no. David relates the event: "I had it in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord and for the footstool of our God, and I made preparations for building. But God said to me, ‘You may not build a house for my name, for you are a man of war and have shed blood."
Note that God does not tie David's unworthiness to his adultery with Bathsheba. God does not say that David is unworthy because of his murder of Uriah. God specifically says that David is unworthy because he is a man of war and has shed blood. David won many great victories for Israel, fulfilling God's commandments in battle...but it did not come without a cost. David destroyed the image of God, again and again, shedding blood which is the Lord's, and as a result, he was unfit to build God a temple.
I have a few friends on Facebook who are VERY pro-gun. I know how gun-makers market their product...by creating a scenario where you get to be the hero, where you can gun down the bad guys invading your home or shooting up a mall. Indeed, I've seen many people who seem to wish for such an event to occur, so that they would have the excuse to pull their weapon and stop it! Sadly, I've even seen this attitude from professing Christians.
Is warfare wrong? No. Should Christians participate in the military? The Bible certainly does not prohibit it. But it seems inescapable that we are not meant to be people of war. We are not meant to shed the blood of the image of God. And when we do, it fundamentally changes who we are for the worse. The hands soaked in blood cannot build God's temple, cannot serve him in the way that clean hands can. Killing is sometimes a necessity: it is never something to be desired, or fantasized about, or sought after with aggressive posturing and vain bravado.
