You've heard of word pictures? And you've seen those speeded-up videos of how a tall building or a ship is built? A piece in the online NY Times by history professor Christopher Phillips provides a vivid fast-motion "word movie" of how river transportation enabled the settlement of the American interior. It made me think of what it seems to be all about in our universe, in which we humans serve as created co-creators (to use Lutheran theologian Philip Hefner's phrase), helping in a titanic construction project.
The Questioning Christian
-
What if Aurora moviegoers had rushed the shooter, together?
At mass shootings, many people seem either to cower, not knowing what to do, or to flee. Apart from a few who courageously try to protect others, for many it's either deer in the headlights or sauve qui peut, every man for himself. We've seen this going back at least as early as the 1991 Luby's massacre in Killeen, Texas, in which 23 were killed (and the shooter killed himself), plus 20 wounded.
Cowering or fleeing is a natural human reaction. (In cold economic terms, fleeing may be the extreme case of the free-rider problem: Let someone else take care of the problem.)
But ask yourself: At the Aurora theater shooting, what would have happened if a crowd of moviegoers had immediately rushed the shooter, despite the obvious risk, because "that's what we do" for each other?
There's no denying that the shooter might well have shot one or more of his attackers. At the Luby's massacre, 71-year-old (!) Al Gratia rushed at the shooter and was fatally shot in the chest. (It's noteworthy that the selfless Gratia was a World War II veteran.)
But if lots of people had attacked at Luby's or at the Aurora theater, a lot of lives might have been saved:
- The shooter wouldn't have had time to get off so many shots before being overpowered.
- Nor would he have had as much time to take careful aim, so whomever he did manage to shoot might well have been wounded, not killed.
- Conceivably the shooter, surprised at being attacked himself, might have 'frozen,' in which case he might not have shot anyone else.
And would the Aurora shooter have proceeded if he knew in advance that he was going to be immediately attacked by the crowd? He seems to have acted pretty "rationally," in a twisted sort of way. He had full body armor. He was well-armed. He had thought through his plan at least somewhat. If he had known that he was going to be immediately tackled by the crowd, he might have proceeded with his plan anyway — but maybe not.
That's why (it's been said) a 9/11-style airplane hjacking will never happen again: terrorists know that the passengers will rush and overpower the hijackers. The terrorists might be able to blow up the plane, or to crash it, but they won't be able to use it as a fuel-laden guided missile to kill thousands of others. Americans have learned from the heroic example of the passengers on United Flight 93, who stopped its hijackers from flying the plane into the White House or the Capitol. (Something similar actually occurred in the case of the shoe bomber, who was overpowered by flight attendants and passengers.)
Let's be clear about a couple of things here. First, I'm talking here about fighting back against a mass murderer like the guy in Aurora; I absolutely do not mean invoking a stand-your-ground law as an excuse to shoot somebody. Second, special cases exist: Let's say you're a parent with kids in tow (or in your arms); in that kind of situation, your first obligation is to protect your kids as best you can, and that will almost certainly call for a snap judgment call.
But otherwise, we Americans should commit ourselves to a higher standard: If, God forbid, we ever find ourselves in a mass-shooting situation, then we will attack, immediately — and trust that we won't be alone — because we owe that to each other. The Department of Homeland Security says that attacking the shooter should be a last resort, but I think that's backwards.
Would I personally react by rushing the shooter in an Aurora-type emergency? I wish I knew; I certainly hope so.
-
Jim Greenwood’s report on General Convention’s authorization of same-sex blessings
My longtime friend Jim Greenwood, a fellow parishioner at St. John the Divine in Houston, has said I could post the report he emailed to friends about his experience at the 77th General Convention of the Episcopal Church.
You might have seen in the news that the General Convention authorized a rite for the blessing of lifelong committed same-sex relationships.
Jim is a lawyer / mediator and a former member of the City Council of the city of Houston.
He recounts in his report that he has a personal interest in the issue: His and his wife Cody’s twin daughters are both in committed same-sex relationships.
Bravo, Jim!
-
Jim Jones’s lover thought he was God
From a NY Times on-line piece about Jim Jones, who led some 900 followers to their deaths by cyanide suicide in Jonestown, Guyana:
Ms. O’Shea joined the Peoples Temple as a secretary in 1971, when she was 19. She said she eventually became Mr. Jones’s confidante and lover; “I thought he was God,” she said. “I thought God had picked me to be a mate.”
-
Some Sarah Palin supporters are akin to biblical inerrantists – James McGrath
I’m beginning to be a fan of Dr. James McGrath. His recent post on the Christian Century blog, Inerrancy of the Bible and Sarah Palin, addressed those who would rewrite history when it doesn’t fit their preconceived notions. He was on the money in this passage:
I suggested recently that one of the most fundamental elements of Christianity is repentance – acknowledging we were wrong and making efforts to be less wrong in the future. And one can see a faithful expression of this core Christian conviction in the history of Liberal Protestantism and its role in developing and embracing the tools of critical study of the Bible, and the integration of new scientific knowledge.
Admitting the Bible was wrong, admitting Jesus was wrong, when the evidence points in that direction, is not a denial of the Christian faith, but an expression of one of its most basic tenets: the fallibility of human beings and the resulting need to be open to correction.
(Links omitted.) I made a couple of comments in the discussion following his post.
It’s been said that we’re all entitled to our own opinions, but we’re not entitled to our own facts. Fidelity to the First Commandment dictates that we live in the world God wrought, not in a ‘world’ that we create in our imaginations — and inerrantists of all kinds are guilty of violating that corollary.
-
Was Paul’s real goal to expand the definition of “Jew”?
In a blog posting, Dr. James F. McGrath argues that in Romans, Paul was "advocating the inclusion of uncircumcised Gentiles in Judaism, the elimination for all intents and purposes of the Jew/Gentile distinction, to be replaced simply by a multi-ethnic Israel on the one hand, and those who refused to be a part of it on the other." It's a worthwhile read.
-
After bin Laden’s death, a made-up quote from MLK Jr.; what does that suggest about the Gospel of John?
The Atlantic’s Megan McArdle, after doing some Google searching, is pretty sure that a quote attributed to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death, is a fake:
Shortly after I posted my piece on feeling curiously un-thrilled about Bin Laden’s death, the following quote came across my twitter feed:
“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
I admire the sentiment. But something about it just strikes me as off, like that great Marx quote about the housing bubble that didn’t appear anywhere in Das Kapital.
Owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks, which will have to be nationalised, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism. Karl Marx, Das Kapital, 1867
Like the Marx quote, it’s a bit too a propos. What “thousands” would King have been talking about? In which enemy’s death was he supposed to be rejoicing?
UPDATE: Getting in on the fun, Drew Grant at Salon.com asks, “Why did Penn Jillette create a fake [MLK] quote yesterday?”
So apparently there are people who think it’s OK to put words in the mouth (so to speak) of an historical figure, presumably for greater authority.
Surely this sort of thing could never, ever have happened in the early church, right? Surely (for example) the author of the Fourth Gospel couldn’t possibly have put words in Jesus’ mouth decades after the fact?
Um, except that we already have compelling evidence that this sort of thing did indeed happen. Consider Paul’s warning to his readers about forged letters circulating in his name, in 2 Thessalonians 1-2:
Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers and sisters, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by the teaching allegedly from us — whether by a prophecy or by word of mouth or by letter … [Emphasis added]
As someone else has pointed out (Bart Ehrman, maybe?), there are two possibilities:
- if 2 Thessalonians was in fact written by Paul, then Paul himself is warning his readers about forged letters bearing his name; presumably he didn’t issue that warning for no reason;
- on the other hand, if 2 Thessalonians was not written by Paul, then that epistle is itself a forgery, Q.E.D.
So this apparently-bogus quotation from Dr. King gives us still more reason to conclude that respectful agnosticism is the appropriate view to take of Scripture.
Related posts:
-
Tweeting more than posting
I'm doing almost no religion-related writing these days; what little I am doing is taking the form of short tweets on Twitter on account @dctoedt. I've set up a sidebar widget at right to show the latest tweets. (UPDATE: I've consolidated my Twitter accounts; all my tweeting is now done @dctoedt.)
-
Puritans were pretty cool after all?
This NY Times piece suggests that the Puritans weren't the pinched theocrats Nathaniel Hawthorne made them out to be.