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Living in Sin: A Conversation with Jason Micheli

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“I forgive you.” We generally think those words follow, “I’m sorry.” The Good News of the Gospel is that God’s, “I forgive you,” comes first. That is how Jason Micheli describes Grace. God’s one-way love.

Many couples at one point or another have reached for a book on marriage to help negotiate those difficult periods. Reading with a highlighter in hand pages of these books are scourged for the Holy Grail of marital success. Lists are made. Habits are rehearsed. Often these to-do’s become a greater burden than imagined. Frustration becomes the norm.

What if the better way to look at marriage is to consider it a parable for the love God has for the Church? For you? Micheli takes us on just such a journey. Equipped with a reprieve from stage-serious cancer Jason breaks open our defenses with self-deprecating humor, gut-wrenching episodes of fear and uncomfortable discoveries so that his encounter with God’s grace becomes fuel for a book we all need.

Today on this episode of Patheological, Jason comes on the podcast to talk about his new book. I suspect you will pause the interview and click over to purchase yourself a copy. Friends and family members may come to mind and you could buy a copy to give away. For pastors who happen on to this post or the podcast, let me encourage you to consider this a resource in your work with couples and others who could use a window into God’s grace that could well be the place where their lives are turned around by the Good News words, “I forgive you.”

If you find the podcast helpful, share it with your friends. Share it with your pastor friends as well as folks you know involved in leadership that touches on the pastoral. Also, consider heading over to iTunes, login, search for patheological and give us a five-star rating and a kind review.

Plundering Egypt: A Conversation on the Passing of Rachel Held Evans

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Just two days after Stan Grenz died, David Dockery began his concluding paragraph warning Baptists, specifically Southern Baptists, that Grenz might lead his readers into orthodox inconsistency.

Unfortunately, his pietism didn’t translate into evangelical coherene or orthodox consistency.

That was fourteen year ago.

Reading some of the responses to the death of Rachel Held Evans reminded me of that incident. In fact, to demonstrate how this works, the same thing happened after the death of Jerry Falwell. No matter your theological convictions you may be sure someone will take advantage of the news of your death to point out all the error of your ways. It makes us feel better about our chosen perspective on the spectrum.

Among we Southern Baptists it appears that orthodoxy is now tied to how one interprets the Scriptures regarding women in ministry – preaching or pastoring. But, one of the oldest creeds of the Christian faith does not make that issue a matter of Christian orthodoxy. What’s more, it now appears that after claiming to be a confessional denomination, Southern Baptists indeed have a Magisterium that weighs theological positions in the balance. Welcome to the new SBC. Entity heads take your bow.

Could we benefit from splitting the hair between Christian Orthodoxy and doctrinalism? I think so. Take this simple test. If Stan Grenz, Jerry Falwell and Rachel Held Evans all would affirm the Nicene Creed, then they would be considered within the bounds of Christan orthodoxy. But, given their doctrinal differences, they would likely not share a home in the same denomination. That is the difference between orthodoxy and doctrinalism.

When Grenz and Evans moved beyond the doctrinalism of Evangelicalism that did not mean they were now unorthodox. What’s more, if Grenz identified as a Pietist with a PhD then, he is echoing what my friend Bill Borror recently described on a podcast. Bill used the imagery of Isreal leaving Egypt for his own move out of Evangelicalism and into a different Christian stream most would consider Mainline. He noted that he felt like he had left Egypt carrying with him some plunder.

Listening to Rachel Held Evans and reading her books reveals much the same. While she left her Baptist, Evangelical roots, she maintained the fervor of an Evangelical even if she found her home in the Episcopalian branch of the Christian tree. Think the late Robert Weber who followed the Canterbury Trail later in his life.

Tommie Marshell joins me on this podcast episode. We talk about her response to Rachel, public responses on social media and in major publications. We work to distinguish between orthodoxy and doctrinalism. Take a listen and leave your thoughts in the comments. Be nice.

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If you find the podcast helpful, share it with your friends. Share it with your pastor friends as well as folks you know involved in leadership that touches on the pastoral. Also, consider heading over to iTunes, login, search for patheological and give us a five-star rating and a kind review.

Chains of Grace: A Conversation with Rick Davis

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We are all addicts. Amidst a culture bent on positivity, Karsten’s maxim could not be considered good news. He did not back down.

Let’s give Karsten his conclusion. When we do we admit that we are all at the same time captive. At some point, these circumstances, addicted and captive, will lead to incarceration. When a person has served his or her time in prison, what next?

Dr. Rick Davis is my guest on this episode of patheological. I met Rick in 1985. We have been friends ever since. He is also my mentor. After serving as a preacher, pastor and denominational employee since his days in high school, Rick is now the Executive Director for Chains of Grace.

We recorded this conversation during Holy Week. I had hopes that it would post that week. Ministry responsibilities take precedent over my side (not) hustle. I am glad to post it today as I recently read about a survey that indicated Americans experience stress at greater levels than those in any other Country. You could say we are captive, even incarcerated, by forces that lead to all sorts of poor decisions. So, you may not have been in prison like those with whom Dr. Davis and Chains of Grace serve, but be sure we are all looking for those that will walk with us once we discover we have been set free.

After listening to the podcast click over and support Chains of Grace. Rick notes more than once in the podcast all the ways you can help. You may also want to subscribe to the Chains of Grace podcast, Re-Entry. These short episodes highlight the stories of those whose lives have been changed by God’s grace.

If you find the podcast helpful, share it with your friends. Share it with your pastor friends as well as folks you know involved in leadership that touches on the pastoral. Also, consider heading over to iTunes, login, search for patheological and give us a five-star rating and a kind review.

Life In Review or, A Pastor Moves Forward by Looking Back: A Conversation with Scott Scrivner

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Five years ago the iconic Mummers Theater, also known as Stage Center, was demolished. Considered a modern architectural marvel, it served an interesting feature for the annual Oklahoma City Arts Festival for years. Then it flooded. Efforts to save the building failed. What eventually takes the now vacated space will be influenced by the experiences with the former structure.

A person’s faith journey is not much different.

Even for a pastor.

On this episode of patheological: the podcast for the Pastor-Theologian, Scott Scrivner and I talk about his recent book, Life in Review: An Interactive Guide to Deconstruct Faith Toward Hope. The product of his recent Doctor of Ministry Degree where he worked with Leonard Sweet and no doubt studied semiotics, Scott combines a work that is part memoir, community reflection and guide. The book is as visually provocative as it is in its prose. Scott is Pastor of Convergence OKC and is also a graphic designer. To say this book is a bit of convergence of those roles is itself to risk pressing the metaphor too far.

If the subtitle throws you into an apoplectic fit for its use of the D word, then think of it as the journey of the late Robert Webber who wrote that little book about his own faith journey, On the Canterbury Trail. Or, consider it akin to Karl Barth grappling with the Protestant Liberalism of his day. If that is still too far, pick up Brian Zahnd’s, Water to Wine. No matter what word one chooses, these illustrations make the case that deconstruction is not destruction but a move toward construction.

Consider this in the book’s subtitle, Faith Toward Hope. I first heard this take on Anselm on the New Persuasive Words podcast with Bill Borror and Scott Kent Jones, faith seeking hope. Whether one wants to call it epistemic humility or an acknowledgment of the limits of human reason, the aim is hope and this hope is in Jesus Christ.

Take a listen and see if you don’t find threads of your own journey, even if you use different words. You may also find additional information about the artists, the book and more here at Semper Introspiciens.

If you find the podcast helpful, share it with your friends. Share it with your pastor friends as well as folks you know involved in leadership that touches on the pastoral. Also, consider heading over to iTunes, login, search for patheological and give us a five-star rating and a kind review.


Seculosity: When Religion Leaves the Building, A Conversation with David Zahl

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Are you spiritual but not religious? Maybe you are religious but not spiritual. What do those categories even mean? Are we always going to find ourselves in an Inigo Montoya moment, “You keep using that word . . . “

Religion observers and Christian leaders have for some time been offering explanations for a decline in church attendance in the West. Some contend we are experiencing an end of Christendom, a period where Christianity played a socio-cultural role in nearly every area of civic life. Others viewed the shift as a move away from religion altogether. New descriptions like the Nones and Dones have become new sociological categories used when conducting surveys of the religious habits of Americans. Is that too narrow?

Meet my new friend David Zahl. His new book, Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What To Do About It, offers a different perspective on the religiosity of Americans. It is not that his idea would not have explanatory power in the West or even other parts of the world. But his personal context is the United States.

One of my friends uses the phrase to describe his departure from Christianity, “I left the building.” If you are a literalist you may miss the layers of this self-description. I have contended that some leave the building without leaving the Faith. After reading David’s book, I am left wondering if Religion has left the building. And, if it has, that is a good thing.

Christianity may be classified, categorized, as a religion. But, I would argue, at its core is anti-religion. That religion has left the building should be good news for the Church, for Christianity. Here I use Religion as a set of rules to live by. Christianity may be, and certainly has been, used or practiced by some as a Rule of Life. Doing so makes of Christianity the very thing that Jesus came to liberate human beings from. Bookkeeping according to a set of rules is not grace at any level. Submitting to a new set of rules for life is merely exchanging one capricious task master for another. Jesus offers something different – grace.

If you have not been persuaded by my little blog blurb to head over and order a copy of Seculosity, give our conversation a listen. Then, I hope you will get your copy!

David Zahl is the director of Mockingbird Ministries and editor-in-chief of the Mockingbird blog. Born in New York City and brought up elsewhere, David graduated from Georgetown University in 2001, and then worked for several years as a youth minister in New England. In 2007 he founded Mockingbird in NYC. Today David and his wife Cate reside in Charlottesville, VA with their three boys, where David also serves on the staff of Christ Episcopal Church. His first book, A Mess of Help: From the Crucified Soul of Rock N’ Roll,appeared in 2014. Most recently, David co-authored Law and Gospel: A Theology for Sinners (and Saints) with Will McDavid and Ethan Richardson. Even after all these years, he’s still mourning the end of Calvin and Hobbes (and hoping that Morrissey and Marr will bury the hatchet). His favorite theologian is probably a cross between Johnny Cash, Flannery O’Connor and his brother Simeon.

If you find the podcast helpful, share it with your friends. Share it with your pastor friends as well as folks you know involved in leadership that touches on the pastoral. Also, consider heading over to iTunes, login, search for patheological and give us a five-star rating and a kind review.

Why Makes Justice So Controversial?

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Oklahoma incarcerates more people per capita than any other State in the Union – men and women. Legislators work to reform our justice system. The gears turn slowly. Part of the issue turns on how we talk about justice.

Last year, a group of Evangelicals, some from my tribe of Southern Baptists, developed what is referred to as the Statement on Social Justice. A list of affirmations and denials, accompanied by a list of Scriptures, has been signed by a nearly 11,000 people to date. The SJS, a shorthand for the document, took center stage in a segment at the recent Shepherd’s Conference hosted by John MacArthur Jr., one of the initial signatories. Some on the panel had signed the Statement while others had not. Even among hosts and guests, it was clear there was an underlying point of contention, if not outright division.

What is it that makes justice so hard to discuss for Christians, particularly many Evangelicals? Justice, for some philosophers, is the un-deconstructable subject. Yet, listening to some Evangelicals one wonders if it is not destructive. It certainly has proven contentious in online exchanges be it blog posts or Twitter exchanges. There are intimations, if not outright assertions, that a focus on justice obscures the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

One sure way to come off dismissive is to refer to your opponent at a Social Justice Warrior, SJW for short. Take it a step further and accuse your interlocutor of Cultural Marxism. Game Over. The related labeling and acts of ascription leave us with more than a few Inigo Montoya moments. You keep using that word . . . . It appears to be quite satisfying to go in search of someone, on your team, that will give the label or ascription your preferred nuance. Now you have found your authority and can claim intellectual high ground. We call that insider baseball. Why not take up a source that appears to have not dog in your internecine squabble. Take this piece from Andrew Lynn. I have yet to see Lynn locked in a Twitter battle over the SJS.

Maybe it would be good to tak up the testimonial of someone who actually admits to being a full-on Marxist. Here is a piece, albeit a little wonky at te close, that provides an existential experience with Marxism. Haykin clearly understands many throw around Cultural Marxism the say way they use to throw around the word Liberal. It was more to incite than interrogate.

If a person takes the time to write a blogpost alleging error, maybe it would be good to look at the issue using a greater breadth of sources than simply those that confirm an existing bias. It could be one of the most Christian things to do.

The recent combination of articles and videos prompted me to invite a group of friends, all Southern Baptists, and relative nobodies, to consider what is going on, even getting done, in these internecine debates. This first part of our discussion offers a critique. We will get together again to offer some constructive ideas in a future episdoe.

If you find the podcast helpful, share it with your friends. Share it with your pastor friends as well as folks you know involved in leadership that touches on the pastoral. Also, consider heading over to iTunes, login, search for patheological and give us a five-star rating and a kind review.



Preaching As Resistance

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Many resist preaching, listening to preachers, that is. Preachers may be the worst. I have attended denominational meetings and watched folks get up and leave when the preaching begins. Imagine thinking mundane business to be more interesting than the preacher you may not have heard before.

Over the past thirty years, I have read less than a handful of preaching books. I have only listened to a few sermons over those same years outside of attending meetings where preaching placed prominently on the conference agenda. It has not been a practice to read many sermons either.

Over the past couple of years that has changed. I think Joe Thorn is correct that most of us preach to ourselves before preaching to or with a congregation. Podcasts have helped to provide the means to listen to a variety of preachers and sermons.

Last Fall I attended an event at my Alma Mater, Oklahoma Baptist University. The one-day conference was on Black Preaching. After that event, I ordered several suggested books on preaching and committed to reading or listening to a sermon a day this year. There are some resolutions I may have dropped quickly, this is not one of them. The practice has been good for me.

I caught up with Phil Snider recently. We talked about a book of sermons he recently edited, Preaching As Resistance: Voices of Hope, Justice, & Solidarity. Rather than a book on the mechanics of preaching, Phil set out to address the craft as public theological discourse,

Crafting sermons that invite listeners to faithfully imagine, embody, and experience the transformation harbored in the gospel of Christ is among the most difficult of all vocational tasks.

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If you read sermons, this is a book for you. And, if you are interested in thinking about preaching as public theological discourse, get the book for the Introduction and Afterword by Richard W. Voelz. In the meantime, listen in to our conversation and hopefully you will give more thought to the theological content of your preaching.

If you find the podcast helpful, share it with your friends. Share it with your pastor friends as well as folks you know involved in leadership that touches on the pastoral. Also, consider heading over to iTunes, login, search for patheological and give us a five-star rating and a kind review.

Who Said God Can’t?

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A local meteorologist described the recent F-4 tornado in Alabama. We know a thing or two about tornadoes in Oklahoma. The scene of the 24-mile swath cut by the massive tornado brought back memories of what we simply refer to in our area as, The May 3rd Tornado. It was hard to imagine the area described by a resident who lost her home as something like a forest. One of our local meteorologist looked it up and the affected area had never experienced a tornado before. 

I am waiting on Pat Robertson, or even John Piper, to declare what sin was being judged in rural Alabama. Like everyone else, those who rush to explain the why of these events represent our human need, at least our tendency, to look for the cause that produced the effect. Given our lack of omniscience, human beings often raise more questions in pursuit of the one answer.

For Christians, the available possibilities seem to have been explored and refined but often still leave us short on comfort. On the extremes we either submit to randomness or determinism. Honestly, neither of those two extremes requires Divine agency. When we add Divine agency to the equation, we get the picture of a God with no power or all-power. Most prefer the latter to the former. Even then, the consequent questions raised either leave us with deep mystery should we refuse to make God the culprit for it all.

Thomas J. Oord provides a different response to the issue. At once the title of his book provokes a startling possibility, God Can’t. Before you dismiss Oord’s proposal out of hand, consider that the matter for Tom is not centered on the normal depictions of power. Taking the more academic ideas from his earlier work, The Uncontrolling Love of God, Oord locates his proposal squarely within the framework of our lived experience. Rather than leave God with no power or with all-power, Tom invites the reader to consider the complexity of Theodicy through a hermeneutics of love. That is my interpretation.

When I learned that Tom’s new book would be coming out, I was looking forward to how he would present his ideas. The nagging question I had was what prompted Tom to look at something other than the available possibilities to the problem of suffering. It is not as if the subject has lain dormant and Oord resurrected it for us. Instead, Tom’s own experiences of life have made this an ongoing interest. You could say he is fully vested.

In this episode of patheolgoical, Tom and I talk about the big ideas in his book. He lays them out in a way that the reader may easily follow. Woven in and out of his ideas that center on essential kenosis are stories so common it is hard not to think with Tom about theodicy anew.

Pastors, counselors, lay leaders, if you are like me, you will find lots to chew on in God Can’t. Even more, I suspect you will want a copy of your own. Whether or not you arrive where Tom has, you will not be able to escape his deep commitment to the self-giving, other-directed love of God and its implications for how we understand, and maybe as importantly how we talk about, suffering.

If you find the podcast helpful, share it with your friends. Share it with your pastor friends as well as folks you know involved in leadership that touches on the pastoral. Also, consider heading over to iTunes, login, search for patheological and give us a five-star rating and a kind review.

Enemy Love Is God’s Love

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Pastoral Prayer: Lord God, our world is short on mercy and long on judgment. The Good News that the Judge has become the judged for us means we are not needed to judge. Instead, you have planted your kindom where enemies are loved like family. May your Holy Spirit reveal in us that your mercy runs deeper than our lack. And all God’s people say . . . Amen.

Luke 6:27-38; Genesis 45:3-15

Who doesn’t like a good argument?! Think about it. What would we do for amusement if Fox or CNN did not set up their segments by pitting opposing sides as if there are always only two. Like the disciples, any time power is in play you can find human beings jockeying for position,

What were you arguing about on the way? Jesus asked. But they were silent, because on the way they had been arguing with one another about who was the greatest.

Why even this week a group of pastors took to the use of inflammatory language to describe those with whom they disagreed. Harassing a State Senator’s pastor who made a decision with which the group took exception. Nearly 1000 United Methodists are meeting in St. Louis where the issues stir some of the deepest emotions revealing long standing divisions. Right. Why bring this up? Onlookers and critics have enough with which to criticize the church. Pastor, we don’t need you pointing it out. 

Maybe so. But, since the perception is that we are always on the ready to point out how others fail to measure up to Godly standards, don’t you think we ought to at least admit when we miss the mark? Just yesterday a group working to respond to the revelation that some Southern Baptist Churches have covered up clergy sexual abuse, issued a report that will be proven in error, likely by the end of this week. The rush to respond has produced an insufficient statement and soon enough it will look like a cover-up on a grander scale, even if it isn’t.

The problem we face is not that we don’t want to be better, to do better. Our issue is that we have yet to trust that the kindom Jesus brings inverts the order of things. That rather than judge others, we trust that mercy is more reflective of the character of God. And what is worse, that our tendency to retaliate when we sense someone hates and curses us projects to the world that we believe our God’s primary character is retribution. God can’t wait to get us back.

But, that is not the story. That is not the Good News.

Jesus announces the world is now different. It is not an idea. It is not a future plan. It is not something that is waiting on us to bring it. Instead, it is a reality that we have been asked to believe. This is something different than asking you to articulate an orthodox position on the Filioque clause. The what clause you ask? Deep in the history of the church is a moment where leaders wanted to clearly express the relationship of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son. While I would not dare to minimize the importance of our attempts to explain things we believe, Jesus did not require the disciples to get their Latin right. But, the matter was divisive enough to create what we refer to as an Eastern Church and a Western Church since the tenth century. 

What is important is the way we talk about believe and trust. There are a number of things the disciples, the Apostles, came to believe. What they were asked to do was to trust that in Christ God became the judged for us. That is, when we assess the ways human beings exhibit their potential to mess things up, that Jesus became the judged in our place. Human authorities judged Jesus’ way as lacking, it did not satisfy the schemes and institutional requirements to replace the order of the world as it was. Instead of trusting in Jesus’ way, Jesus was judged and found wanting by human courts.

But, God, the Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans,

concerning his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who was a descendant of David according to the flesh and was appointed to be the powerful Son of God according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead.

God vindicated Jesus Christ our Lord by the resurrection.The One human agents would judge and put to death, God judged righteous and holy and brought from that death, life.

For what did the world judge Jesus? Well, for things like what we find here in Luke 6. He went against the order of things when he said,

Love your enemies, do what is good to those that hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If anyone hits you on the cheek, offer the other also. And if anyone takes away your coat, don’t hold back your shirt either.

How is this set against the order of things? Think of the business maxim, “The customer is always right.” What could be better, sound better? Nothing if you’re the customer. A couple of years ago we bought a gallon of milk. We chose a gallon well within the best buy date. We opened the plastic carton. The milk was bad. Now, if you like milk, like I like milk, the disappointment was immediate. I tagged Hiland Diary in a Tweet. In what seemed like no time, their social media person had reached out to me, asked for my address, and sent me coupons for not one but two gallons of milk. They are so nice. Right? Not really. That is patronage. They want me to choose Hiland milk every time I reach into the cooler at a grocery store. Our world works this way. Patronage is the order of the world. “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch your back.” Our world has always worked this way.

That is, until Jesus comes on the scene and tells those with ears to hear that the kindom he announces is characterized by a different rule. It is not that the customer is always right, it is that God is always merciful,

For he [God] is gracious to the ungrateful and evil. Be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.

Do you see just how out of bounds Jesus was? Is it hard to see that Jesus brings a different way the kindom of God works? If we self-select to protect ourselves by setting our relationships in order along the lines of mutual benefit, then our first step is to judge a person’s worth by their response to us. Jesus put it like this,

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. If you do what is good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you. Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners to be repaid in full. 

In other words, the Golden Rule that is tucked into Jesus words here is really just conventional wisdom. Everyone thinks that way. The world operates on the principle of mutual satisfaction. We will get along just fine if we understand what each of us brings to the relationship. If I let you down, it is over. We could lay over Jesus’ story this very idea. When Jesus, the Messiah, did not overthrow the Roman powers, the people turned on him. Rather than, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, they shouted, Crucify him.

And, every time we take up the order of the world, where our relationships are governed by the principle, You scratch my back, I’ll scratch your back, we project for the world, the idea that God is the sort of deity that helps those who help themselves. He is the God who judges the lazy unworthy of help. We project to the world a God more interested in making sure our enemies get what they deserve. So, maybe now we see that it is important that we own up to the ways that these projections fail to point up the Good News that God in Christ has planted a new seed that has come to life ,in New Creation. If we make the connection, maybe now we see that it is startling Good News that Jesus says,

For he is gracious to the ungrateful and evil.

Moving about the world from the vantage point of mercy naturally results in reduced stress. How you say? Judging is hard work. Have you ever gotten someone wrong? Before you had a chance to get to know another person you formed an opinion based on something someone else has said. Or, worse. You internalized the opposite of that neat compliment, “Any friend of, is a friend of mine.” You know the opposite, “Any enemy of, is an enemy of mine.”

If enemy love is hard, Jesus sets us up for the impossible,

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you;

Quickly we read these words, we hear them, and are drawn to make for ourselves a new list of things we must do. Maybe we would be better served by reading these words like Nathan has encouraged us to read 1 Corinthians 13. Rather than reading that chapter that describes love as a checklist for the way we love, he asked us to view it as the way God loves,

God is patient, God is kind . . . 

Here we may want to read these words of Jesus as Jesus’ Way in the kindom of God,

Jesus does not judge. Jesus does not condemn. Jesus forgives. Jesus gives.

Because we experience life as though forgiveness and giving run out, it is hard for us to assess that God’s mercy is more abundant than ours. But it is. In fact, since we tend to think along the lines of contract, Jesus actually explodes that idea in a simple, earthy illustration,

But love your enemies, do what is good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High. For he is gracious to the ungrateful and evil.

When we read reward, we immediately think we have earned something. We may hear this better this way,

Surprise! When you love your enemies, do what is good and lend expecting nothing in return, you look like your God who is gracious to the ungrateful and evil.

And, for those times that we are not surprised, we embrace the mercy of God as those who are ungrateful and evil for in Christ Jesus, God has been merciful to us.

Audio of this sermon may be found here.

Governor Stitt Aims for Oklahoma’s First Top Ten Win . . . In Firearm Deaths

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Our new Governor laid out his goal to make Oklahoma a top ten State. Who would have thought that before education, justice reform and healthcare that Oklahoma would pass legislation with the promise of the Governor’s signature that will surely propel Oklahoma into the top ten of states with the highest rate of firearm deaths?!

According to the CDC, Oklahoma is currently at number thirteen for States with the highest rate of firearm deaths. If the statistics from other states that have passed permitless carry legislation inform what we may expect in Oklhaoma, Governor Stitt will get his dream of making Oklahoma a top ten state sooner than later.

What defies common sense, and surely the common good, is that permitless carry was not one of Governor Stitt’s platform planks. There is no outcry from any majority for this legislation. More than 80% oppose this. The Oklahoma Legislature has run House and Senate Bills so fast that Law Enforcement has not had time to weigh in. And, it looks like it is too late.

Many people have hoped that Governor Stitt would undo eight years of Mary Fallin. Who knew that he would undo one of the best acts she undertook when she vetoed this legislation just last year? The Governor is not up for re-election. Even The Oklahoman’s Editors noted what a waste of time this is. Who cares that Representative Echols checked with the NRA. What about Oklahomans?

There is hope. Maybe Governor Stitt will be called upon by religious leaders who follow a King who said to Peter, “Put away your sword.” Gathering for a prayer service to the God of Jesus Christ at the outset of his term might need to be followed with a commitment to the Prince of Peace.

Today I was invited to speak to this issue as a representative of Oklahoma Faith Leaders. Who knows if this will make the news. I offer it here in hopes that maybe, just maybe the Governor will keep his eye on his top ten list that would make us proud, not more bloody.

My oldest grandson, Cohen, will turn sixteen in seven years. His Dad, Craig, is a Driver’s License Examiner. There is no chance that Cohen will be allowed to get behind the wheel of an automobile without training, license and insurance. Not only would his Dad not allow it, neither would the State of Oklahoma. Putting a teenager behind the wheel of a potentially deadly weapon without training has made little sense to anyone. Requiring training and a license helps protect the common good from those untrained, unprepared. Why would we offer a 21-yr old to carry a gun, an intentionally lethal weapon, without a permit or training? Even an 18-year old on the grounds they serve in the military.

Craig supervises the DPS station in Chickasha, he is recognized as one of the best. He insists that teenagers pass written and driving tests before sending them on to a Tag Agency to obtain their much coveted license. Craig also has made sure that those who drive semi rigs over the roadways maintain their CDL’s. None of us would have any confidence should a would-be driver take to the highway with a heavy load behind an 18-wheeler. No. The State requires training, licensure and driving logs for professional drivers. We would not dare let loose untrained drivers to carry goods across the Country, risking the lives of others. It’s not that we dare not do it, we don’t do it.

My congregation represents a cross-section of opinions. Some of our folks possess conceal carry permits. Others frequent or work gun shows. We, even me, are not opposed to guns. We, not me, are not looking to confiscate guns. But, it is clear permitless carry is not legislation intended for the common good. What sort of common good is it that our State would make intentionally lethal products available to untrained young people, the most frequent demographic subject to gun violence. 

There is a likelihood that my presence today will startle friends, even church members. It could be some will object. They will wonder why couldn’t I just leave politics to the Legislature. I wonder what it is that makes our current, liberal, gun laws require the Legislature, with the promise of the Governor’s signature, to pass high risk legislation to satisfy a minority on the promise of more money for re-election. Who’s common is that good for?

My church members should not expect any less from their pastor than to suggest the way of peace does not include greater access to deadly weapons, particularly without training and regulation. To ask the pastor to stay out of politics at this point is to request he ignore Jesus’ message of peace.

Cohen, Max, Fox and Marlee need not worry that others their age will drive a car without training and permits. But, they need not grow up in an Oklahoma where they will wonder if their peers are carrying an intentionally deadly product without training and permit.

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