Loners and Gun Control

I know what you're thinking: this is about the VTech shooting, and I shouldn't write it. And you're right. What follows is irrevent, potentially insensitive, and possibility inappropriate. But it's not really about the shooting; I have nothing to contribute on that front. This was a stark, inexplicable tragedy, and there are no theological, philosophical or legal ramblings that stand a snowball's chance in Hell of making sense of it. There are, however, some things surrounding the event that I think deserve a rant.

The first prong of my rant was prompted by a headline: "Va. Shooter Described as 'Loner'". This bothers me. First, it's unfair to loners. There weren't -- and rightfully so -- any headlines that said "Shooter Described as 'Asian'," simply because the student's nationality is irrelevant. I will grant you that 'loners' are over-represented in the sociopathic killer labor pool. I mean, how often do you hear, "Well, it was the damndest thing. He was such a gregarious, outgoing fellow. Life of the party." But to the extent that this is true, it is not news. And it ignores the fact that loners are also more likely to be poets or scientists. How many times do you see something like "Nobel Laureate Described as 'Loner'"? You don't; that's my point. This is a bad rap for loners.

Loners are also less likely to be brutal tyrants or cult leaders. Put succinctly, Hitler was not a loner. Stalin was not a loner. Even George W. Bush, who, if you're an Iraqi civilian, can be a pretty dangerous guy, is probably lots of fun at parties; just imagine getting him a little tipsy and watching him try to pronounce big words. Good times. Extroverts can be psychopaths, too; it just manifests differently.

Okay, so that's off my chest. And no, I don't really think Dubya's a psychopath; that was just a setup for a joke. (Of course, I'm not an Iraqi civilian, either.) Now:

Why in the world do people think this had something to with gun control, on either side of the fence? To use this sort of tragedy as a platform for a political issue is bad polemics, bad politics, and bad form. And don't think only the pro-control folks stand to gain from this kind of posturing: surely some NRA type will make the point that a brave soul with a Glock and a carry permit could have put a stop to the bloodshed. I'm not up in arms (pardon the pun) about gun control. Personally, I don't like guns; I don't own a gun, and I don't intend to (though as my daughters come of age, I begin to wonder). But I'm not categorically opposed other people owning guns, within reasonable limits. The details can be worked out by people more invested than me, which is nearly everyone.

I don't know how much good control laws actually do, but if they make us feel better, I suppose that's okay. And maybe, just maybe, making guns harder to obtain in general could reduce violent crime, or force people to use baseball bats or something. But to use an isolated incident like this one to make the case is a losing proposition. Somehow, I just can't imagine it: "Well, I was going to go shoot a bunch of people but Wal-Mart doesn't sell guns anymore, so I settled for a six-pack of Schlitz and some Meg Ryan movies." Or even better: "I was going to on a killing spree, but you know, handguns are illegal and stuff." I guess I'm skeptical. But despite my skepticism, the chance that someone, somewhere, might be forced to think twice before using undergrads for target practice is at least worthy of consideration.

On the other hand, the NRA folks have a point: there is that whole matter of the 2nd Amendment. Apparently the Constitution is like the Bible (a proposition that maybe should make us think harder about one, or the other, or both) and you can't just pick and choose the bits you like. But this beloved amendment, like anything else, has context. To the extent that it was designed to ensure a properly armed citizenry in case an uprising was necessary, I don't think the argument holds up in the present day. In the Revolution, the odds were fairly even: aside from a few cannons, you had men with guns fighting men with guns. Quid pro quo.

Today, a concomitant attempt would pit a personnel force of almost 1.5 million with a massive informational infrastructure, sophisticated defense technology, and enough destructive force to obliterate a planet against....men with guns. Okay, and pickup trucks with stickers that say helpful things like "Gun control means using both hands." Whether or not the guns in question are automatics, semi-automatics, or super soakers doesn't really seem to matter. If you really wanted to make a commensurate argument, you'd have to be lobbying for the freedom to park a long range tactical fighter in your driveway -- though I admit, "I'm NLRTFA and I vote" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

If Amendment no. 2 is about "personal protection", then of course that's a little different. But still, how much "protection" is practical? And once you decide you're the sort of person who needs to carry a piece, why is a waiting period suddenly an infringement of rights? Isn't this the sort of purchase one plans for? Think about this: if things ever get to the point that an assault rifle is a necessary part of the accoutrements of personal safety, the legality of such a weapon will have long since become a moot point. And though it probably shouldn't count for much, I'm suspicious of the "personal protection" argument for the same reason I have trouble voting in presidential elections:

The people who are the most interested are precisely the ones who make me the most nervous.

Worship

I recently overheard a gentleman complaining about modern worship: "It's all about feeling good," he lamented, and while I'm not sure exactly what his sense of loss entailed, it certainly seemed heartfelt. I can relate to a sense of aesthetic hijacking engendered by the banality of contemporary worship music; there's a reason I never listen to Christian radio. This amuses our worship leader, who is forever asking me, "have you heard ____?" to which I usually reply "no" before he's even finished the question. If it's new, chances are I haven't heard it, largely by design. There's a lot of crap out there, and while there might be a gem or two, I'm not that patient. For every song that says something worthwhile like "let injustice bow to Jesus", which I think is a fantastic prayer, there are a dozen songs that say something inane like "Hey-O I receive your mercy," and I just can't take that chance.

What made me stop and ponder for a moment is that his complaint took issue with people feeling good. I'm no fan of emotionalism, and I loathe sentimentality with something akin to passion. But music, if it does anything, makes people feel good. In fact, music that fails to make us feel good (or at least fails to make us feel deeply, to embrace pathos), we call bad music. Like flavorless salt, music that fails to move us is fit only for throwing outside and being trampled. For all my distaste for the trappings of an evangelical culture God won't release me from (it's some sort of penance, I just know it), I don't think people feeling good is the problem.

One source of confusion is that we conflate music and worship, and expect one to do the work of the other, and I don't think this is fair at all. When I was teaching music I embarked on a word study that yielded some startling results. There are, of course, several Greek words translated "worship" in the New Testament, and I won't bore you with the details. One means to bow down or prostrate oneself and it is often used literally: folks in the gospels bowing before Jesus, or in Revelation bowing before the throne. It's a posture. The only time it is used in the context of the assembly (1 Cor 14:25), it is, interestingly, the unbeliever doing the worshiping, the bowing-down. (There is a trend among worship types to say this word can mean "kiss," implying, I suppose, that we should be making out with Jesus. I don't buy it; my suspicion is that to the extent this meaning obtains, it means to kiss the feet of a sovereign -- to do that you don't even have to like the guy.)

Another, less common word is used in Acts 13 where Paul and Barnabus are "worshiping and fasting" and this is paralleled later with "fasted and prayed", suggesting to me that the worship in question was prayer (perhaps the praying of Psalms?). Paul uses this word to describe the monetary gift of the gentiles to the beleaguered believers in Jerusalem (in Galatians, maybe?), but I think that's usually rendered "ministry" in the usual English translations. The word, from which we get "liturgy," is actually a political word, meaning the work of the people, or the work of a public servant.

My point is that, to my surprise (and mild horror, as a worship leader and teacher of worship leaders) I couldn't find a single reference to the early believers gathering for the purpose of worship per se, and certainly not in the sense that we're used to. I don't mean that they called something else worship, or that they didn't worship; I mean that no one seems to have used that language to describe their assemblies at all. It just isn't there.

Arguments from silence can be stifling and misdirected, of course -- a void too tempting for us not to fill with foolishness. But silence can also be a dog not barking, a clue that shifts the focus of the sleuth's quest. What I took away from this is that the early believers were living "bowed-down" and worshipful lives to the extent that to say they gathered for worship would be like saying they gathered to breathe. The fact that this had little to do with music suggested to me not a restriction but a great freedom; maybe music could be loosed to be what it is, and not expected to carry a bunch of theological baggage.

As a musician, I make people feel good. It's what I do; it's what music does. It is therapeutic. This is not to say that it can't also challenge us, but I think we've all heard music that tried to hard to do something it's not suited for. Music that forgets it's supposed to make us feel good tends to be unlistenable.

Theologically, I would argue that singing on Sunday morning is, more than anything, common prayer (my respects to Thomas Cranmer). Worship leaders and songwriters quite literally put words in people's mouths. We will sing things we might not think to pray, or might resist praying. This, then, is the problem, at least for me: it's not that people are feeling good, it's that they're forced to say such shitty prayers.

I have seen people searching for a God "fix", for a kind of musical euphoria they could get, say, at a Jimmy Buffet concert, and calling it worship. And there's a market catering to people like this, offering music guaranteed to 'take them to the throne'. This is not altogether bad (and in the interest of full disclosure, I have songs submitted to Integrity in hopes of publication), but I think to equate musical euphoria with worship is to commit a kind of category error. Better to let things be what they are and not create false distinctions. If you ask me, Jimmy Buffet is more honest about what he's doing; he knows he's there to make people feel good, and in that, I believe he's doing a good thing. And who knows -- God just might be there, wearing a parrot.

I play music in different venues, church among them. And my goal, my job, as I see it, is to make people feel good. I don't know if they worship or not -- that seems to me to be up to them. Maybe some who think they are worshiping aren't, and some who don't realize they are worshiping are being touched by God in some way. I never know which is which, and I never think I'm taking people to the throne room, especially because I don't think that's a very good metaphor for what I do. Besides, I'm pretty sure that's not in my power. If I do my job well, I might transport them -- which is simply to say that they feel good. And that's a good thing.

To ponder the purpose of worship is in my mind to ask the wrong question; without sounding too much like a fundamentalist, worship is not something that serves a purpose, worship is a purpose. That is, no matter what your conception of God, if there is anything transcendant it is incumbent upon us to open up to it, to embrace it, to seek harmony with it. Not easy to do, but worthwhile. If worship has any purpose it is purely tautological: it is to enlarge our souls that we might increase our worship, our reverence, our awe, that we might make wide our embrace and lean into it.

Again, it's not easy -- but if we have music that moves us and poetry that shapes our prayers, it seems a little more in reach.