By SUSAN K. SMITH
Crazy Faith Ministries
The first time I saw the phrase “Guns, God and babies” I was sure I had run across a fluke. Surely, I thought, nobody is brazen enough to connect guns with God. Unfortunately, I could see how some would connect “guns” with “babies,” given the fight on the right to protect the right of all people to not only own guns but specifically the kinds of guns they wanted, including assault weapons, and the fight to overturn Roe v. Wade, which they accomplished.
But between the words “guns” and “babies” there was the word “God.”
In Georgia, politicians are using a slight variation of the phrase, using “Jesus, guns and babies,” but that phrase is equally as offensive, according to NBC News.
We were taught in Sunday school that Jesus was about love and community; it was the mainstay, the glue, to so speak, that kept African Americans fighting for full American citizenship in spite of violence and policies designed to keep that from ever happening. It was love, we were taught, the love Jesus the Christ showed for and to everyone, that would be the foundation of changes happening in our country’s racial horror story.
Jesus the Christ was able to reach out to, touch and communicate with everyone, including his enemies. We were taught to imitate that action and were assured that doing such was the will of God.
But adherents of white supremacy did no such thing. Their religion and therefore their religious perspectives were different than ours. Their god was the “author” of segregation; their god supported chattel slavery, as well as patriarchal behavior that resulted in the dehumanization of women.
That was bad enough, a bad enough assault to my own spiritual sensibilities, but to connect guns with Jesus or with God was a step too far. The people who are working to overturn the United States government have no regard for the God of the Christian Bible. In fact, they seem, or their actions seem to indicate, that they are fundamentally opposed to the God of the Bible and to the very image of God’s son, Jesus, the Christ.
There have been a slew of people leaving the Christian faith in recent years. A report recently stated that 75% of Americans identified as Christian in 2011 – in 2021, that number shrunk to 63%, a 12% decrease. Ten years ago, roughly 18% of Americans were not affiliated with any religion, identifying as agnostic, atheist or “nothing in particular” – that number grew to 29% in 2021, an 11% increase.
It is not clear if the number is increasing now, but if so, it says a lot about the “Christian” state of mind if the increase is being caused by those who believe that God supports the drive to keep guns at the expense of innocent lives, even as abortion is being criminalized and women who become pregnant can expect to be arrested and imprisoned if they terminate a pregnancy for any reason.
That’s their god, not mine, and I don’t think Jesus the child or God the parent is the god of many more people who say they are Christian. It is getting to the point that saying one is “Christian” is not a badge of honor but a badge of bigotry. That is not the God of the weary years and silent tears of so many in this country.
Rev. Dr. Susan K. Smith is the founder and director of Crazy Faith Ministries. She is available for speaking. And she is an award-winning author for her latest book, With Liberty and Justice for Some: The Bible, the Constitution, and Racism in America available through all booksellers. Contact her at revsuekim@sbcgloba.net.