Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.
Shane 0:00
I always looked at Jesus, that's where Mike and I, we keep pointing back to Jesus in beating guns because at the end of the day, the question becomes, can we carry across in one hand and a gun in the other? Can we love our enemies and simultaneously prepare to kill them? And the early Christians were unequivocally clear on this that for Christ, we can die, but we cannot kill.
Seth Price 0:41
What's happening everybody, welcome back to the show. I'm Seth, your host. I'm probably going to get in trouble for this one this week. Yeah. So I just want to skip past, you know, the Patreon plug and the request for iTunes reviews, you know better if you haven't done it, you should have done it already. I really want to get into this conversation. I spoke with Michael Martin. And I spoke with Shane Claiborne. And I spoke about guns. And you're probably thinking, guns like we're here to talk about Jesus. But I just want to be very clear. If you don't watch the news, or if you have just been burying your head in the sand America has an idolatrous-an idolatrous- love affair with firearms. And the statistics show that I just don't, I don't know, I'm afraid that we don't care to change that doesn't seem to matter what happens, but all we get is thoughts and prayers.
And so I was able to speak with both Shane and Michael. And they've written a book called Beating Guns, Hope for People Who are Weary of Violence. And that's what we talk about. We talk about what it looks like for the church to be involved in changing the narrative and to be actually leaders towards bringing people away from a heart of violence and defensiveness and aggressive posturing in a heart instead of grace and shalom and community and patience, and maybe conversation and having to deal with all of the ramifications of hurt, because that's what we're talking about when we're talking about gun violence. We're talking about somebody hurt, hurting someone hurting themselves, responding to hurt, there's just so much nuance and this talk is uncomfortable. I mean, I was raised in a way that you know, guns are a part of life. guns have a purpose. I'll be honest, but I really wrestle with it. And so let's get into it. Here's this conversation with Shane Claiborne and Michael Martin.
Seth Price 3:07
Michael Martin, Shane Claiborne I'm excited to have both of you on the podcast. Thank you both for taking the time to come on today, Mike, for people that aren't familiar with you something I always like to do. And so I'll ask you both to do this. Just in brief kind of tell me a bit about yourself just so that as we begin to nuances conversation, people kind of have an idea of, you know, where you're coming from, you know, as a person, kind of a little bit of your upbringing and kind of what makes you tick today?
Michael 3:30
Yeah, I come from a Mennonite background faith and a Baptist faith. I grew up in a Mennonite family that attended an evangelical church, nondenominational church. So I have kind of one foot in either of those circles most of my life, and then I got my Biblical Studies degree from an evangelical school but the professor's really pushed me to get into my Anabaptist theology. And really, that's it kind of what spurred the initial beginnings of an idea of what RawTools would be turning swords into plowshares and what that might look like today. I was a youth pastor, young adult pastor at a Mennonite Church here in Colorado Springs for three years, and then burnt myself out there and then a year later started RawTools.
Seth Price 4:18
So RawTools is that specifically the work of breaking down weapons and making it turn into something else or do you do other metal works as well?
Michael 4:26
So RawTools. Raw is war spelled backwards. And we turn guns into garden tools, but we use that as a gateway to teach people and introduce them to non violent resources, de-escalation skills, things like that, restorative justice, as well as access to trauma, awareness, maybe victim support groups, so things kind of that see gun violence and how we're going to address the complex issue.
Seth Price 4:52
Nice. And then Shane, if you could do similar just tell it everyone listening a bit about you, and then we'll dive right into this and I will I'm excited to dive into this what the book that you've written is something that I'm excited for the topic but but a little bit about you?
Shane 5:07
Awesome, yeah man I'm a Tennessee boy grew up down south I actually you know we're be talking about guns so I'm I grew up with guns and we got country music down there in Tennessee you know this house is protected by the good Lord and a gun and if you come unwanted you'll meet them both son. You know that's the world I grew up in, fell in love with Jesus down there. And then I ended up you know, I kind of wanted to get outside the world I grew up in a little and that's why I came up to Philly and went to school here. And then we got to know a lot of folks that were waiting for housing and that we're living on the streets and that's our community started 20 years ago. A group of homeless moms were living in an abandoned church building. And we came alongside of them and join them in their struggle and then started renovating abandoned houses and stuff here and been building Little Village we've got murals and gardens and help kids with homework, share food with people and, and also, you know, we try to get involved in in challenging the principalities and powers as the Bible says you know the things that hold people down and squash people's dignity. And certainly one of those in our neighborhood is gun violence.
We've seen way too many people killed. So I'm honored to team up with Mike and we've done weapons conversions right here in our neighborhood and we'll be doing one as we kick off the tour here on my block.
Seth Price 6:36
Yeah, so are y'all both in in the same area then both up in Philadelphia?
Shane 6:43
No, no, no, he's out in Colorado now but he'll be coming out here in a week or two and then we're gonna start our 35 city tour right here in the City of Love. We're gonna launch out of here and and then we'll we'll be going all over the country
Seth Price 6:59
I’ll have to look at the tour and see if you're coming down in my neck of the woods. I live out here in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
What is the genesis of this book, like guns in America are like, well, I had a question from my child's doctor recently. And he asked me, you know that we're going to test her for gluten and see if she had an issue. We're just having some other issues. And the question he asked me was, “how often do you all eat wheat?” And my answer was, “well, we're American.” And he just started laughing. Like, that's a fantastic answer. And I feel like if you ask anyone about guns, and their relationship with them, you're going to get a similar answer. And so why write a book talking about guns and specifically gun violence?
Shane 7:36
Well, in some ways, we look at the United States, and we've got about 5% of the world's population, but we have almost half the world's guns. We've got almost five times more gun dealers than McDonald's restaurants. And you know, we're leading the industrialized world and gun deaths at about 105 a day, 38,000 a year. And so all of that, I think for me, and I think for Mike too, we just were champions of life. And the irony is that we so narrowly defined pro life to one issue of abortion, that you can be pro guns, pro death penalty, pro military, and still say you're pro life as long as you are against abortion. But what what Mike and I are really saying is we believe that we can save lives. Over half of the deaths every year are suicides, and so many of those are by gun. People that end up using other methods often survive and most of them don't die by suicide. They get a second shot at life, they often get help, so guns just make it a lot easier to take your own life and they make it a whole lot easier to kill a lot of people you know?
And it's true, in the UK folks tend to use knives. And if we got rid of all guns, we would still find ways to kill people. But, you know, things like assault rifles, they are designed to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible and that's what they keep getting used for as the weapon of choice and mass shootings. So I think there's a new conversation happening, and a lot of gun owners are against gun violence and they want to see some changes in our country. And that's one of the things we talk about in the book. We’ve had a lot of gun owners that don't think we should have have AR-15s on our streets. So one of them they had a great shirt that said, “a good hunter doesn’t need 10 rounds”.
Seth Price 9:58
Mike, I'm curious, so as you melt down, you know, an AR-15, or something similar that I have to think that that that people picket that or protests that are that I can just see you know, walking in, you know, to a Starbucks or something that you're grabbing a cup of coffee people like, oh, you're the guy that destroys you know, you got shorts going. So what is the feedback that you get from people when you tell them what you do?
Michael 10:21
There's a lot of raised eyebrows, but you still don't understand. Like if they're like, Oh, that's really cool or like what?! And it's mostly positive reaction, though. I think that's one of the things we want to get to in this book as well, is that a huge majority of American really is tired of this gun violence and is looking for a new way to address this issue. Instead of kind of getting stuck in either more guns or no guns or the answer to that you can't really have anywhere in between. We in the book. We say a lot that we have a gun problem in the heart. problem. We believe it's both of those. It's not either or, and that there's some combination of that involved in in each instance of gun violence. And so really we're looking to help restore those conversations. And see, really, that everybody really doesn't like gun violence in that whether you're on that gun problem or heart problem that we can all be accountable to ending it.
Seth Price 11:25
So I find and a lot by doing this podcast, if I appeal to people's logical side, the conversation goes nowhere. And if I appeal to people's heart side, you know their emotional side, at least the conversation is honest, and we may still not really ever agree. And so I'm curious and either one of you can tackle this. How do you approach this conversation in a way that actually fosters a conversation as opposed to “Shane you're just trying to take away my second amendment rights!” or “Mike, you know, you wouldn't think that if you'd ever been the victim of some kind of assault or abuse, you would want to protect yourself!” and so how do you begin to even have a conversation about guns in America in a way that breaks down barriers so that you can actually have the conversation and not just yell at each other like some live version of a Facebook comment thread.
Shane 12:13
One of the things that we do is emphasize the personal dynamic of this. Almost everywhere we go in our 35 city tour, we'll be having victims of gun violence share their stories. I think we've got to realize this has a name and a face and if you walk through my neighborhood, we can tell you the stories of almost every corner of our neighborhood of who was killed there. Even the house that I'm living in, had someone that was shot and killed here. So some of our lack of urgency comes from sort of a distance, where gun violence just ends up being one more thing that politicians debate around. Rather than the urgency that 105 lives are lost each day, every one of these children is a child of God made in the image of God. And, so we're trying to humanize that, you know, and there's something powerful about seeing it, especially the moms and dads that have lost their kids, as they take the hammer and they begin beating on that metal with tears rolling down their face. There's a visceral, you know, element to this and, and that's what we really believe is going to move people is not just statistics, but the tears and the pain and trauma of communities that have been devastated by gun violence.
Seth Price 13:41
Mike, you have anything to add? I know you started there at the beginning.
Michael 13:45
Yeah. Just to double down that we've got to be willing to listen to each other's stories, in that when we talk about approaching the issue of gun violence that we have to listen to the people who have lost their loved ones to guns. Because it's it's more than just that data, real lives are affected. And that ripple effect is huge. It's not just the immediate family or immediate friends or people who were present when it happened. That's grief that lasts a lifetime. We had one of our first events together, Shane and I, in Philadelphia, we had a mother who lost her son 20 years prior to that event. And she hit on the barrel of the gun in between every hit, she said, “This is for my son”. And usually when we're doing this, we tell people to to hit the barrel until the orange glow goes away. Well, she wasn't gonna stop until her arms were tired. And you need to allow space to get rid of that grief and then allow people to tell that story to their community and realize that this is something that lasts forever, and that it affects classmates it affects people who see that empty seat at church or at work or at school each week.
Seth Price 14:58
Yeah. So at recording this, this is like days after that Coast Guard Lieutenant, you know, was arrested or you know, got caught with that huge stockpile of guns. And you know, Shane, you started out with, you know, being in Tennessee and I'm from Western Texas and so I was raised in a culture of, you know, there's just guns, there's there's rifles, there's pistols, we just do this as a pastime. How do you speak to this conversation in a way to be respectful to the people that want to say that you're infringing on a second amendment? Right or privilege?
Shane 15:36
Sure, so for starters, the conversation that is very reasonable, and I think promising is a conversation that is not about taking away everybody's gun and making all guns illegal and, you know deleting the Second Amendment from the Constitution, but it's just going are there some things that…I mean we got to remember that some of the first words of the Second Amendment are “well regulated”. And the irony is that the gun industry is one of the least regulated (industries) in the entire country—toy guns have more restrictions on them than real guns. And in fact, there's total immunity from in the gun industry from lawsuits and stuff.
So if I shot you with a Nerf gun and put your eye out, you could sue Nerf, but the gun corporations have total immunity on that. So there's just I think some reasonable things that folks are coming to land with. But here's the thing is that two thirds, so there's, there's more guns than people in America, but two thirds of Americans don't have guns. So a third of Americans have guns and 3% (of that third) have half (of) the guns. So there's this small group of people that have a ton of guns.
There's one person, that we write about in Mike's hometown, that has like 4000 guns. So there's there comes a point where you realize that a lot of gun owners are not extremists in that sense of having 4000 guns. In fact, when the NRA says, “We represent 5 million people” even if we take that statistic to be true, that means 90% of gun owners are not a part of the NRA. And yet the NRA, which represents so few of the gun owners of America, they own most of the politicians, and that's part of our problem, you know. And it's, you know, not just about restricting things like assault rifles. But you know, there's there's real common sense laws like is there a limit to how many handguns that one person could purchase in a year, say maybe one a month? A one handgun a month restriction that would say one person can only have 12 handguns in one year. But this kind of extreme gun population has kind of held the whole conversation hostage saying no, we don't even want a limit like that.
But even outside of the laws, too, like there's things like technology, where fingerprint technology which we use to operate our phones, and you can even do security at your house, or ATMs now with a fingerprint, we totally have the capacity to have smart guns that operate with a fingerprint. So that would cut down accidents where a kid finds a gun at home and there's an accident or someone takes their own life with the family gun. So there's things like that then we haven't even explored because it kind of the uncompromising way that many of the kind of gun extremists have held the conversation hostage,
Seth Price 18:45
Mike, I'm curious. So being that you said you were Anabaptist, you know, and kind of in that vein, that's very normally non-violent version of Christianity, which is not the version necessarily that I was raised in. Not that I raised in a violent version, but I just wasn't raised that way. I was raised, you know, Southern Baptists let's do this thing. Curious as you were writing the book, what was one or two of the hardest things that you that as you came to grips with it, either researching it, or having to write about it or work through it, that you're like, you know what, I have to set this down for about 10 days, or whatever the amount of time is. And I really wasn't prepared to wrestle with this topic at this time. Even though I do need to write this book. I don't
Michael 19:23
I don’t think…I've been doing this for just over six years now, February 12, was our official start. Everything in the book is kind of something that we've dealt with or come across in the past. But what gets me every time and almost every time I tell the story is one of Charlotte Evans, who lost her three year old son to a random drive by shooting of some teens who wanted to impress a local gang, kind of at the height of gang violence in the late 90s in the Denver area. And every time I tell that story, I can't help but cry or I have to stop whether I'm I'm preaching or just at a coffee house telling the story to a college or a friend, I have to always collect myself because it's an amazing story of transformation of somebody who lost her son, and great story of forgiveness. And I'm just gonna, you know, make you get the book to find out what that story is.
Seth Price 20:14
(laughter) I was gonna ask you tell me about the story, but that's not gonna work now…
So recently, I don't think that the church should play any part in politics. But I don't know how to talk about guns and the church try to flex any form of moral muscle without playing part in politics. And so how do I tread that lightly?
One of the questions that I asked Mark Van Steenwyk, a few weeks ago was, you know, how do I be a prophetic voice for change that furthers the church in a good way without becoming the next version of institution that my children are going to have to speak out against? And so how do we ride that line?
Michael 20:50
Well, I think Shane and I say a lot that echo the words of the Karl Barth of “reading the newspaper in one hand in a Bible and the other” in that I think, especially in the last few years that we've realized the power that our commitment or our participation in public policy, whether that's our vote, or maybe we're on the local school board or whatever that level is that we have an opportunity to better the lives of those around us and cast those votes and make our opinions and statements heard for the better of our community and not just ourselves. As far as creating another system that our kids might have to change a little bit. I think that's okay, that they can continue to evolve the systems and create something better than what we created because we should be open to that we should be open to that evolution of change within the polity and policy that we make. Yeah,
Shane 21:43
Yeah, you know, I want to dive a little bit deeper into the the politics because I've certainly found that a lot of my life I was had some serious anarchistic tendencies and didn't get involved in politics and thought about Politicians where a lot of times like preachers, you know, they can talk to talk but talks pretty cheap at the end of the day. But I want to say that I think that the word politics shares the same Greek root polis, which means city, and the polítis, citizens, you know, so there's this, even like cosmopolitan is the world city and Metropolis, the mother city. So the core of politics is really about what it means to live together and to make sure that people flourish.
So I kind of want to take some of that back. Now, I don't think that being politically engaged means being partisan. I don't find a home on the left or right, but a lot of these issues are not left and right they're about right and wrong. And I really think that gun violence is one of those that folks can come together on and really make a difference when we're asking the question, how can we make sure that people flourish. And you think about, you know, cars. Cars have evolved over time (and) we have some, you know, you have to have a license, you’ve got to pass tests, there's kind of some standards of like a speed limits. And, you know, as new technology develops, you can't text and drive. Those are good laws. They're meant to, like protect people's lives, but guns are one of the least evolved things in our country where we basically and one of the most deadly so I, you know, I think that we can do better at protecting people's lives and especially those of us that love Jesus, we can be champions of life on this issue, too.
And whether that's suicide or guns that kill police officers, I mean, we literally have bullets that are designed to pierce through bulletproof vests and like those are allowed on our streets. So, you know, I don't think that laws are going to solve our heart problem. But I do think that we can change some laws that would save some lives and we would be really at a loss if we didn't do everything we can to protect life. So when people say, “all we can do is pray”, I think they're lying. I think we do need to pray, but we also need to get off our knees and we need to really take some actions that could protect people's lives.
Seth Price 24:53
I want to drill down onto the church part, I guess of the Can I Say This At Church? So if I brought this up at my church, I If I walked in on Sunday and then I was like, Hey, Mr. Person A or Hey, Mrs. Person B, we need to talk about your, I would argue, idolic worship of your guns that you are elevating against or above a posture of humility and a posture of wanting to love on people—even when it's uncomfortable. Because guns are innately aggressive, and also innately defensive and neither one of those look like Jesus. So I know that you've heard the proof texts, you know, you've got the verses on “go get yourself some swords”, we're doing this. And there's so many other verses throughout the Bible that people often quote from the pulpit, or that the NRA will bastardize to help rally the base around protecting our rights to have guns.
And so what are some of your answers to those proof texts because I feel like a lot of people listening hear them often; and often are woefully unprepared for that because we don't talk about it at church. We definitely don't talk about it in school. And most parents grew up in a different generation where we didn't really discuss it either. And so I often find myself lacking.
Michael 26:09
One of our one of our friends and someone we quote a lot in the book, Jim Atwood wrote a book America and its guns A Theological Expose and I had the chance to have lunch with him once and I asked him almost the same question. And he said, “it all starts with having to know that, whether it's your pastor doing this, or you're talking to somebody at your church, that you love them that you're asking this out of love, and they have to know that the relationship has to be there. It's not it's not happening in a vacuum”. And I think a lot of us can assume that. I mean, I know that my own church has several opinions on this issue. And it goes a variety of ways.
But if we start from a position of love, that we're going to be able to have these tough conversations if you want to get right into the proof text like when it says “Get your swords” right after that Jesus rebukes Peter for using the swords. And many people say that's when Jesus to disarmed the church. I've talked to many gun violence survivors who have been them in a mass shooting at a church, who now council church security teams and that introducing a gun in the midst of a mass shooting is one of the most confusing things you can do because now gunfire is coming from multiple directions and that in fact, the best thing you can do is essentially run in tackle that person from invisible to them angle.
There's other ways to solve those problems. Usually, you just can't start from the big what if questions were your only solution is the gun and the one bullet in that gun in your hand. And that really, it's it starts before that and that there's so many lines have been crossed before that person decided to use a gun to hurt people that we can engage that situation long before it ever becomes violent.
Shane 27:41
Yeah, I think the theological issues are really, really important, the spiritual dynamic of violence and fear. And so when you talk about pastors, I think it's so important that we're not just talking about guns we're also talking about a culture of fear. And the Scripture says that perfect love casts out fear. So what does it look like to to stand on the side of love rather than fear? And I'm convinced that fear and love are enemies, they cannot coexist. And we can see what happens to a country right now.
I think that as is really held captive to, to fear, the fact is that when we're conditioned to fear in certain ways we're conditioned to fear people that don't look like us, you know, and we hear a lot of that about immigrants or refugees coming to this country, but the Cato Institute they did this incredible study ( https://www.cato.org/blog/illegal-immigrants-crime-assessing-evidence )where they showed like 10 things that are more likely to kill you than a refugee or immigrant. And there are things like swing sets and lightning or falling down the steps, roller coasters, one of them was a vending machine falling on you, like these are all things more likely to kill us then then a refugee or immigrant. And when you look mass shootings you know, most of them are done by men and and most often mass shooters are white men, but we still, in our society, are conditioned to fear certain people or certain things.
So I think, as Christians, we've got to address this as a fear versus love thing. And we've also got to address some of the idolatry that I mean if you think of how we put our trust in guns and can you trust you know, is it Psalm says “some trust in chariots and horses, but we trust in the name of our God”, there's something about idolatry, I think is my friend Andy crouch says “all idols begin by offering great things for a very small price, and all idols fail more and more consistently to deliver on those promises and they keep ratcheting up their demands of us”.
So we think of all the promises of gun pledges, you know, power control, safety protection, and if a gun we're keeping of keeping all those promises we would be like God so these are like, really deeply spiritual things. And I always looked at Jesus that's where Mike and I, we keep pointing back to Jesus in Beating Guns because at the end of the day, the question becomes, can we carry a cross in one hand and a gun in the other? Can we love our enemies and simultaneously prepare to kill them?
And the early Christians were unequivocally clear on this that for Christ we can die, but we cannot kill and that text that Mike referred you, where Peter instinctively… and I like Peter because he's a lot like us, talks without thinking. He takes risks and jumps out of a boat trying to walk on water, you know, but at the end of the day, the soldiers come for Jesus and he picks up a sword and he picks up his weapon and he injures one of them. He cuts the guy's ear off and we cannot miss what Jesus did, he rebuked Peter and said, “Put your sword back, you pick up the sword, you die by the sword”. And then he heals the man that Peter wounded.
Tertullian, one of the great thinkers of the early church, he said, “When Jesus disarmed Peter, he disarmed every Christian”, because if ever there was a case for using violence, justified violence, to protect the innocent, Peter had that case; he had the strongest case in the world. But we see that this is not the way of Jesus Jesus teaches us a different way to interact with evil without mirroring that evil. And that Jesus is call to turn the other cheek stands in stark contrast to the nras command to stand our ground. And that doesn't mean that we don't take evil seriously, or that we don't resist evil, but I think we don't do it on its own terms, and we certainly don't use violence together. counter violence.
Michael 32:01
Actually, my favorite part of the sword to plow Scriptures is in Micah where he ends it by saying “we will all sit or sit under our own vine and fig tree in fear of no other” and even George Washington meditated over this. The the play Hamilton has a song that quotes into saying that, and that, you know, there's a longing in America, I think, for this time of peace, and at least a time where if we're afraid of each other, or we're afraid of what might happen, that we don't let that fear, make decisions for us. And I think Micah puts it so beautifully and puts it in this text it's seen elsewhere in the Bible too that the vine and the fig tree is like a representation of Christ's kingdom.
Seth Price 32:44
Aquestion that I asked of Dr. David Gushee down there at Mercer, I asked him about you know, if we overturned Roe v. Wade I don't think that our country or the people that live in it are prepared for the implications of that. So let's assume that everyone that reads this book, even the guy that has 4000 guns, he keeps that one that doesn't work because it was his great, great, great, great granddad's and it has some form of family significance, whatever. But he destroys the other 3999. And so does everyone else that reads the book or is engaged with the book. I don't know that America is prepared to live in a place that we don't have a necessary fallback on when you know, when we're scared and when we're afraid. So what would you say to those people? They're like, No, I need this! Like, I can't do this, what you're asking me to do! I am not equipped to handle that, you know, especially people that you know, live along the border, and they believe the narrative of these people are coming to hurt you, or this drug dealer is going to come in and he's going to rape and pillage, here we go. I'm curious, do you think that America, if they did what Jesus would ask, are we actually equipped and prepared to do that?
Shane 33:54
I don't think that we you know, we live in these absolute ideals of it's all or nothing. You know, I think that that as the kingdom comes, as Jesus says, you know we are to seek the kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven, those of us that are seeking first the Kingdom want to keep moving towards that. So if we know that in the end, the prophets are right that God says, “My people will beat their swords into plowshares, my spears into pruning hooks“. That's the trajectory of history. So that begins to change how we live and how we act in the world. So, you know, I think we can keep the momentum going.
But certainly before every social movement that has changed the world, everybody said it was impossible. And after every social movement, people said it was inevitable. And you think about slavery, you know, folks said, well, don't talk about this from the pulpit because this is a political issue. People said, we'll never be able to do away with slavery. I mean, this is the entire way our economy exists. So all of those things looked impossible, but now we look back and we go wow, that that makes sense. And I think that that, frankly, a generation or two from now we will look back at our gun violence and think, man, we should have done that so much sooner and how did Christians, you know, continue to justify that violence with the Bible. So I think we can do better.
And please, you know, I mean, we're not talking about all these radical shifts happening at one time, but we're talking about things like, hey, if you're on a no fly list, you're on the terrorist watch list, and you can't fly on airplanes, you shouldn't be able to buy a gun at a gun show. (Laughs sarcastically) We're not going like totally wild, right? We're just we're just kind of have some small things that we think and 80% of even gun owners agree on many of these these proposals that are out there that we could actually make some changes on, you know, so yeah.
Seth Price 35:52
Mike, how would you scale this up? So I want to de personalize it. So how would you scale it up for you know, America like how does it America live with a heart of beating, you know, weapons into plowshares. Because we are the biggest military superpower well, arguably one of the biggest military superpowers in existence?
Michael 36:12
Right yeah, and we have a section in the book talking about the big guns on that. And part of that is highlighting how some steel from the World Trade Center was made into three bow stems of new new Navy fleet. So there is certainly a national narrative that goes against not using violence to solve conflict, that violence to solve conflict is a pretty popular thing to do, not just in America, but worldwide as well. And so there's a lot to be said about the tools that we are under utilizing to solve conflict, whether that's interpersonal, whether that's from group to group or country to country. There's a lot of great things like Christian Peacemaker teams, and just basic conflict mediation.
We have a lot to learn from the Native Americans as far as dialogue circles and mediation skills that really make us stop and slow things down. That's a big part of swords to plowshares you take something like a sword that gives you what feels like immediate answer, whether that's stopping somebody from hurting you, or killing them so that they can never hurt you, to a plow share that requires you to have seasonal patience, you have to wait a season to see the fruit of that ploughshare. That we need to kind of change the way we think about conflict in our life. And that includes conflict within ourselves because suicide, like Shane said is two thirds of gun violence. So there's a there's a lot of conflict that we're dealing with. And it's very complex since gun violence speaks from other issues. When we talk about gun violence, we have to talk about suicide, we have to talk about gang violence and domestic violence. And then we also need to talk about the big guns. What is the National example being set for conflict resolution? And this is something that the church has an immense opportunity to set a new example. It's right there for for the church to step in, and be that example of non-violent conflict resolution. I forget who I spoke with in the past year, but someone said something similar.
Seth Price 38:05
I think it was on Muslim immigration and fear of the other. And I forget what he said exactly. But he basically said, the church historically always is playing catch up when if we were actually being the church, we would be the trendsetters and the people blazing the trail towards something that looks closer to shalom as opposed to something that looks closer to gradually being dragged in to a better version of humanity, which is really it's really sad. It's really sad.
What is the final hope then? Because we're wrapping down to the end of our time; if we do it well, what do you want people to visit very end to take home if they only heard one, one thing and say they've been listening to this for the last, you know, 30-40 minutes and they kind of checked out because they're uncomfortable with talking about an addiction to guns and an addiction to violence teally, what is the thing that you would say, Hey, stop what you're doing, pay attention and hear me when I say this.
Shane 39:00
I would say, we're going to keep going back to that core verse for us from Micah and Isaiah, that God's people will beat their swords into plows. And that beautiful vision ends by saying nation will not rise up against nation, and people will learn violence and war no more. What's so beautiful about the verse is that peace doesn't begin with the politicians and presidents and kings. It begins with the people of God, and they begin to transform their weapons and their hearts obviously are transformed, they refuse to kill, and they begin to repurpose the metal that was designed to kill into tools that can cultivate life.
So in the end, I think what's so powerful is that this is about God changing people's hearts. And then as God is healing our hearts we want to heal a broken world that is plagued by violence. So we're not going to legislate love, but we do believe that because this is a gun problem and a heart problem that God heals hearts and people make changes in our society that allow life to flourish a little better. And we can do that right now.
Seth Price 40:21
Mike anything that
Michael 40:22
Teah, I think that Shane hit it right on the head that if the end goal is that we begin to make less and less swords that if that is the prophetic vision and that's what we believe the kingdom especially as Christians is going to look like that it makes less and less sense to keep making swords if we know they're just gonna be made into plowshares. So to have a shift in our resources is a big part for myself and Rawtools. I know Shane, with his community development, that there's a new way to look at how we engage with our neighbors in our society.
Seth Price 41:00
This is quasi related, but it's more just logically I want to break that down. How many firearms on average if most people own pistols I'm assuming…I have no idea what the most commonly held firearm is, but I'm assuming it's got to be a pistol, their least expensive, most easily concealed…how many of those does it take to turn it into something that can till the earth like they can actually do something useful?
Michael 41:23
We can make an easy or simple garden hoe out of a pistol. We can make a several hand shovels out of shotguns and we can make three to four double sided tools out of rifles, the longer ones, so depending on the gun, we get different tools out of it. But we can at least one tool out of every gun.
Seth Price 41:42
So it's, at a minimum, one to one.
Michael 41:44
Yeah, at minimum and on average two to three.
Shane 41:48
And just in contrast to that, listen to this man, like right now in the US we are making one gun every three seconds, 18 guns a minute, over 1000 guns an hour, 25,000 guns a day…we are arming the world. And yet it stands in such contrast to that prophetic image of beating swords in the plows and Jesus saying, blessed are the peacemakers, for they are the children of God. So that's who we want to be.
Seth Price 42:23
Well, the book is available. It comes out when March 5, its fifth. Yeah. And so that's gonna be available everywhere that books are sold.
Shane 42:32
You can pre order it now and register to get a plow that Mike makes so if people pre register they can get a plow, you may win one. We're gonna give away.
Seth Price 42:44
I’m on the website right now, where do you register for this plow? I'll do that while I'm on the phone with me.
Shane 42:50
(laughs) Awesome. And by the end, you know, like we said, we're going all over the country too. So folks can go to beatingguns.com and see what the nearest place that will be and we're live streaming a lot of these so yeah. And keep us in your prayers and we'll be traveling in our..,we got this school bus converted to a tiny house tour bus with solar panels and it has the forge and the anvil in the back of it that will be traveling on so it's gonna be a powerful trip.
Seth Price 43:25
What is the manpower for that because I have to think that that's going to be exhausting for whoever's running that forge every you know, every time you stop to a new city like that, that just the manpower involved. It's got to be exhausting.
Shane 43:37
We’ve got some woman power, it's about an hour drive. My wife's gonna be driving I had to get her a bus outfit. So she's got overalls, gloves, and a hat and sunglasses. But then Mike's doing the hard work and we've got some other blacksmiths don't we Mike, you should talk about that, you know, we're trying to actually set up kind of a network of blacksmiths around the country right bro?
Michael 44:00
So a big part of the Rawtools aspect of this is building a disarming network. And you can see that on our website at rawtools.org, where there's people across the country that are volunteering their time, and or their space, as well as their tools to help us disable the guns for folks who want to donate guns to us. And blacksmiths who want to help us process those guns and turn them into garden tools.
So we've got about half a dozen blacksmiths across the country, and about 30 to 40 people across the country, but we really want to double and triple that so that if you want to donate a gun to to us, there should be someone within an hour at most that can help you disable that if you don't have the tools. And then we make a free tool to anybody who donates a gun to us and then we keep the rest of those gun parts to make more things to support our work.
Seth Price 44:48
To get those tools they have to be hand delivered? Like I know you can't like mail a gun through the mail. So if they're not close, how do they get the firearm actually processed into you?
Michael 45:00
That's the necessity for that network. So if you're in West Texas and you want to donate a gun to us, you have to disable it before you can mail it to us. Otherwise, you'd have to mail it to a gun dealer who would perform a background check. But if you disable it by making three cuts through the receiver, we follow federal ATF guidelines for that, they basically tell us where to do that. And then it's no longer a gun anymore. You've just destroyed the firearm.
Seth Price 45:24
Your just shipping metal.
Michael 45:25
Right, you are just shipping metal and wood and plastic. And then we take that and make some garden tools and we send them one garden tool back to you.
Seth Price 45:34
Mike, where can they where can they engage with you and then Shane, how can they also engage with you, as they listen to this, and they read the book, and then they want to do more? You got beatingguns.com, you've got rawtools.org. How would they engage with you at a personal level, if they felt called to?
Michael 45:45
Yeah, like you said, rawtools.org, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram for us as well. And there's a lot of different ways you can engage on our website and as far as how do you want to plug in donate or be part of that disarming network, or have us come out for an event we're doing this kind of huge book tour. But we do that, Shane and I've been doing that together for almost five years now where we do a gun to garden tool demonstration that's alongside a worship service. And that's what the book tour is going to look a lot like, but that can take a lot of different forms. There's a lot of different ways you can engage with with RawTools.
Shane 46:17
Yeah, and then I'm on Twitter and Facebook at just my name, @ShaneClaiborne. And then we have Instagram for the tour @beatingguns. So yeah, keep in touch with us. And, you know, if folks like got excited about having a chop saw I've been calling some of these “chops saws churches” because they'll have a place where people can donate guns and have a chop saw on site at their church or community center.
So there's nothing right now that you know, if someone inherits like 12 guns from their grandfather, that they have a very easy way to get rid of them and have them repurposed. And so that's exactly what RawTools is up to, and we're pumped about. You know, 300 million guns in the country we can make a lot of beautiful things out of those (guns) that cultivate life.
Seth Price 47:04
Yeah. I like that like that. Well, thank you both for your time and for your willingness to be on the day. Thank you both.
Shane 47:12
Absolutely, man.
Michael 47:16
Thanks, Seth.
Seth Price 47:32
Close your eyes and picture what our planet, not your family, what our planet could actually look like if each and every single one of us could figure out how to deal with aggression in a way with humility, and not meet bullet for bullet, sword for sword. If we would genuinely let Jesus and the heart of the gospel change the way that we deal with violence because I think Shane and Michael are right we have a heart problem. We are addicted to violence. And I'll be honest, sometimes being angry feels good. We just have to realize that, myself included. Go to the website at beatingguns.com/tour and see where they're going to be. And if they're close to you go out there, even if you don't have a gun to trade and just go out there, see what it's all about. I find the cathartic stories that Michael talked about, and Shane talked about, of just people really working through that loss and that trauma in a physical way, but also deeply involving church and community and God. So I challenge you to sit with this. Sit with the uncomfortability let it stay there, don't push it away and do whatever you feel called to do.
The music for today was used with permission from Hills x Hills. definitely get more acquainted with them. Follow along in the show notes.
Talk to you next week.