Don't shoot the pastor

News of the shooting yesterday in a suburban St. Louis church that left a pastor dead has a few of us who step into the pulpit each weekend talking. The one place in society where people ought to feel safe is again violated by violence.

I'll confess to you that there have been numerous times when I have felt unsafe at church and out in the community while fulfilling my calling.

On a number of occasions I've sided with an abused wife and faced the wrath of the husband or boyfriend. Several times it has been women who become threatening. Those struggling with things like mental illness and substance abuse are unpredictable. I once had a young man try to start my car on fire when I and a couple others tried to get him to detox. My wife has told me several times when I go out in the middle of the night to not go alone. As a police chaplain I've knocked on a front door to do a death notification and had people run out the back door thinking we were there to arrest them. On more than one occasion my initial concerns for their well-being quickly shifted to thoughts of my own well-being.

When I speak in our services on the weekend I'm looking out at dozens and dozens of unfamiliar faces - on a few occasions an unfamiliar super-angry-face looks back at me shooting daggers out their eyes - typically I joke it off later saying I'm going to talk to the trustees about putting metal detectors in the lobby. We've had disruptions, outbursts - one time a couple elders had to drag a lady outside who was screaming at the top of her lungs that we were a brood of vipers. Everyone was rattled. (Funny thing about that day… I preached a Christmas message titled "All is Calm").

I few months after I graduated from seminary a fellow pastor in our denomination serving a church in Seattle was stabbed repeatedly when he visited a man's apartment at the request of his out-of-town wife. That event woke me up to the reality that we are called to minister to hurting people and hurting people often hurt people. There is something Christ-like about following his lead into the darkest places. In the early nineties when I was pastoring in the city of Chicago I walked with my wife and new baby past a very restless crowd hanging out in the street and I stepped in a puddle of human blood unaware the group was gathered because an ambulance just left after a shooting. A hour later seeing dried human blood on my shoes added a whole new dynamic to my appreciation of the Communion Service that Sunday morning.

The shooting at New Life Church in Colorado Springs last year hit very close to home for us through our affiliation and many friendships there.  The shootings so far in American churches seem pretty random but several times this year we've been sent alerts that churches are potential targets for terrorism (large public gatherings in middle America) and to prepare accordingly.

Those who know me know that in my pre-Jesus days I was kicked out of high school eleven times for fighting. After my dad was killed a few years ago I inherited seventeen guns and my boys and I enjoy them frequently. These are details I share to highlight how feeling "unsafe" seems a bit odd for one capable and wired to stay for the fight rather than run. Even after twenty years of fascination with, and scholarly focus on, the Sermon on the Mount (even writing a 350 page book on it), turning the other cheek is not what comes natural to me.

In seminary I studied under one of the world's leading Dietrich Bonhoeffer scholars and caught the Bonhoeffer bug, he became a theological companion to me. Bonhoeffer was the German pastor/theologian who died in a Nazi concentration camp. His most famous work is The Cost of Discipleship, much of which is his commentary on the Sermon on the Mount. He was very committed to pacifism until the end of his life when he compromised his pacifistic ideals and participated in an assassination attempt on Hitler.

As attracted as we all are to Jesus' words "turn the other cheek" we had to admit the reason Peter was able to cut off the ear of the guard coming to arrest Jesus was because Jesus had armed people in his band of followers. Jesus knew when it was a time to lay down his life but he also used wisdom and took safety precautions necessary to itenerants traveling in small numbers throughout ancient Palestine. The parable of the Good Samaritan focuses on helping the hurt one but also paints a vivid picture of the need for personal safety as one travels about.

Like many other out-spoken pro-life pastors and leaders I've had death threats, vandalism, been followed home and been told by the domestic counter-terrorism people at the FBI to get home security and consider carrying a firearm. I had a pistol permit long before I started speaking out on behalf of the unborn. I'm not packing on Sundays in case you are wondering.  However, law enforcement has advised us to increase our security on our church campus during the hours we are open to the public. We do have armed plain clothes security on the weekends and a security code to get in the building during the week. Sad isn't it.

This blog is devoted to stopping the violence against the unborn. In light of that, for an Obasmic journalist like Chris Matthews to recklessly toss out a term like pro-life terrorists couldn't be more ill-fitting and oxymoronic. He's the one who is okay beheading living children. The womb, even more so than the church, ought to be the safest place for human life.