Presbyterian Peace Fellowship - Why white churches need to start chopping up guns

Why white churches need to start chopping up guns Another weekend of gun violence has captured the public’s attention as an 18 year old white male went on the hunt targeting Black bodied people shopping for groceries in Buffalo NY and a gunman opened fire during a lunch of the Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church meeting at Geneva Presbyterian Church in Laguna Woods.  While shocking, these shootings are not surprising in a country that values gun industry profits over public safety.   The United States has always been a country that values the wealth of a few over people’s lives as the right to enslave Africans for free labor and to commit genocide of the native population for free land was institutionalized in our constitution through the second amendment. Those in power in our nation have created myths that romanticize gun ownership in order to avoid facing the violence and racialized domination that is at the core of our nation’s founding. White people, especially, want to dismiss the 18 year old gunman in Buffalo as a lone wolf, but the truth is, the ideology that drove his violence is as old as the founding of the United States and he is absolutely not alone in his thinking.   If we want to end gun violence in the United States we must be engaged in dismantling white supremacy. We call on predominantly white congregations to begin to chop up guns. We must dismantle white supremacy; by hosting a Guns to Gardens event your church creates an opportunity for the community to examine our reliance on guns. You create an opportunity for your mostly white church to examine the well-toned muscle that reacts when we believe we are under threat, and instead turn toward a different understanding of safety.   Gratitude for this Image by: Ashley Bair Join us in showing lawmakers that we want gun reform by signing up for our next Guns to Gardens action circle training here. Let’s show the gun industry that we reject the world they have created and instead will join with God in making the kingdom of heaven manifest here on earth by getting a chop saw and dismantling guns.   Read Rev. Deanna Hollas' full reflections on this week's massacre in Buffalo and the shooting in Laguna Woods. Join the Guns to Gardens Movement Want a little more before signing up for the next Guns to Gardens Action Circle? Join us on May 31 at 7:00 pm EST as writer and activist Shane Claiborne leads us in a Bible study on Acts 2:1-21.  Just as the Spirit came blowing in like a rush of violent wind and filled the entire house where the early followers of Jesus were gathered to birth the movement that became the Christian church, the Spirit is still igniting movements today.  Shane will share how churches and others are rising up to embody the vision of the prophet Isaiah where God’s people will beat their swords into plowshares by turning unwanted guns into garden tools and building a world free of violence. Come and learn how you can join in the movement to end gun violence, and become a #ChopsawChurch! Presbyterian Peace Fellowship 845-786-6743 | presbypeacefellowship.org Instagram | Facebook | Twitter

Presbyterian Peace Fellowship | 17 Cricketown Road, Stony Point, NY 10980