Somehow the "Culture of life" thread has pretty much degenerated into a discussion about guns, and half jokingly I asked "Did Jesus ever own a gun?"

But this does lead to an interesting question: "Did Jesus ever use a weapon (besides words)?"

-- Pat Thompson (pat.thompson.45@gmail.com), February 17, 2005

Answers

...bump (in the night)...

-- Pat Thompson (pat.thompson.45@gmail.com), February 17, 2005.

The infancy "gospel" of "thomas" would have you believe that Jesus himself was a weapon.

Tim Kirschenheiter

-- Tim K. (tk4386@juno.com), February 17, 2005.

Yes, he used a horsewhip to drive the buyers and sellers from the Temple. (Note He didn't actually whip them, just cracked the whip to drive them out.)

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), February 17, 2005.

Oh my. We know he brought a deadly weapon to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. Have you ever been kicked in the can by a donkey? It HURTS.

But Jesus didn't have to use it. It was one of His happier days.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), February 17, 2005.

lol eugene

-- sdqa (sdqa@sdqa.Com), February 18, 2005.

"He didn't actually whip them, just cracked the whip to drive them out"

even if he had it wouldnt be a problem because it is not a sin!

-- kt (jc_died_4_me@hotmail.com), February 18, 2005.

We didnt ask "Did Jesus Sin" only if he used weapons...

-- ZAROVE (ZAROFF3@JUNO.COM), February 18, 2005.

I would say that deciding to send someone to hell is a pretty solid weapon. He decides. Actually we decide with our unrepentance, He simple has to ensure if that is you FINAL ANSWER.

-- karl (Parkerkajwen@hotmail.com), February 18, 2005.

Well he had at his beck and call 14 legions of angels...kind of like packing a nuclear arsenal.

But he didn't use it.

Weapons are used as a last resort with other men - but his chief opponent wasn't other men but demons. With them he was pretty much overwhelming as far as "firepower" goes.

With Christians our weapons must be considered as last resorts too - and ideally, in a land where everyone is Catholic, there would be no need for weapons or for very few...which is why in the 900's the Church, after most Europeans became Catholics, preached the "peace of God" outlawing war.

But reality intruded and this had to become the "truce of God"..but reality intruded in the form of Muslim terrorists, leading to the crusades.

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), February 18, 2005.

isnt it funny how god gets pulled into every war!? and god is always on "our" side! :@)

-- kt (jc_died_4_me@hotmail.com), February 18, 2005.

"Did Jesus ever use a weapon (besides words)?"

No Pat, His roll was Strictly Spiritual NOT Political. For him to have picked up or endorsed a weapon or useage of one would have made a political threat which would have ended Everything right there.

One important note to make, is that Jesus and John the Baptist understood the roll of Soldiers and weapons for the political stablilty and never told any soldier not to pick up him weapon but merely to stay straight and don't falsely accuse their opponent, when they inquired. Because that was their job.

-- Michael G. (NoEmail@Nowhere.no), February 18, 2005.

Which side was on God's side during World War II? The Imperial Japanese armed forces or the Allies?

Think real hard... which side was more likely to be on God's side, i.e. respecting the values and virtues he commands of human beings between the Nazis and say, the Allies?

I'm not asking which side did more bad things, or even trying to suggest one side only did evil while the other only did good...

I'm merely asking which side in those conflicts respected God's will as it refers to human beings.

Now we do know that God picks sides in some wars - as proven by miracles that help one side win. No historian doubts the accounts of the miracle outside the gates of Antioch that helped the weary and plague stricken first crusade beat off an advancing army of 100,000 Muslims. It consisted of an apparition of a host of mounted knights on white horses. Both sides reported seeing the mysterious army materialize and both sides report its effect: the crusaders won.

Lepanto also is considered a miracle thanks to a change in the wind that allowed the combined allied navies to sink the massed Turkish fleet.

In the Revolutionary war there are literally a half dozen atmospheric miracles that saved the rebels - Washington was able to evacuate Long Island during the night and half a day thanks to an abnormal fog that literally kept the British Army from moving while Washington's men evacuated via long boat...

Flash floods in the South twice saved LaFayette's force from being overrun by the British in hot pursuit... both sides reported these stunning events.

God blesses those who do HIS work... so it's not amazing that some "sides" in war will be blessed with good luck, good weather, good breaks, etc. whereas the other side is stymied left and right.

War is also used by God as a punishment for evil - as Lincoln himself recognized in his Gettysburg address and second inaugural address...

This isn't surprising either - the Old Testament is witness to this all over the place... the wages of sin are death... meaning, lots of sin produces the conditions in which war breaks out.

Mother Theresa warned us repeatedly that abortion was the single greatest threat to human life in our generation - and now we are stuck in a war on terror in which life is devalued, civilians are targetted, etc. hate begetting hate.

Whose side is God on? I'd imagine the side that tries to do his will. He's just after all.

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), February 18, 2005.

indeedy but what if both sides are trying to carry out God's will?

-- kt (jc_died_4_me@hotmail.com), February 18, 2005.

He took some swords just before his going to Gethsamane

-- Leslie John (lesliemon@hotmail.com), February 18, 2005.

He didn't "take" the swords Leslie, you mean He asked his disciples if they had any swords and they told Him they had 2. He replied “That is enough”, but when Peter used one of them He rebuked him.

On another occasion He said, “I have not come to bring peace, but the sword.” In context, He was not telling His disciples to attack others, but was warning them that many people, even some of their own relatives, would hate and attack THEM because of their faith in Him.

Joe, you seriously think that God was on the side of the US revolutionaries and performed miracles to help them because “they were doing HIS work”? Puh-leeeese!!

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), February 19, 2005.

please answer my question :(

-- kt (jc_died_4_me@hotmail.com), February 19, 2005.

KT-

Both sides may think they are doing God's will, but both sides can not possibly be doing God's will. God's will never contradicts itself, so His will could not be embodied by two opposing sides.

Tim Kirschenheiter

-- Tim K. (tk4386@juno.com), February 19, 2005.

I haven't read every response but anyway, Prayer is a pretty powerful weapon isn't it?

-- Fr. Paul (pjdoucet@hotmail.com), February 19, 2005.

Word of God is actually the Sword of the Spirit (Heb.4:12)

-- Leslie John (lesliemon@hotmail.com), February 20, 2005.

I'm sorry Steve, I just read history and both sides mention the various meteriological miracles as Providence protecting the rebels and hurting the Brits.

All the founding fathers mentioned as common knowledge these events - as did many commentators of the time, lots of eyewitnesses, and the fact that in each occasion the rebels escaped from near certain annihilation thanks to the unexpected change of weather.

Are we to assume they were all lying, all wrong, all coincidental? Or that Satan was creating the fog or floods?

For all the evil things Americans have done (and we have no monopoly on that) we have been responsible for some good things too - if only as a place were all the world's people can and have come for refugee from religious and political persecution.

Certainly, before the Declaration of Independence, natural law theory as understood by the Church had NO foothold ANYWHERE on the planet.

The very Catholic anthropological ideas enshrined in that Declaration - that rights come from human nature not whim of anyone, and that human nature comes from God... is an encapsulation of centuries of Catholic thought on the matter...as De Tocqueville saw in 1835.

Every other major nation on the planet has disputed those ideas and reaped the consequences in war, famine, plague, and societal decay...and everywhere else the Church has suffered with only a few exceptions.

Indeed the Pope himself has REPEATEDLY stated that Providence blessed this country and the US has been a force of great and providential good for many other nations.

No, not all is hunky dory here...but here is a place where Catholics can make a difference if we only tried a bit harder...here is a place where we have the freedom to create and grow and expand and so help our brothers globally.

There is no intrinsic reason why the culture has to be in the hands of those who are anti-Catholic. No "Constitutional" reason why Catholics couldn't eventually run the country and the culture for the good of this country and the world!

Where evil abounds, grace abounds even more... and yes, there are seriously evil people here - all the worst in the world, all the most destructive agents for evil are Americans...but most of the powers of good are also here.

Both the Pro-abortion and Pro-Life movements are American. The pro- gay and anti-gay movements are American. The Imperialist, One-world- government types are American as are their opponents, those who believe nation states ought to be sovereign and independent so as to check the ambitions of men...

Name one group bent on evil that is American and I can answer with a dozen groups that seek to control and overthrow it - which are also American.

Read all the Popes discourses of his various homilies and addresses of his visits to the US. Filled with references to God's blessings, to the nation's founding ideals and the good things we have been able to do thanks to obedience to God's grace.

Unlike you, I am proud of my country - warts and all, because I know more history than you do - both of my nation and others...and know that it's not all evil and corruption, rapine and atrocity unlike what many have been spoonfed since the 1960s.

Unlike most, I've actually read most of the founder's works - as well as extant literturature from the time... and the many Popes' take on the new republic and what it means in light of Providence working mysteriously through world events.

The first half of the 20th century saw the near UNIVERSAL rise in totalitarian dictatorships around the world and especially in formerly Catholic lands...but the USA was a bulwark against this tendency and in the end, turned the tide in favor of freedom.

A freedom that has been abused and is imperfect of course, but a freedom nonetheless. To deny this would be a great injustice.

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), February 21, 2005.

Just a quick point on the reason Jesus didn't carry a sword.... the Roman Empire was responsible for law and order - not Jews. And while the empire lasted, the state, not civilians was responsible for law and order.

At no time in the New Testament do we read Jesus calling on the Roman soldiers to disarm... John the Baptist didn't tell the soldiers who came to be baptized to leave their profession or dis-arm, but to be content with their pay and respect others' rights (to not abuse the power their weapons gave them).

Jesus, Peter, and Paul, all had run ins with Roman officers and at no time in any of these did they make disarmament a condition for grace.

So the idea that weapons are intrinsically evil or unbecoming of Christians simply won't hold.

As I mentioned, since the Roman Empire maintained law and order through its army, and Christians didn't run the machinery of state, civilians typically didn't have to worry about armaments for self- defense... though a walking staff is a useful non-lethal tool for this in a gun-powderless world.

Being private citizens, enjoying the Pax Romana, they didn't have to shoulder any burden for the "Tranquiltas Ordinis"...until such time as the State became Christian.

Then suddenly things weren't so easy...when Christians were the ones who had to govern and decide who to punish and who to set free, and they had to decide whether to repel armed invaders or surrender... it all got pretty murky didn't it?

Pacifism is possible when the potential for direct physical harm to any given person is extremely low, and some form of state police is sufficiently powerful to protect everyone from criminals and invaders.

It works in Monastic communities too - since all are united by charity, and in families, where resort to armed violence is rare.

In the ancient monasteries high walls and inaccessible locales allowed the monks to live in peace (try hiking up Monte Casino with armor and a sword...huff puff, huff, puff... no wonder the monks outlasted several sieges).

But in society - especially a cosmopolitan society bordering completely new and different civilizations...it's not so possible to live as unarmed pacifists because the evils that affect all people affect the unbaptized and uncatechised even more than they do Catholics (who are protected by the sacraments), leading the ruthless to prey on the weak and defenseless.

So what to do? I agree with Steve that we ought to strive for a society where the rule of law keeps people from threatening each other and weapons are rare.

But I disagree that the way to reach this state of affairs is by disarming the population, while arming the state because in every place and culture that this has been tried, the result is invariably a rise in crime along with a rise in totalitarian regimes and subsequent loss of freedom and liberty.

Paradoxically, in places where most able bodied people are armed (or could be armed) and organized, there is less crime and less totalitarian impulses.

So my refrain..."seek first the kingdom..." stands...by Evangelizing our fellow Americans we do better work for the coming of a kingdom of peace than can be accomplished by banning types of weapons.

If all my neighbors had an arsenal of weapons I wouldn't feel threatened in the least - since they're all good people. But if one family was pagan and did drugs, I would feel very threatened even if they don't *(yet) have weapons.

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), February 21, 2005.