Swords into Plowshares — Violence, Guns, and the Way of Jesus

America is the most heavily armed and most churchgoing Western nation in the world. For millions of Christians, the right to bear arms feels as sacred as the right to worship — and for millions of other Christians, the prevalence of guns in churches, homes, and political rallies represents a profound betrayal of the gospel of the Prince of Peace.

Both sides quote Scripture. Both sides claim moral authority. And both sides tend to caricature the other.

What This Plan Covers

Over seven days, this plan traces the Bible's complex, multilayered teaching on violence — from the first murder in Genesis to the vision of swords beaten into plowshares in Isaiah to the Sermon on the Mount to Paul's teaching on governing authorities. We will examine Jesus's baffling instruction to "buy a sword" alongside his rebuke of Peter for using one. We will sit with Augustine's just war tradition and Bonhoeffer's agonizing decision to join the plot against Hitler.

Drawing on the thought of Augustine, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis, and Tim Keller, this plan does not offer easy answers. It asks hard questions: Does "turn the other cheek" forbid all self-defense? Does Romans 13 grant the state unlimited authority to use force? When does legitimate protection of the innocent cross the line into idolatry of weapons? And what does it mean that the church's true armor, according to Ephesians 6, contains no offensive weapons except the Word of God?

The goal is not to tell you what to think, but to ensure that whatever you think is shaped more by Scripture than by culture — and more by the cross than by any political tribe.