An Every Day Christian in an age of Active Shooters

 

Establish the need:  With everything going on have you thought about what to do as a Christian in a time of danger?

Purpose: Today we will see three points about this topic of what Christians can do concerning violent situations.

1. The Bible talks about the importance of vigilance
2. The Bible condones self-defense
3. Practical pointers

 

Caution

• This isn’t covering everything.
• This isn’t meant to be a security training per se.
• It is meant for every day Christians at church, work and in public thinking about protecting oneself and loved ones.
•  While it can be applicable to workplace, stores, restaurants, and other public places, some of the applications will be given with the church as an example.
• Also nothing here are legal advices.  One should research to know one’s local and state laws concerning self-defense and safety.
• Many of these insights are from those who have thought a lot on security.  Much thanks goes to these brothers in Christ.

 

The Bible talks about the importance of vigilance

Passage: “but rather he must labor, producing with his own hands what is good,”

Proof

There are more verses on spiritual vigilance rather than vigilance of physical threat:

1. “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” (Acts 20:28)
   1. In context it was Paul speaking to the elders in Ephesus.
   2. Notice Paul commanded “Be on guard”
   3. Of course this is spiritually being on guard for false teachers sneaking into the church.
2. ““Son of man, I have appointed you as a watchman for the house of Israel; whenever you hear a word from My mouth, warn them from Me.” (Ezekiel 3:17)= Notice God calls Ezekiel to be a spiritual watchman to warn people about their sins.

Those verses on spiritual vigilance shows that vigilance is a virtue.

Furthermore those verses on spiritual vigilance assume the people you are vigilant for are still physically alive, so there’s a sense you can’t be spiritually vigilant for the sake of others spiritually unless you are also vigilant that they are physically safe to some degree.

But some of these passage on spiritual warning and vigilance uses the example of physical vigilance/watchman: “But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the horn and the people are not warned, and a sword comes and takes a person from them, he is taken away for his wrongdoing; but I will require his blood from the watchman’s hand.’ 7 “Now as for you, son of man, I have appointed you as a watchman for the house of Israel; so you will hear a message from My mouth and give them a warning from Me” (Ezekiel 33:6-7)= The fact that God refers to actual physical vigilance of a watchmen for spiritual vigilance shows that God condones physical vigilance; means physical vigilance isn’t “sinful;” rather it is a meaningful endeavor!

Objection: But an active shooter event would never happen for me!

1. Consider the Statistics
   1. Take a guess: How many serious violent incidents do you think have happened involving the church?
   2. Note: By serious violent incidents we refer to the following actions:[1]
      1. Murder
      2. Attempted murder
      3. Suicide
      4. Arson with people in building
      5. Kidnapping/attempted abduction
      6. Robberies
   3. Answer: 1705 incidents.
      1. To put it in perspective there’s 991 weeks between 1999-2017.[2] So there’s more than one incident per week! Did you ever guess there was this much?
      2. 49% of those incidents resulted in deaths: 811 deaths.[3] So nearly half of these incidents involved someone dying.  Did you ever guess it was that serious when these incidents do occur?
2. Consider Personal accounts
   1. So many shootings we hear witnesses say “I never thought it can happen here!”
   2. Two weeks after the Orange County church shooting I talked to a couple who had a nephew worked with the doctor who passed away rushing the gunman in a church shooting; active shooter threat is closer to home than you think.
   3. Post-2020 has been a crazy time. A church in the same city as our church was bombed by alternative lifestyle extremists. 
   4. Our church was also vandalized by an atheist at 1 AM. Neighbors tackled him down and the police arrested him.  Even with the police were arresting him the suspect continued to speak blasphemies.
   5. [Insert personal incident 1]
   6. [Insert personal incident 2]

Practice

1. Keep an eye out: Discernment based upon behavior/action not the person’s characteristics of being someone different than you by demographics.
2. See something say something!
3. If you see someone that is acting strangely, note the person’s description for later. If you need to, even write it down on your phone.
4. For pastors, counselors, leaders, and small group leaders: Sometimes people vent they want to hurt people. I think it is important to confront the sin of hate; yet also ask if they have hurt anyone.  Consider even asking point blank if they have physically attacked their parents or animals.  Those are big warning signs.
5. Sometimes people visualize the danger of a violent situation happening at church occurring within the building; but 74% of the time they take place outside on ministry property and location.[4] So we need to be vigilant outside the walls of the church (but still on church property) as well.
6. Also people typically think of violent threat happening during regular scheduled events; but 61.3% (1,011 instances) occurred during off hours.[5] So we need to be vigilant also during other times besides big events at church.

 

The Bible condones self-defense

Proof

Not all cases of Self-defense if it takes life is immoral: “If the thief is caught while breaking in and is struck so that he dies, there will be no guilt for bloodshed on his account.” (Exodus 22:2)

1. Anytime life is lost, it is tragic.
2. But tragic does not mean it is always a sin.
3. Note in this verse it mentioned a thief in the night being killed by someone is not guilty.
4. Thus there’s a place for self-defense.

Objection: Ten commandment says “You shall not murder.” (v.a)

1. In Hebrew there are eight terms for killing but this one in Exodus 20:13 is never used for legal and military context of taking of life (Hughes, Exodus, 616).[6]
2. The better understanding is that this refer to unjustified and immoral taking of a life rather than killing in of itself.

There were times in the Bible people had weapons to protect themselves while they did other tasks serving God:

1. “then I stationed men in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, the exposed places, and I stationed the people in families with their swords, spears, and bows.” (Nehemiah 4:13)
   1. Nehemiah records to the building of the city wall of Jerusalem.
   2. There were threats from the enemies of God in verse 11.
   3. This threat didn’t stop the people from serving God!
   4. Instead we see the men were armed with three different kinds of weapons mentioned: swords, spears and bows.
2. Notice how the men did not neglect their main goal (building the wall) nor did they neglect safety in the face of possible attacks: “As for the builders, each wore his sword strapped to his waist as he built, while the trumpeter stood near me.” (Nehemiah 4:18)

Jesus’ statement reinforce there’s a place for having weapons for self-defense: “And He said to them, “But now, whoever has a money belt is to take it along, likewise also a bag, and whoever has no sword is to sell his cloak and buy one.” (Luke 22:36)

1. How many of us think it is permissible to have wallet, purses, etc? This verse permits that.
2. Likewise a sword is permitted too.
3. Of course swords are weapons and one application is self-defense.

Practice

1. There is a place for self-defense. But it is important that we abide by God’s law with this.
2. Sometime the application of this is one has weapons. This depend upon the individual and where one is at with what tools one has.  I think whatever tools one has one should seek training for familiarization and skill handling it as well as restrictions of use and limitations (every weapon has its limitation).

 

Practical pointers

De-escalate

1. Use “verbal judo” and try to bring the heat down for the person.
2. Warning: Even when you calm a danger, the next goal is to have the person leave. Remember Dylan Roof the church shooter almost did not shoot his victims because they were kind to him; but still he acted on his violent intention. So we need to keep this in mind and realize the threat isn’t gone until the person is gone.[7]

Run

1. Run is the best strategy: Get away from the threat
2. Have a goal of where you are running away TO
3. With church: Objective rally point would be at an agreed position outside of our church within walking distance.
4. Remember if under threat to run in a way that does not make it easy for an evil person to make the minimal body movement to shoot you.
5. Be careful turning corners; slow down to figure out what’s ahead of you within your path.

Hide

1. Know that there is a difference between concealment and cover; even when you hide remember bullets can still go through some walls, etc.
2. Do you know where the hard corner in a building is? “Hard corners are areas in classrooms where students and teachers would not be visible from hallways, windows or door openings.”[8]
3. Barricade: Block entrances with so many things that there’s a “train” going all the way to the other wall so the door won’t open.
4. Make sure you and others around you don’t just sit there and not do anything and give in to the fate of death:
   1. Talk with others what to do
   2. Grab fire extinguishers as a “multi-tool” weapon
   3. Have everyone grab a chair

Fight

1. This is not being about being tough: I never entered in most fights in my life thinking I would win; I went in because it was the right thing to do.
2. Also one should think: If I go down at least it might encourage others to fight and resist and be success to stop the evil.
3. Weapon of opportunity
   1. Anything can be weaponized when lives are in danger.
   2. Again consider fire extinguishers, chairs, keys, etc.
4. Target the attacker’s vulnerable body area to be most effective:
   1. Head
   2. Private area.
5. Gunman most vulnerable when reloading; best time to attack
6. Throw things at the person.
7. If you have to close in approach the person by vectoring.
8. Attacking best is from the back.
9. Attacking by flanking (sides) is second best.
10. Attacking from the front is better than not doing anything when you can’t get away.

After threat is neutralize:

1. Be prepared that police would come in and not know who is the suspect and might be aggressive towards you.
2. Don’t carry any visible weapons in your hand when law enforcement enter.
3. Don’t stand up when the police says get down.

 

 

[1] Church Security Planning for Leadership Personnel, (Grandview, MO: Strategos International, 2008), 30.

[2] Source: https://planetcalc.com/7741/.

[3] Church Security Planning for Leadership Personnel, (Grandview, MO: Strategos International, 2008), 30.

[4] Church Security Planning for Leadership Personnel, (Grandview, MO: Strategos International, 2008), 31.

[5] Church Security Planning for Leadership Personnel, (Grandview, MO: Strategos International, 2008), 31.

[6] Philip Graham Ryken, Exodus, (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2005), 616.

[7] Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/charleston-church-shooting/dylann-roof-almost-didnt-go-through-charleston-church-shooting-n378341

[8] Source: https://schoolsafetyresources.nh.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Recommendations-Hard-Corners.pdf.