Guns to gardens

On September 28th, several dozen Central Oregon gun owners will line up in their vehicles outside Antioch Church to voluntarily surrender their unwanted firearms. The weapons will then be safely decommissioned according to ATF guidelines and, using an on-site metal forge, resurrected as garden tools.

Antioch has offered Guns to Gardens events several times over the past couple of years, and every time, it seems to stir up a bit of online outrage. Instead of countering the various accusations from the folks who disagree with this event, I want to share what participating in Guns to Gardens has meant to me personally.

After my service in the Marine Corps (which included a deployment to Afghanistan, where I served as an embedded police advisor to Afghan Police in Helmand Province), I found myself carrying a low-level weight of paranoia about the people around me. The first thing I did after becoming a resident of Deschutes County was register for a concealed carry permit. I would often daydream about how I would react if an active shooter entered my church or a store where I was shopping. My fantasies, of course, had nothing to do with unnecessarily harming anyone; they were always about protecting and defending myself or others.

But after a few years of adjusting to civilian life, I started questioning why I felt so compelled to carry a weapon. I became suspicious of the morals and beliefs that motivated me to be “a good guy with a gun.” After honest conversations with close friends, I was finally confronted with the fact that I not only had an unhealthy obsession with self-preservation but also a deep-seated lust for violence. As a follower of Jesus, devoted to loving both my neighbor and my enemy, I was convicted that I had turned guns into an idol—something I looked to and trusted in for the strength and security that only God can provide. So last summer, at Antioch’s first Guns to Gardens event, I surrendered my handgun and chopped it up, along with the fear, angst, and suspicion I held towards my fellow humans.

This is my Guns to Gardens story. I realize that not everyone shares these convictions, and that’s okay. In fact, many of the leaders and volunteers who run the Guns to Gardens events have differing political views and values. We celebrate those differences because that’s what Christ’s vision for the world looks like. Rather than dividing and demonizing those with whom we disagree, he calls us to live lives of love and pursue peace with all people.

And for that mission, we are going to need to be armed with tools for cultivation, not for decimation.

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