Queer Satanic on Nostr: Q: How should Christians react to the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting? A: The Hebrew ...
Q: How should Christians react to the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting?
A: The Hebrew Bible has some examples of neutral or laudatory assassinations and executions (e.g. Ehud and King Eglon, Judges 3:12–30), but as centuries of Jewish exegesis have demonstrated, it’s not that straightforward. Christianity is more direct and seems to quite explicitly demand radical non-violence of its people (Matthew 5:38–42; Luke 6:27–31), the actual behavior of billions of Christians notwithstanding.
If we accept that Christianity by ideal demands non-violence, we also accept that a Christian can’t justify themselves doing what Luigi Mangione (allegedly) did to a CEO.
Yet, this does not settle it. A Christian who is committed to non-violence can’t *start* thinking about violence when a single person uses a gun against another person, or elevate that act as the largest, most impactful sort of violence that all need denounce.
If you value non-violence, you don’t stay silent while *systems* of violence grind and crush millions of people, only speaking up when *one* of the people directing and greatly benefitting from that violence is harmed. That’s not a "non-violence" position; that’s a pro-violence position supporting a radically violent status quo.
If you need an example that’s even more stark: Nat Turner was a 19th century Christian man enslaved from birth. Turner felt called by God to free himself and others with him, and to do that, he killed 55 white men, women, and children, even babies. A Christian cannot justify doing that.
But a Christian cannot — as if starting awake, possessing no memory or rational faculties — point to Turner’s murders as the beginning of the story or the most relevant violence in that story. You cannot ignore Turner’s whole life, the lives of dozens of people he knew, and the lives of millions he did not. You don’t *start* with condemning people trapped in systems of violence, every other outlet of resistance for them except violence shut off.
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s family didn’t deserve to lose him to a preventable, early death. He was fully human and had an entire life snatched away. But as a health insurance CEO, Thompson was paid millions of dollars for snatching away from their families *untold* people, each just as human and valuable as Thompson was. Thompson plotted and schemed and set supernaturally effective machine-learning technology to the purpose of snatching people away from their families for maximal, efficient profit. Then he was paid with this profit. By capitalist alchemy, the blood, tears, bones, flesh of tens of millions sick and suffering were transmogrified into the same home Thompson's family grieves in. If the source of wealth could endure and travel along with wealth's purchases — the homes Thompson owned, their walls, floorboards, every appliance, every piece of luxury and necessity — all the summoned purchases would keen and wail along with Thompson's family and friends.
People like Thompson aren't all CEOs, but there are millions of his sort, directing and maximizing suffering for their material benefit, then probably not being too bothered by it as they go throughout their days. Proud even. Acquaintances and friends shake their hands or hug them and say nothing against their work; family members reassure them if any reticence manifests in regards to continuing in a profession that by its purpose hurts people. And these millions Thompson go to churches where pastors stand up in the pulpit to speak truth to power like, "God Bless our troops," or point out the fellow in the third row pew who works at Raytheon and matched donations for this year's missionary work. Violence and celebration of violence."Turn the other cheek — and reach for your Glock."
That’s where a conversation from a place of Christian non-violence has to start, not the barrel of one gun and its spent casings.
Image via Bsky's @/Skoden a.k.a. @/TotallyNotSkoden
https://bsky.app/profile/totallynotskoden.bsky.social/post/3ldopmeilvu2m
A: The Hebrew Bible has some examples of neutral or laudatory assassinations and executions (e.g. Ehud and King Eglon, Judges 3:12–30), but as centuries of Jewish exegesis have demonstrated, it’s not that straightforward. Christianity is more direct and seems to quite explicitly demand radical non-violence of its people (Matthew 5:38–42; Luke 6:27–31), the actual behavior of billions of Christians notwithstanding.
If we accept that Christianity by ideal demands non-violence, we also accept that a Christian can’t justify themselves doing what Luigi Mangione (allegedly) did to a CEO.
Yet, this does not settle it. A Christian who is committed to non-violence can’t *start* thinking about violence when a single person uses a gun against another person, or elevate that act as the largest, most impactful sort of violence that all need denounce.
If you value non-violence, you don’t stay silent while *systems* of violence grind and crush millions of people, only speaking up when *one* of the people directing and greatly benefitting from that violence is harmed. That’s not a "non-violence" position; that’s a pro-violence position supporting a radically violent status quo.
If you need an example that’s even more stark: Nat Turner was a 19th century Christian man enslaved from birth. Turner felt called by God to free himself and others with him, and to do that, he killed 55 white men, women, and children, even babies. A Christian cannot justify doing that.
But a Christian cannot — as if starting awake, possessing no memory or rational faculties — point to Turner’s murders as the beginning of the story or the most relevant violence in that story. You cannot ignore Turner’s whole life, the lives of dozens of people he knew, and the lives of millions he did not. You don’t *start* with condemning people trapped in systems of violence, every other outlet of resistance for them except violence shut off.
UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s family didn’t deserve to lose him to a preventable, early death. He was fully human and had an entire life snatched away. But as a health insurance CEO, Thompson was paid millions of dollars for snatching away from their families *untold* people, each just as human and valuable as Thompson was. Thompson plotted and schemed and set supernaturally effective machine-learning technology to the purpose of snatching people away from their families for maximal, efficient profit. Then he was paid with this profit. By capitalist alchemy, the blood, tears, bones, flesh of tens of millions sick and suffering were transmogrified into the same home Thompson's family grieves in. If the source of wealth could endure and travel along with wealth's purchases — the homes Thompson owned, their walls, floorboards, every appliance, every piece of luxury and necessity — all the summoned purchases would keen and wail along with Thompson's family and friends.
People like Thompson aren't all CEOs, but there are millions of his sort, directing and maximizing suffering for their material benefit, then probably not being too bothered by it as they go throughout their days. Proud even. Acquaintances and friends shake their hands or hug them and say nothing against their work; family members reassure them if any reticence manifests in regards to continuing in a profession that by its purpose hurts people. And these millions Thompson go to churches where pastors stand up in the pulpit to speak truth to power like, "God Bless our troops," or point out the fellow in the third row pew who works at Raytheon and matched donations for this year's missionary work. Violence and celebration of violence."Turn the other cheek — and reach for your Glock."
That’s where a conversation from a place of Christian non-violence has to start, not the barrel of one gun and its spent casings.
Image via Bsky's @/Skoden a.k.a. @/TotallyNotSkoden
https://bsky.app/profile/totallynotskoden.bsky.social/post/3ldopmeilvu2m