Vigilantes

I find Christopher Hedges to be a fascinating writer. Even though he is not a "defender of the faith" his book I Don't Believe In Atheists was a thoughtful push-back against the often angry and polemical atheism of Christopher Hitchens and others. He has also collaborated with graphic novel legend Joe Sacco for Days of Destruction Days of Revolt.

He has the cover article in the latest  issue of Walrus magazine with the eye-catching title Why Our Neighbours to the South Love Their Guns. Hedges is an American but the article is a withering criticism of a culture which seems to be obsessed with arming its citizenry against all statistical realities about the need for weapons. Hedges suggests that vigilante violence is an ingrained aspect of the national psyche whether for individuals, or groups, or in terms of military action around the world. He quotes black activist H. Rap Brown as saying  "violence is as American as apple pie."

I reflected last summer that I was deeply unsettled the morning after the multiple shooting deaths of innocent people at a movie theatre in Colorado. As many of you know, I was at a conference in Wyoming at the time and during chapel a number of participants offered heartfelt prayers for the victims. But no one prayed for the end of the "everyone gets a gun no matter what" mentality of the country. These were fine, thoughtful Christians, yet during the next few days I didn't hear anyone say that change was necessary in terms of gun control. A few months later came Newtown and the massacre of school children. Still congress was unable to enact any meaningful legislation curbing the sale of weapons.

At the end of the article Hedges makes a statement that is hard to imagine any Canadian offering about our American friends and neighbours :""The core faith of the United States is not found in the Gospels --which have been perverted to fuse the iconography of Christianity with that of the state to sanctify the nation -- but in the satanic lust of purification through violence."

What are your thoughts about this article, at least as I have described it? Are Canadians sensibilities that much different? Are we moving toward a cultural mindset of "might makes right."