Last week was an important one for Christians in America. The occasion was Easter. Every year on Easter Sunday, faith communities across the country celebrate the resurrection of Christ after his execution on the cross at the hands of the Romans. Put another way, in the Christian faith, the Easter story offers a bold message. It represents a promise that life itself can overcome violent, torturous death at the hands of the state.
This year, Easter arrived at a moment of tension in our country. Not even two weeks prior, another shooter opened fire inside a school with an assault weapon, killing three children and three adults at Covenant School in Nashville. Despite Tennesseans’ outpouring of grief and rage, shootings across America continued.
Today in the United States, mass shootings happen more frequently than once per day. According to the Gun Violence Archive, 12,118 people and counting have died at the hands of gun violence in 2023. It is only April.
Instead of rallying around the sacredness of life to lower those numbers, American policy is developed to protect the highly profitable gun industry. As a result, our country refuses to adopt basic gun safety practices that have successfully limited gun deaths in other countries. In the United States, policy fails to require background checks on gun sales, fails to facilitate gun removal from people displaying warning signs, fails to prevent domestic abusers from getting guns, and fails to prohibit high-capacity magazines and assault weapons.
Because of these failures, America’s gun policies lead to state-sanctioned death for thousands of people each year. This is murder by public policy. On top of that, it is anti-democratic. 71 percent of Americans want stricter gun laws.
After the school shooting in Nashville, protesters began marching together across lines of race and class to demand change at the Tennessee State Capitol. Their demonstrations beg for new gun laws and lift up safety as a basic human right. In response, legislators refuse to comply. They focus on tighter school security measures instead, which is not enough.
As I watch this situation unfold, I wonder how many Tennessee legislators celebrated Easter with their families last week. If they attended church on Easter Sunday, or indulged in a holiday meal, they celebrated a God who, in human form, made new life possible after torturous state-sanctioned murder. Their participation in Christianity’s holiest day symbolized a promise that life will overcome death dealt by the state. Yet two days before going to church on Easter, those same legislators expelled two members of the Tennessee House of Representatives who dared to demand exactly that.
Our country’s gun policies, which result in daily mass shootings and death for innocent people, stand at odds with the Christian faith. And the problem doesn’t stop there.
America’s gun policies directly oppose our Constitution. The Fifth and Fourteen Amendments of the United States Constitution dictate that governments cannot deprive any person of “life, liberty, or property” in this country. Despite that, America’s gun laws prevent thousands of people each year from the life and liberty our country promised.
The Declaration of Independence is no different. Our nation’s founding document famously demands that “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are unalienable rights provided by the Creator that governments must be formed to protect. But our government’s policies are not crafted to preserve the “life and liberty” of children at school, people at concerts, or shoppers at the grocery store. They protect guns, gun manufacturers, and the gun lobby instead.
As legislators in Tennessee respond to the people’s resounding cry for safety, and their colleagues across the country watch and follow suit, it is imperative that American lawmakers start listening to the Christian faith upon which this country was founded, which is the faith so many of them dare to claim. Christianity promises new life in the face of violent death, which we see modeled in the story of Christ on Easter Sunday. Today, this country needs new life in the face of rampant gun violence.
The moment has arrived when nothing but immediate change will suffice. Mirroring the story of resurrection after death, lawmakers must choose life over the gun lobby. They must honor the promise of our country’s founding documents, which mandate that American legislators protect life and liberty for all people. When the people of this nation can send children to school, shop for groceries, and attend a parade without fearing they might die, we will know life and liberty have prevailed.
Between you and me—
Hello, friends and readers. It is wonderful to be here with you today. As I have mentioned, I have the great honor of spending every Tuesday this semester with the Rev. Dr. William Barber II and his team. This piece was influenced by them.
Nashville, Rev. Barber and his team will be at the Tennessee State Capitol on Monday. After spending the semester with them, I wholeheartedly recommend going. If I were there I would join you in a heartbeat!
Of course, murder by gun policy is not the only state-sanctioned death happening every day in the United States. We need only look to racism, classism, health care, the prison industrial complex, and ecological devastation to find more. Until we find a reverence for what is holy in this country—that is to say, life itself—we will keep seeing people die at the hands of public policy that protects profit over people.
The next time you hear from me, I will have finished exams. The summer will be busy but still offer a precious opportunity for renewed balance and rest. I can’t wait! I will have an internship but also look forward to quiet afternoons reading fiction in the park, long phone conversations with friends, and evenings spent sailing on the sound. In the meantime, I continually offer gratitude for the incredible people and opportunities weaving themselves in and out of my life every day.
John and Herbie continue to be my joy and delight, though John is in a busy season of growth as well. Every day we carve out space to remember the love and commitment that fuels it all. It’s a practice and a prayer.
In other news, I won an Environmental Humanities grant from Yale! I am looking forward to bringing my vision for an arts-driven public response to the climate crisis to life with the Yale community. Recently I also enjoyed seeing artist Angela Manno’s work in person. She lifts up the sacredness of nature in the form of traditional iconography. Don’t miss the bee, the hummingbird, or the monarch butterfly. Apparently I have a thing for pollinators.
Thank you for reading! Till next month, take care out there.
The audio version of WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE is available on Spotify, Apple, Substack, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
WE’RE ALL FRIENDS HERE is written by Lauren Maxwell. Can you help us grow? Send this to a friend and ask them to subscribe. Share it on Instagram and tag @lauren_only. If you enjoy this work, please consider becoming a sponsor, which compensates Lauren for her time and keeps this publication free for all. Thank you so much for being here and for your contributions.