UU Society of Cleveland

August 10, 2008

Rejecting a Culture of Violence

by Rev. Colin Bossen

The attack on the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville two Sundays ago reminded us, yet again, that we live amid culture of violence. In such a culture we will never be safe until we reject violence, care for the marginalized and cultivate peace and love as the operative principles in our lives. Our Unitarian Universalist tradition provides us with the resources we need to do this.

Sunday, July 27th, began like any other for members of the Tennessee Valley Church. They gathered for worship at their normal time, greeted visitors and prepared for an intergenerational service of music put on by the congregation's children. About two hundred members, friends and visitors were present. Shortly after the music commenced a loud boom was heard in back. Then another and another. People quickly realized that there was a shooter in the sanctuary and before he could fire a fourth shot he had been subdued.

By then it was too late for Linda Kraeger and Greg McKendry. Greg had been the first person shot. He was the congregation's head usher and when he had seen the shooter pull a shotgun from his guitar case Greg had placed himself in front of the gun in an effort to protect the congregation's children. Greg bore the full brunt of the shotgun's first blast. He was a foster parent and a member of the Board of the Tennessee Valley Church. His foster son wants to "make sure everyone knows that Greg McKendry was a hero, an absolute hero."

Linda Kraeger, the second person killed, was visiting the Tennessee Valley Church from the nearby Westside Unitarian Universalist Church in Farragut. She had come that morning to see the grandchild of some of her friends perform in the service.

The shooter was subdued by members of the congregation after he had shot both Linda and Greg. In the struggle to subdue the shooter and in the chaos to escape the gunfire six more people were injured before he was immobilized.

The whole incident was over in a matter of moments. In that short time the illusion that somehow our Sunday morning worship space, our sanctuary, is sacrosanct was shattered. We were reminded in the most forceful and disturbing of ways that there is no place that is safe from the ravages of a violent world.

Even though the attack took place in Knoxville it felt close to home. The attack on another Unitarian Universalist congregation felt like an attack upon our own community. The early descriptions of the event made it seem like something similar could happen here at the Society. Initial reports indicated that the Tennessee Valley Church had been targeted because of its strong support for the GLBT community and racial justice. A letter was found in the shooter's car stating that he was attacking the congregation because he thought its members were liberals. Spurred on by bombastic pundits like Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Michael Savage--whose books were found in his home--the shooter appears to believe that liberals are responsible for the nation's ills. He wanted to kill liberals because somehow in his twisted mind he thought it would make the world a better place.

As more details about the shooter's life have emerged it has become clear that his reasons for targeting the Tennessee Valley Church are more complicated than a hatred of liberals. Jim Adkisson, the man with the shotgun, has a personal connection to the congregation. His ex-wife is a member. Eight years ago she had a restraining order placed against him because he had threatened to kill her. Prior to that Adkisson had participated along the edges of the community. He had attended some of the congregation's events and gone to the district's Summer Institute not once but three times. His decision to attack the congregation was not random. The congregation was targeted because Adkisson knew them. Hardly a reassuring thought but it does downplay the idea that Adkisson attacked the congregation entirely arbitrarily or that the entire liberal religious community is under siege.

The response on the part of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations to the attack on the Tennessee Valley Church has reaffirmed that for members of our religious community when you suffer you do not suffer alone. To date there have been over 200 vigils across the country expressing solidarity with Unitarian Universalists in Knoxville. The President of the Association, the Rev. William Sinkford, travelled to Tennessee almost immediately after the shooting. He was joined there by other Unitarian Universalist clergy from throughout the country. The congregation has received support from district staff and members of the Unitarian Universalist Trauma Ministry as well. The Second Presbyterian Church of Knoxville, located next door to the Tennessee Valley Church, has made their space and sanctuary available to the members of our sister congregation and coreligionists during this time of trial.

Last Sunday the congregation of the Tennessee Valley Church rededicated their sanctuary. During the service a letter from Rev. Sinkford was read in which he wrote: "No murderer can take away what is sacred about this place, because your love has overpowered fear, just as your faith is helping you heal and move forward, together."

Love has overpowered fear and at time when one of our congregations has been targeted, at least in part, because of their justice activism Unitarian Universalists have decided that it is important to continue to speak out. In today's New York Times the Association is running a full page advertisement with the header "Our Doors and Our Hearts Will Remain Open." The advertisement proclaims "our religious message: to welcome the stranger, to love our neighbor, to work for justice, to nurture the spirits of all who seek a liberal religious name, and to help heal this wounded world." The advertisement also makes clear that Unitarian Universalist congregations are places where "gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people" are welcome. The piece ends by affirming "We will not give in to fear. We will meet hatred with love. We will continue to work for justice. Our hearts, and the doors of our...congregations...remain open."

The Tennessee Valley Church shooting is the latest in a number of acts of indiscriminate gun violence in public places. The most famous of these are probably the Columbine High School and the Virginia Tech shootings. In all such cases deeply distributed individuals who have been marginalized by society act out in the only language they know, the language of violence.

The language of violence finds powerful resonance in human society. For some physical violence is the first course they turn to when a conflict arises. If one listens to many government officials or pays attention to the daily newscasts it seems that violence is supposed to the method by which we humans solve our problems. The state of Ohio executes murderers. In doing so the ultimate act of violence, murder, is repaid in kind. A life is snuffed out for a life and an unstable individual is removed from society.

On an international level, the United States often tries to solve disputes with violence. In the wake of the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington, DC the Taliban offered to turn Osama bin Laden over to the international criminal court system to face trial if the United States would refrain from attacking Afghanistan. President Bush and his advisors decided to invade the country instead and as a result not only does bin Laden remains at large but the United States military is occupying a country.

As a result of this philosophy of violence, the United States is fighting the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its covert operatives assassinate, torture and kidnap throughout the world. In secret prisons and in the cells of Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib men and women suspected of wanting to inflict violence on American citizens and soldiers are brutalized, humiliated, dehumanized and terrorized.

While violent acts are found throughout our society, the language of violence is also prevalent. Modern prohibition is called the war on drugs. During the sixties President Johnson organized the war on poverty. President Nixon declared a war on cancer during the early seventies. The disagreements about moral values between social liberals and conservatives are often called the culture wars.

In such a world is it any wonder that the desperate take up arms and strike out against those whom they perceive as their oppressors? How often have they had a chance to imagine a different course of action? In almost all cases the shooters in incidents like the one that took place in the Tennessee Valley Church last weekend were people who had suffered from violence. In some cases the violence was physical. In others it was emotional, spiritual or material--manifesting itself in systematic verbal abuse, theology that denies basic human worth or poverty and the lack of access to health services that so often accompanies it.

I have had personal experience with someone who chose to act out with violence. When I was in high school one of my acquaintances--the older brother of one of my brother's best friends--took a gun, a thermos full of gasoline and a lighter to our school. For years this young man had been systematically taunted, tortured and humiliated by one of the school's bullies. Finally he had had enough and decided to strike back and be silent no longer. During AP Biology he pulled out the gun and pointed it at the bully. He then proceeded to douse the bully with gasoline. He went for his lighter and before trying to light the bully on fire my acquaintance asked the bully if he would like a light. When the lighter would not catch my acquaintance turned the gun on himself. Fortunately, the AP Biology teacher managed to talk him down before he pulled the trigger. The police arrived and my acquaintance was disarmed and removed from the classroom. In those more lenient times he was sent to a psychiatric hospital. I am happy to report that with the help he received there he was eventually able to lead a normal and productive life.

My experience with my acquaintance taught me that in many cases those who act out with violence are simply passing along the violence that they have experienced to others. This is, after all, common behavior for the abused. Far too often those who suffer abuse later become abusers. Having been made to feel powerless while they suffered from abuse, inflicting abuse upon others becomes the way they know how to feel powerful.

It is also clear to me that my acquaintance, and others like him, are trying to ask for help and draw attention to themselves when they act out with violence. My acquaintance was desperate and driven to extremes. It is clear from his actions and from subsequent conversations that he could think of no other way to end his own victimization than by turning his tormentor into a victim. He was lucky in that before he hurt either himself or anyone else his teacher was able to hear him and calm him down. He was lucky in that his parents were able to afford high quality mental health care for him and that he could learn to communicate his problems and frustrations without violence.

Few people in my acquaintances situation are so lucky. Most of them do not get help and are not heard until it is too late. From the news reports it is clear that Jim Adkisson fits this profile. He is someone who suffered from societal violence, slipped through the cracks and later inflicted violence upon others because of it. He served in the Army during Vietnam and according to some reports received a Purple Heart for wounds he suffered during combat. Other articles describe him as a helicopter repairman and make no mention of him receiving military honors. Either way it is likely that his experience in the Army taught him to view violence more casually than he might have otherwise. During his military stint he possibly also contracted Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

However Adkisson's military service effected him it is clear that he was marginalized from society and was a victim of our country's lack of an adequate social safety net. On the Sunday he entered the sanctuary of the Tennessee Valley Church Adkisson had been unemployed for two years, he was in danger of losing his access to food stamps and he was not receiving adequate mental health services from the Veterans Administration. He was suffering from the material violence that denies all members of our society that they need to survive. It is likely that he felt silenced and powerless. Somehow he blamed his powerlessness of liberals, according to police statements he thought that liberals were responsible for his inability to find a job, and decided that in order to feel powerful, in order to be heard, he would act out with violence against them.

Unitarian Universalism has a rich tradition of striving to address both the kind of violence that Adkisson suffered from--the disempowerment of the marginalized--and the violence that he has inflicted. More than 160 years ago Adin Ballou, a minister who served both Universalist and Unitarian congregations, articulated both the problems of a violent society and the solution to such violence. Contemporary Unitarian Universalist theologian Rebecca Parker has reflected on how as individuals and as a society we might strive to move past violence. Both Parker and Ballou offer us useful theological resources for responding to violence. In their own way they each suggest paths for making the world a truly safer place, a place in which there is less violence.

When we are confronted with things that we do not understand--acts of senseless violence such as the recent shooting in Knoxville--Parker believes that we find ourselves at a "religious impasse." A religious impasse is "a time when we realize that the faith we have inherited is inadequate for what we are facing." At such times Parker thinks "we have three choices: We can hold to our religious beliefs and deny our experience, we can hold to our experience and walk away from our religious tradition, or we can become theologians."

To become a theologian means to "reexamine fundamental religious questions: How do human beings survive violence and suffering? Can we be saved from violence? When despair and anguish threaten to overwhelm us, how can we be restored to confidence?" There is no better place to examine such questions than in a Unitarian Universalist community where each is free to examine her own experience and find the answers that best make sense for her.

Working from within the Unitarian Universalist community Parker suggests that violence is best met by love. Stopping short of a pacifist position--Parker believes that "there are times when violence is a last resort in...defense"--she argues that violence "can never bring peace into being." That is what love is for. She writes, "Love is the active, creative force that repairs life's injuries and brings new possibilities into being. Love generates life...in the darkest night, when our hearts are breaking, love embraces us even when we cannot embrace ourselves...Love, in its myriad forms, can recall us to life."

The wider Unitarian Universalist community has responded to the murders in Knoxville with love. Such a love cannot do anything but rejuvenate the assaulted community. It should remind them of their connection to a larger whole and the commitment of their community to support them during times of trial.

Love also saved my acquaintance. It was ultimately the love of his parents and his wider community that was able to get him the healing help that he needed and transform his life.

Parker does not suggest that love alone is sufficient to end violence. Instead she believes that we must be truth tellers as well and "provide a clear-eyed description of the world." That is part of what I am trying to do today by suggesting that so often those who inflict violence on others have had violence inflicted upon them. Such violence can take many forms--it can be physical, emotional or spiritual--but it is almost always repaid with violence.

Adin Ballou was one of the early figures to argue that violence should be met with nonviolence. He believed that by doing so the cycle of violence could eventually be broken and hate replaced with love. Ballou is a figure who is not widely remembered today but historians of nonviolence such as Michael True rank his contribution to nonviolent thought equal to that of Leo Tolstoy, Gandhi and Gene Sharp.

Ballou's book Christian Non-Resistance outlines his vision of a world free from violence and his understanding of how the human community might create such a world. He argues that violence should be met both with what he calls "uninjurious force" which is "the application of muscular strength for the purpose of preventing human beings from committing some injury to themselves or others" and a kind moral force that seeks to heal the psychologically traumatized. Ballou's uninjurious force is exactly like the force that the people in Knoxville used to disarm their assailant. It did not cause him physical harm but it rendered him harmless.

The moral force Ballou suggests shows itself in two primary ways. First it is the rejection of the use of physical force as a way to solve problems and resolve conflict. For Ballou this most importantly means rejecting the doctrine of an eye for an eye. Assailants are to be met with love. Noninjurious force maybe used but once the threat has been neutralized revenge is not to be sought. Instead compassion is to be operative principle.

Second it seeks to heal "dangerous persons" by placing them in "asylums of kindness, peace and useful instruction...carefully contrived for the highest good of the unfortunate prisoner" and hoping that in such a loving environment they might eventually be able to reject the violence within them.

Essentially what Ballou is arguing is that we must replace violence with peace and that we must do this throughout our society--in our families, in our cities and in our nations--if we are ever to truly be safe. This complements Parker's belief in the transformative power of love. Together Parker and Ballou suggest a way forward, a way in which we religious liberals could seek to build a better and safer world, one in which violence becomes increasingly rare. With Parker we can seek to operate from a place where love is our motive force. With Ballou we can strive to practice nonviolence. Most importantly we can learn to recognize the many forms of violence around us--material, emotional, spiritual and physical--, speak out against them and try to prevent all of those who suffer from violence, including ourselves, from slipping through the cracks. This is the work of the generations. A peaceful world will not come in our lifetimes but we can each take one small step for peace and make the effort to reject violence.

That it may be so, I say Amen.