Who Would Jesus Shoot? AKA, Stop Putting Jesus in a Clown Suit

Well, to provide a tl;dr answer to the question posed in the blog title, He might shoot a lot of B.C. Egyptians, particularly first born sons. He’d also maybe shoot Canaanites—all of them.

Lots of the contextual “What would Jesus do in x situation? Let’s find out,” hypotheticals end up being an ad absurdum argument, because the image of be-robed and be-sandaled Anglo Jesus doesn’t square away with the firearm violence. It’s too incongruous and image to be truthful, so of course we conclude, very nearly on reflex, and most often before we really think about, that He wouldn’t kill (shoot, stab, bomb, etc.) anyone. You can substitute “kill” with any other unsavory or even silly things the modern mind can come up with, and with some careful planning, carve out your very own Jesus idol that strangely resembles a late 20th century centrist American voter. There just no way Jesus could’ve thought or acted differently than me, my friends, or anyone I admire. God isn’t in the business of dashing out expectations, is He?

To give this imagery some…more imagery, it’s like putting our Viking, sandy-coiffed Jesus in a clown suit and presenting it as our argument. Ecce stultus! But sons of gods don’t wear clown suits. I, for one, prefer not to reduce Jesus to situational ethics, which is why I’m wary of the moderate rigor of translating Jesus’ actions into modern contexts.

While it’s probably true He literally didn’t kill anyone, that doesn’t necessarily rule out, if we know anything about God has acted in the world in the past, that He could have killed someone. The Bible is filled with people doing lots of strange things under God’s command, like cooking with poop and marrying prostitutes, wearing camelhair robes and eating bugs, and killing—lots and lots of killing. Is it really so untoward, given the history presented in the Old Testament, that Jesus could have killed someone? This “not killing” thing may be a clue: just as some (most?) things don’t fall to us, as our mission, killing wasn’t part of His particular mission.