Gun culture defines the United States. An estimated 400+ million guns are in the hands of U.S. civilians, and popular culture glorifies their use. Yet, while a majority of Americans say gun violence is a problem, we don’t see real legislative action to address these issues. What can people of faith do to disrupt our nation’s love affair with guns? What role does race play in this debate? How is U.S. foreign policy impacted? This issue of Fellowship magazine asks whether we can truly beat swords into plowshares, as the scriptures proclaim.
Every article in the print issue will be made available online over the next month. So stay tuned for more.
Editorial
Healing will never come from the barrel of a gun
Rabia Terri Harris
Features
Confronting gun culture
James Zogby
Why we keep trying to reject gun culture
Robert Steiner
In guns we trust
Shane Claiborne
America’s Deal with the Devil
Marita Golden
Gun culture, Israeli style
Mitchell Plitnick
Why I laid down my gun in the middle of a war
Diana Oestreich
Poems
Too many tears
Milton Jordan
ER S/P GSW
Paul Hlava Ceballos
Departments
Book Reviews
Bootstrap Justice: The Search for Mexico’s Disappeared
Bayard Rustin: A Legacy of Protest and Politics
War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine
The Wall Between: What Jews and Palestinians Don’t Want to Know About Each Other
I Surrender: A Memoir of Chile’s Dictatorship, 1975
Building Up a New World: Congregational Organizing for Transformative Impact
Track II Diplomacy: Lessons From the Middle East
No Guilty Bystander: The Extraordinary Life of Bishop Thomas Gumbleton
FOR voices
Bibi’s Bible Lessons: How Netanyahu sells the Gaza War to the Jewish and Christian far right
Ariel Gold
We are incomplete without each other
Graylan Scott Hagler
From our archives
Police verses military
Leyton Richards
Recommended resources
Ethan Vesely-Flad
Memorials
Ed Claflin