While, as a professor, talking is my business, I am generally reluctant to talk about my faith. One reason for this is a matter of professionalism. As a professor at a state university, it would be both unprofessional and improper to preach rather than teach. While some might take the view that a believer should attempt to always spread their belief, consider if you hired a plumber to fix your sink and she spent the entire time preaching rather than plumbing. If my students seek religion, they can easily find it in the many places of worship in Tallahassee. If I wished to be a religious teacher, I could seek employment at a religious institution. If I wanted to preach rather than teach, I could join the ministry.

Another reason for my reluctance is that our ruling class has taken Aristotle’s advice to heart. “A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.” Also, in the United States, when a person loudly professes to be Christian, they are all too often signaling that they have spray painted their cruelty, greed, and bigotry with a thin coat of theology. When I do not have time to explain what I believe, I prefer to remain silent, lest someone think that I am signaling that I am a wicked person trying to mask my sins with false faith. This, I admit, makes me feel some shame.

I am also reluctant to impose on people as a matter of humility. Billions of humans have and have had deeply held religious beliefs. But each person’s beliefs differ from those of everyone else and even themselves over time. It would be the height of prideful arrogance to think that I, out of the billions, have gotten things right and can thus impose my beliefs on others. But I obviously think there is value in sharing what I believe in this context as I have no power over you and you can stop reading at any time. I now turn to the main topic, that of my faith and violence.

While I am working through a general theory of violence, the recent killings of Renee Good and Alex Petti by ICE agents of the Trump regime have focused my thoughts on the claim that we (or perhaps only ICE agents) are permitted to use violence when we are afraid for our lives. This can also be cast as the general topic of self-defense. A good place to begin is the commandment against killing.

When I was a young atheist, I delighted in pointing out the apparent contradiction in the bible between the commandment against killing and the fact that the text explicitly allows for or even calls for killing. But, as my colleagues in religion point out, the commandment is against wrongful killing. While the ethics of killing can and should be debated, this entails that certain types of killing are acceptable even if one accepts this commandment. As my religion colleagues tell me, the bible does allow killing in self-defense. But this leads to the question of what counts as self-defense and the additional question about when one should kill rather than avoid doing so. My view, as I will argue in a future essay, is that killing should be avoided and that a believer should accept considerable risk to avoid killing another even in self-defense. But, to provide a concrete example, I will examine the killing of Renee Good. Using the religious context is especially relevant since ICE agent Jonathan Ross has been angelized by the right as a conservative Christian. In contrast, they have tried to demonize Renee Good.

According to the Trump regime, Ross was acting in self defense when he killed Renee Good. But is this claim justified? The gist of the argument in favor of this claim is that Ross was in front of Renee Good’s vehicle and she drove towards him, thus making him afraid for his life. There seem to be two possibilities as to why he was in front of her vehicle and thus allegedly in danger. The first is that he unintentionally acted in violation of his training  and good sense by placing himself in front of a moving vehicle. If this is the case, then his incompetence or bad judgment placed him in a situation in which he was allegedly afraid for his life. Even if he believed that Renee Good was trying to run him over, his actions placed him in that alleged danger, and this would undercut a self-defense justification. I must stress that I am not engaged in “victim blaming” of the sort that blames a woman for being assaulted because of how she was dressed or where she went. Rather, Ross should have acted in accord with his training and good sense because he should know that his failure could result in the death of another. If so, he would have some guilt in causing a wrongful death. As far as the legal issue goes, that is up to the courts.

The other possibility is that Ross intentionally moved in front of the vehicle with the intention of placing himself in potential danger so he could claim he was “afraid for his life” and thus use violence in “self-defense.” That is, Ross was trying to set up Renee Good so he could shoot her. In this case, he would be guilty of causing a wrongful death, although one could argue that God might see the sin as somewhat mitigated since one could argue that there was some possible mote of self defense in all the blood that was spilled.

As might be gathered, my view is that killing someone because one’s incompetence or malign intent created a “self-defense” situation is not warranted. But what about the situation that inspired my consideration of my philosophy of violence? That question will be the focus of my next essay in this series and will require a dive into my metaphysics and view of love and faith. Stay safe.