Watch: One Issue That Increasingly Divides Evangelicals in America: Gun Control
Rev. Rob Schenck is the subject of the new documentary "The Armor of Light," which is part of the two-night PBS special Armed in America. The special event focuses on the changing views of gun violence in the United States, beyond party lines.
According to the Washington Post, Schenck's views were shaped by the D.C. Navy Yard shooting in 2013:
"For years, Rev. Rob Schenck led nonviolent protests as an anti-abortion activist, focusing on abortion as the primary 'sanctity of human life' issue." 'I'll be very candid, I haven't felt that it's our issue, until we end up kneeling in prayer, outside the Navy Yard gates in my neighborhood where my apartment building was in lockdown,' he says in the film that will be released on Oct. 30. 'So suddenly it goes from theoretical to very realistic.' "
"When you talk about aiming a weapon at another human being, no matter what the circumstances are, that's a question of paramount moral and ethical dimensions, so it's something that we should take very seriously, and I don't know that a lot of us are," Schenck told NPR.
Lucy McBath certainly is. The mother of Jordan Davis, an unarmed Florida teenager killed in 2012 works to unify other Christian believers.Â
“My whole focus was raising Jordan and serving God," McBath explains in the film. "Instead of looking to God righteously as the protector, we have replaced God with our guns. God did not give you the right to shoot to kill because you think that you're threatened," she added.
Schenck agreed. "Even if it's an evil person you err on the side of preserving life," he states.
The Armor of Light will air on PBS on Tuesday, May 10 and will be streaming online until June 9.