Campaign supported by ABHMS grant calls for one million Christian gun owners to disarm
![Calvin Lee, co-founder of [Gospel]](https://abhms.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Calvin-Lee-Headshot-450x600.jpg)
Calvin Lee, co-founder of [Gospel] and speaker at the 2024 Space for Grace & Spiritual Caregivers Conference.
LAY IT DOWN’s focus on Christians is not coincidental; 38 percent of white evangelicals and 35 percent of white mainline Protestants owned a gun in 2022, as compared to 10 percent of Jews and Muslims. Recognizing the deadly impact of gun violence, faith leaders across the nation have organized protest rallies and vigils. Faith is a driver of gun safety activism for many, including Prince and Lee. “It’s time for thoughtful Christians to love their neighbors and do what Jesus would do,” they say. “It’s time to lay it all down.”
![Marisa Prince, [Gospel]](https://abhms.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Marisa-Prince-Headshot-432x600.jpg)
Marisa Prince, co-founder of nonprofit [Gospel] and speaker at the 2024 Space for Grace & Spiritual Caregivers Conference.
The duo’s plans for 2025 are equally ambitious. They include organizing discussion groups around the project content, delivering more theater performances, and publishing a book (with a companion workbook) of reflections of “ordinary Christians” on guns following the 2023 mass shooting in Allen, Texas. Another concert and a rally are also in the offing. The year will conclude with a planned “Gun Surrender Month,” when gun owners will be encouraged to relinquish their weapons through buyback and other programs.
The idea is simple—use faith-derived strategies to solve seemingly intractable social problems. To achieve their goal, Prince and Lee propose to employ a paradigm of truthfulness, oneness and action. Prince reflected, “Until we really are willing to be truthful about who we are, where we’ve been, what our follies are, and how we benefit from [injustice], we can’t get to oneness because we can’t all be together until we’re honest about the things that we have allowed to keep us apart. This is ‘heart work’ that is necessary and the action necessary in the body of Christ.”
The Rev. Dr. Lauren Ng, ABHMS director of Leadership Empowerment, which sponsored the grant, says the organization “is proud to support [GOSPEL]’s LAY IT DOWN campaign.” Ng considers faith leaders to be uniquely positioned to address the catastrophic effects of gun violence in the U.S. and prays that the ABHMS grant “equips [Prince and Lee] to undertake this truly life-saving and transformative work of engaging Christian communities on this topic and compelling them to act.“
Prince and Lee are featured co-speakers at the Changemakers Luncheon, April 11, part of ABHMS’ signature national event, Space for Grace & Spiritual Caregivers Conference 2024; “Engaging Intergenerational Faith.” For information about participating virtually in the three-day gathering and to register, visit the Space for Grace website.