Funerals and Firearms
Facing the Loss of a Child
About the author: Rev. Catherine Tobey is a current PhD student in theological ethics at the University of Aberdeen. Drawing on Karl Barth’s theology, her research centers children as the dynamic, interpretive key to the Church’s understanding and enactment of the Kingdom of God. Catherine is a graduate of Whitworth University and Princeton Theological Seminary, and is a Minister of Word & Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA).
As we enter the Lenten season, what grieves me most is the children whose absence makes the world (even more) bleak.
Naturally, I wonder what Barth would have to say about the little ones whose lives have been lost in the last year. I think of those who have died as immigrants and refugees, the children killed while adults waged wars, and kids grappling with inadequate medical care and nutrition. Applying Barth’s ethics to each scenario would be interesting, but Lent makes me feel more blue than argumentative.
So, I wonder if we might explore Barth’s words as a father who lost his son. If you have not read Karl’s funeral sermon for Matthias, who died during a mountain tour, it is worthwhile. The text, published in This Incomplete One: Words Occasioned by the Death of a Young Person, explores 1 Corinthians 13:12 alongside Matthias’ twenty years of life.
In this sermon, Barth celebrates how his son saw the world: “Everything was immersed in the sphere of his imagination. Everything was related to his own creative longing…Everything was always a little different in reality than it was in his thoughts and intentions.”1
According to Barth, Matthias “never stopped dreaming childhood dreams,” which took the form of an “experiment with the outer world and its tasks, with people, with his own strengths and possibilities.”2
This worldview—this openness to new ideas, this day-to-day exploration of one’s imaginative horizons—is compelling. And it makes me curious how we would grow as a society if we took young peoples’ perspectives seriously rather than treating them as naïve.
Instead of expecting younger folks to follow in our footsteps, what if we sought to imitate those younger than us? Like Matthias, they may seem enraptured by a reality we cannot quite grasp. But this does not have to frustrate us; it is an opportunity for curiosity and learning, a chance to participate in young ones’ experiments.
Truth be told, I have a hard time imagining why we would not want to be a part of the world unfolding at young people’s fingertips. It is certainly better than the drama or monotony of our adult lives.
Besides, we may not always have the chance to attend to young people. In Barth’s sermon, he mentions the “lingering questions” that remain after losing a loved one, particularly, “Did we not owe him much more while he was still with us?”3 I invite you to ask this question: Do we not owe today’s children so much more than they currently experience?
The state of the world is so sad, especially when you stop to think about it. It is easy, particularly in the face of great loss, to tend toward despair, asking ourselves, “What are we, what can we do, what do we know, of what use are all our questions, our contemplations, and desires in the face of the great, inexorable mystery of death?”4
This is even worse than how the world keeps spinning despite the tragedies closest to our hearts. Indeed, the Barth family not only had to face the loss of Matthias but reckon with Hitler declaring war on Russia the same day (which marked “the expansion of World War II into eastern Europe”).5
So, this Lent, the horrors around us, too seem to have no end. I could point to the children killed in Israel’s genocidal attacks, displaced and vulnerable in the Congo), or those trekking across Latin America on their own in search of safety.
The horrors also persist closer to home. As I work on my PhD in the UK, the view back to the United States is dire. When I was a kid, there were about 38 school shootings per year across the country.6 I remember the prospect of a school shooting being scary, but I was not haunted by it (that is until I later worked at a school and led active shooter drills with young children). However, 2024 saw over 300 school shootings, which follow an alarming trend.7
This may seem like a strange connection point to Barth’s funeral sermon for his son, but bear with me. When a young person dies, the world left behind misses out on the impact of their imagined horizons and how they envisioned a new world. It is absolutely tragic.
However, it gets worse. The prevalence of school shootings has resulted in environments where students are no longer able to dream. Schools have become sources of trauma rather than stability for students.
Studies show that following school shootings, there is an increase in depression, PTSD, and absenteeism, and a decrease in test scores, graduation rates, college enrollment and graduation, and employment. This is distressing, and not just because these longitudinal studies began when rates of school shootings were much lower.
Did you know that some of these symptoms are even evident in students who were simply exposed to the news of a school shooting? It is impossible to wrap my head around the fear students must have daily, but then comes the realization that this is not misplaced anxiety. Guns are the leading cause of death among American children and teens; this truly is their reality.
In a previous post, I explored young people as witnesses to the Kingdom of God. When I think about the state of school shootings in the USA, I wonder about the incredible witness we are all missing out on. Young people, rightfully consumed by whether or not today is their last day on earth, are not free to imagine a better tomorrow.
When we do not take the reality of school shootings seriously, I do not think our witness to them is very effective either. Looking back to Barth’s funeral sermon, I am struck by the challenge Christians have in proclaiming God’s victory over death when experiencing a different reality, one where death reigns supreme.
Barth writes,
Even if we cannot rejoice ourselves, we still hear an entirely different voice rejoice even over the evil…where everything happened, also over the grave from which we have just come. This voice speaks…about peace and joy and life to the fullest [John 10:10]. What else can we do as we hear this voice but thank our God—even if in tears—that he fulfilled his good will and purpose in the life and death of our Matthias And with us, too!8
Death, especially the death of a child, is horrifying. We wish things were different. And sometimes, we can do nothing about it, like in the case of Matthias’ tragic end. But when it comes to school shootings, our response cannot be the same. People smarter than me have worked out a wide variety of ways forward—so pick this one, or this one, or this one and get behind it.
What can we do about school shootings? Plenty.
Perhaps I am idealistic and impatient, but should you not be too? Children are dying, and with them, an understanding of the Kingdom of God that is beyond us as adults. After all, Scripture tells us they are the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven and the ones to whom it belongs!
I am tired of opening my apps to hear of new (and old) horrors that force kids heavenward too soon. What if, instead, our overwhelm was rooted in the wonderful plethora of ways young people imagined and created a new world?
I do not want to hear about children’s funerals; I want to hear how they think we can all make this side of eternity more like the next.
In any case, whether they live or die, as adults, we are not off the hook. When little ones in our communities and across the globe are called home, we are left with an important task: imitating them and the futures they envisioned. Indeed, this does not just honor their memory but is consistent with a Christian life that yearns for God’s Kingdom come.
Karl Barth, “Matthias Barth,” in This Incomplete One: Words Occasioned by the Death of a Young Person, ed. Michael D. Bush (Eerdmans, 2006), 14.
Barth, This Incomplete One, 14.
Barth, This Incomplete One, 18.
Barth, This Incomplete One, 18.
Barth, This Incomplete One, 18.
This average is calculated according to David Riedman’s helpful research: https://k12ssdb.org/interactive-map.
David Riedman, K–12 Shooting School Database: https://k12ssdb.org.
Barth, This Incomplete One, 20.
Dear Catherine. As a fellow believer, PCUSA pastor, Princeton Seminary grad, and parent, I greatly appreciate your passion and expressed truths and hopes, amidst the pain and suffering of the world's children, as you wrote in your article "Funerals and Firearms." As law enforcement, a former middle school teacher and a parent I share your great concern for what has transpired in our schools and to our creative children, torn from this life in such violence. May I in Christian love also add that when you focus on one people (Israel’s genocidal attacks) as if they are the only culprits in that Gaza battle, you immediately lose the cohesive partnership you are seeking to cement with others. In addition, having been in law enforcement and too well associated with school shootings and think that the issue is firearms, may I politely invite you to consider the dark soul of the individual who uses that firearm. The firearm is the last weapon of violence used by the shooter unto others and as well as to the shooter him or herself. We have violently ripped the values of God out of the soul our nation, from schools to the halls of Congress. We are forbidden to pray while our children pray on violent dehumanizing "games" with little association between violent games, violent television, violent movies and the very way our children's "imagination" is violent toward others. So yes, I agree with you wholeheartedly that "we are left with an important task: imitating them and the futures they envisioned. " But we have a priority responsibility to them prior to them even having an imagination of their futures, and that is giving them the heart of the ONE who imagined all of us from the very beginning. A child who is becoming a "little Christ" every day is a child who grow up safe and secure, knowing they are loved by God and who will be the one to help end school shootings. Thank you. Reid
Thank you, Catherine, for this very fine, indeed most moving, reflection - informed by Barth's sermon on the death of his son, leading to illuminating insights on ongoing school violence.
A most grateful reader. Patrick