Gun violence prevention with Deanna Hollas

Her title is: Gun Violence Prevention Minister. And she's the only minister like this that exists, anywhere. Listen to Deanna Hollas from Dallas talk about the importance of her ministry and her views on guns, the Second Amendment, and the prophet Isaiah's vision of a peaceable kingdom.

Listen here, read the transcript below, or click here for the full video version.

George Mason: We normally think of ministers as preaching from a pulpit or officiating at the table. But Deanna Hollas is a minister whose ordination is specifically to the work of reducing gun violence. She's the first in America to do that job in that way. We'll be hearing from her on Good God. Stay tuned.

George Mason: Welcome to good God, conversations that matter about faith and public life. I'm your host, George Mason, and I'm pleased to welcome to the program today, Deanna Hollas. Deanna, we're glad to have you with us today.

Deanna Hollas: Glad to be here. Thank you George.

George Mason: Deanna is, well, she has a distinction as being recently ordained in the Presbyterian Church USA, but the first known minister to be ordained specifically to the work of addressing gun violence.

Deanna Hollas: Correct.

George Mason: So this is an extraordinary thing. I think many people wouldn't know. Most people are ordained to do work of Word and Sacrament, as your language of your tradition would say, in a congregational setting. Or, they might be ordained to teach, or they might be ordained to be hospital chaplains. So we're now getting closer to the kind of ordination that you have. You are ordained as a minister, but to this specific work in the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship.

Deanna Hollas: Fellowship. Mm-hmm (affirmative).

George Mason: Right?

Deanna Hollas: Correct.

George Mason: Very good. And say more about that Peace Fellowship. I know that you're also involved as faith lead in the Dallas chapter of Moms Demand Action, which is, again, a gun violence organization. And you are the chair of the task force of Faith Forward Dallas at Thanks-Giving Square that addresses gun sense, a group I'm involved with as well. But specifically, what's the work that you're doing that you've been ordained to, Deanna?

Deanna Hollas: Yeah. With the Peace Fellowship, I'm the Gun Violence Prevention Ministry Coordinator. So what that looks like is the Peace Fellowship had ... Well, at the time when I came on board, we had about 600 names in our database of folks that had said they wanted to be counted in to prevent gun violence. We are now over a thousand names of folks.

George Mason: Wow.

Deanna Hollas: So my role is kind of to build community with those contacts. The Peace Fellowship had been producing, sending out emails, putting together. We have a congregational toolkit for ideas, but there wasn't a real way to get information back to be able to say, "What have you done? What's working for you? What are the obstacles that you're facing, and what do you need? How can we help you?" So that was what my role is to be, is to be that connector for congregations, to be a resource for them for how they can talk about gun violence in their context. Yeah.

George Mason: Most people, I think, probably have a sense of call to ministry that is more general. Yours is quite specific. Let's talk about how it came to pass. How did you sense a call to do this work as a minister?

Deanna Hollas: Yeah. Well, it actually happened as part of Faith Forward Dallas being at the NRA, the visual that we had when the NRA was in town. And I had been struggling, actually, with my call. I'd been through seminary. I was in the ordination process, but I wasn't quite sure that being in a parish ... It just didn't feel quite right. So I'd been through a process of discerning. I had opened up the Spirituality Center in Richardson. And whether or not, that was where I was being called.

Deanna Hollas: Then, we had the the prayer vigil. I'd actually showed up at that with the intention that, "Okay. This is going to be my chance to say if you're stepping out of the ordination process. See what it's like to just be Deanna Hollas." And several of the folks there can tell you that it was a very difficult and challenging weekend for me. It was not easy to not be able to represent the church and, particularly, to not be able to represent the Presbyterian Church, because we have been speaking out against gun violence for 50 years.

George Mason: Wow.

Deanna Hollas: We have a policy that's one of the most developed of any other denomination.

George Mason: Interesting.

Deanna Hollas: At least that's how we like to brag about it. So this is something that's really important to my identity, is being a Presbyterian and speaking out about gun violence.

Deanna Hollas: So that weekend, the turning point for me was when Brian Mann with NPR showed up. It was early Saturday morning, and he interviewed me and Nancy Kasten and Rachel Bachman. He put the microphone and he said, "State your name." And it was, "Deanna Hollis, Rabbi Nancy Kasten, and Reverend Rachel Bachman." He came back to me and he said, "Are you a member of the clergy?" And I had to say, "No."

George Mason: Aha.

Deanna Hollas: I instantly felt like my voice just shrunk.

George Mason: Interesting.

Deanna Hollas: And I kind of wanted to walk away, but Nancy was like, "No, Deanna. You need to be here." Because she recognized that I was very involved in gun violence prevention and that I had a knowledge that they didn't necessarily have, because they weren't as indepthly involved as I was. So that was the realization, a couple of things.

George Mason: Okay, so let's just stop.

Deanna Hollas: Okay.

George Mason: Let's just stop and reflect there. So Rabbi Nancy Kasten, who happens to be the Chief Relationship Officer for Faith Commons, the parent group to Good God. She was the first to, in a sense, lay hands on you and say, "You have a call here, and you're one of us."

Deanna Hollas: Yes.

George Mason: Isn't that part of the wonder of how God is at work right now in the world, is in these relationships even across denominational lines as Christians and across religious lines, multi-faith groups, and individuals? You sense that you belong because a Rabbi says, "No, you are one of us."

Deanna Hollas: Yeah.

George Mason: What a remarkable thing that God is speaking to you in that way, and we are all grateful. And those of us who work with you at Faith Forward Dallas have no question in our minds about that, as well. So thank you for your leadership.

Deanna Hollas: Yeah. Thank you.

George Mason: Wonderful.

Deanna Hollas: Thank you.

George Mason: But originally, you decided to go to seminary anyway to explore this. What was the faith journey that led you even to that point, before the specific work of addressing gun violence?

Deanna Hollas: Yes. I first felt called to the ministry of spiritual direction. That was why I entered seminary. It was kind of an accident. I was actually an accountant. That was my first trade. After staying home with kids, I felt called to return to the churches. I was an interim accountant for Westminster Presbyterian here, and it was in that role that I felt the call to spiritual direction.

Deanna Hollas: Folks would come into my office. We would start out talking about accounting, but it always would kind of lead to their faith journey. And at one point in time, my coworkers even took the chair out of my office because I was like, "I can't get any work done."

George Mason: Oh, right. Right.

Deanna Hollas: Because people keep coming and talking, and wanting to talk about things. So I was like, "I can't keep doing this."

George Mason: So you were actually helping congregants make the connection between money and their spiritual life. Would you come help our people do that as well, please? Please don't let that slide. That sounds like a really important thing for our congregations, too.

George Mason: But eventually then, that leads you to seminary and then to an even more focused work on gun violence. I think it's also interesting though, probably. First you were making the connection between spirituality and money, and now you're making the connection between spirituality and a public witness about gun violence. So action and contemplation, both, right?

Deanna Hollas: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

George Mason: These things go hand in hand. They're not two different things. They're two aspects of the same thing. How do you think about the rootedness of faith convictions when you think about gun violence and the challenge of it?

Deanna Hollas: Yeah. I think that prayer, worship, and theology are what is our grounding.

George Mason: Yeah.

Deanna Hollas: Right? That's what we stand on. When we're there, that's what we speak from, right? And that's how we're able to do this. I think that part of what makes it challenging and difficult to talk about this, is because of what happens in our bodies when we start to carry on difficult conversations. And that's where spiritual practices can help.

George Mason: Right.

Deanna Hollas: Because-

George Mason: Because we get anxious. We get angry. We feel defensive. And spiritual practices teach us to put our trust in God, to find a place of quiet center, to be grounded in being not in doing. All of those things are the things you talk about in spiritual practices, right?

Deanna Hollas: Yeah. Yeah. I also think as we start to unravel what is the root of our gun violence, we're going to have to address things like confession and forgiveness.

George Mason: Wow. Right.

Deanna Hollas: And there's going to be practices that can help us with that. Because again, that's tough stuff.

George Mason: Violence is rooted in rivalry, in competition, in fear, in a sense of scarcity, in pain and suffering. How we learn to deal with those things, not just whether we can get sensible gun laws passed, but how to change human hearts and relationships. This is where that spiritual route is, isn't it?

Deanna Hollas: Yeah, it is. And that's where I think this ... People like to put this as a either or, right? It's a matter of laws, or it's a matter of the heart. But it is a both/and. We need both. That's where we need laws, but we also need to be looking at, "Why are we violent, and what is this about?"

George Mason: Which probably leads us to say that when people who are defending the right to bear arms and the unlimited access to guns make the claim that guns don't kill, people kill, that sort of thing. Well, they're not entirely wrong about that. Right? So I think you're right. We do sort of position people. Either you believe this, or you believe this. Can't you believe all things?

Deanna Hollas: Yeah.

George Mason: Right? So changing patterns of how we resolve conflict and learn to deal with one another is part of the transformation of society, not just getting the guns out of people's hands, even if that's important as well.

Deanna Hollas: Yes.

George Mason: How do you address that as a part of your work when so much of the attention now is on lobbying efforts to pass certain laws?

Deanna Hollas: Yeah, and it is. I have to say that that part's a little frustrating, right?

George Mason: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Deanna Hollas: So when we start to get frustrated about that, I think that's a lane for the church. It's to be able to say, "Okay. So how can we focus on this cultural change, and what are the things that we can do?" The important thing is even just having the conversations.

George Mason: Yes.

Deanna Hollas: So that's what I've been inviting congregations that haven't been active before, to help them see, particularly here in the congregations that are in the Presbyterian Church. We're known as purple congregations. We have members that are on both sides of this issue. So we can be a model for how to carry on these difficult conversations, because we're people that still gather together willingly. That doesn't happen when it's a political issue.

George Mason: Right.

Deanna Hollas: But if we can get it into being a matter of start talking about experience and getting into levels of the heart, then I think we'll be able to show the rest of the nation how we can carry on these conversations.

George Mason: If we can go to the communion table together and say, "There is something deeper than our differences politically and over the right to bear arms on these sorts of things, whether we support this law or that, but we can see one another as sisters and brothers." It makes a difference in the way we have conversation about these differences, doesn't it?

Deanna Hollas: It does.

George Mason: Yeah.

Deanna Hollas: And that's why it's Minister of Word and Sacrament.

George Mason: Okay. Exactly. Minister of Word and Sacrament, even if it's not in the congregational setting.

Deanna Hollas: That's correct.

George Mason: Because it's that spiritual root that's so important.

Deanna Hollas: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

George Mason: Very good. Well, we're going to take a break. When we come back, I want us to, though, explore how we get past the all or nothing mentality about how to address Second Amendment issues and legitimate questions of rights and responsibilities about the use of guns. So let's hold that for now, and we'll be right back.

George Mason: The Good God program is a project of Faith Commons, a nonprofit organization I founded in 2018 to help promote the common good. Doing public theology across faith traditions and across racial and ethnic lines is an important thing today in our communities. We hope you'll continue to enjoy Good God, but look at some of the other things we're doing also through Faith Commons at www.faithcommons.org.

George Mason: We're back with Deanna Hollas, a minister. What's the language you use? Minister to gun violence? What language do you use about that?

Deanna Hollas: That's a good question. I mean, it's actually just that my role is the Gun Violence Prevention Minister.

George Mason: Very good. All right. When you were ordained just a couple of months ago, beautiful article, a story in the New York times, and then picked up by all sorts of people, CNN and others. We're all very proud of you locally here, that this is something that is a work that many of us believe in. But, it's contentious work. It's not like hospital chaplaincy where everybody is so grateful that you're there comforting the sick and the dying, and those sorts of things. You sometimes are having to argue for things that require people to give up some of their sense of rights for the sake of other people. And it feels like, in our country, it's so often an all or nothing at all proposition, isn't it?

Deanna Hollas: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

George Mason: That you're either for an unlimited access to guns, or you just want to take everybody's guns away. Right? How do you begin to chip away at that and address the question of how reducing gun violence does require some changes in our laws?

Deanna Hollas: Yeah. I think, again, the first thing is you have to start with just listening to one another, and being able to establish a foundation that we can hear. We can understand the experience. The person who is very resistant to the Second Amendment, they didn't get there one day and wake up. So it's understanding what is their experience about that, to be able to listen to them and hear what it is that they may be afraid of. Right?

George Mason: Right.

Deanna Hollas: And to be able then to talk about that, to get beyond just being ... So it's not just the Second Amendment. Why do you feel this way about this? Right?

George Mason: Sure, sure.

Deanna Hollas: Where is this coming from? What has led you to this place? And then I think it's also another tool is to be able to look at our history. Once we start to understand ... We've been told history from a very narrow perspective in this country. So to be able to start to look at the history from a broader perspective and more angles is, I'm hoping, will be what's needed.

George Mason: Okay. Well, the Bill of Rights, itself, is not absolute. Because even if you look at the First Amendment, for instance, freedom of speech. Well, you can't yell fire in a crowded theater. That's, you would say, free speech. But it is not permissible in order to do so. But when it comes to the Second Amendment, we should also say that maybe certain limitations should be justifiable in order to protect the larger community. What are some things that are sensible gun legislation that you would advocate for, and are now? And help us to consider that.

Deanna Hollas: Yeah. I think the first thing that we need to do is we need to have a background check on all gun sales. Currently, there are not background checks that are done between individuals. I don't know if you've seen Beto O'Rourke. He recently went to a gun show in Oklahoma, which is something that we plan to do and to be able to talk to these folks that are there. He encountered a man who was selling guns there, and that man said, "I shouldn't be allowed to do this without a background check."

George Mason: Wow.

Deanna Hollas: So that's what we need to do if-

George Mason: Yeah. Even many times people who are able to do these things don't agree that it's the right thing to do. Right?

Deanna Hollas: That's right.

George Mason: Right.

Deanna Hollas: So that's the first thing. And then the second thing is to be able to have some ... what's called a red flag law or an extreme risk protection order. Like the Parkland shooting, for example. They knew that that kid was a danger. So to be able to have ways to go in when there's potential issue and to be able to ... for safety purposes of both the individual and also in suicides. There's often times when people are suicidal, to be able to get the guns away. So to have some means to temporarily remove them, these laws are set up. The thing that most people get concerned about is, "Well, is there going to be due process?" And there is. These laws have been effective and proven to be effective in the states that have them.

Deanna Hollas: I also think that we should reinstate some type of ban on these assault weapons. There's no reason that we should have that type of weapon on our streets and in the hands of civilians.

George Mason: Right.

Deanna Hollas: Magazines. The fellow who walked into, I think it was in Ohio, that had a hundred rounds that he could ... There's no need for anybody to have access to these types of weapons. And we do already have these limitations. You can't own certain weapons. A machine gun, for example. There are requirements on that, and who can have them, and what that looks like.

Deanna Hollas: This releasing of gun laws is actually pretty new. If you look back at the history, it's only recently with the NRA and the legislation that they've been ... They have been dismantling our gun laws in this country.

George Mason: Right. Right. Right, it's not like we're trying to advocate for restrictions for the very first time in the history of our country.

Deanna Hollas: That's correct.

George Mason: It's that legal cases have been brought to undermine restrictions that have been in place, and now we're just simply trying to bring them back in other forms. But enforcement is also an issue, right?

Deanna Hollas: Yes.

George Mason: We have gun laws on the books. One of the arguments of the NRA and others is, "Enforce the laws we already have, and that would be helpful." Well, of course that's true. But the idea of universal background checks seems to be reasonable for all gun sales. Right?

Deanna Hollas: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

George Mason: We talk about mental health being a big issue in all of this. How true is that, and how much of that is a red herring in terms of the argument about preventing gun violence?

Deanna Hollas: Yeah, I'm not a fan of using that language, because I don't think that it's a mental health problem. I think we want it to be, but it's not. We're going to have to look at our own history of violence and hate and what that ... That's been a long history in this country. This country was founded on slavery and the genocide of the Native American population.

George Mason: Right.

Deanna Hollas: We didn't think that was mental illness.

George Mason: Right. Right. No, it was justifiable by a sense of our theology and anthropology, superiority of one over another, and the right to land and property, and Manifest Destiny, and things of that nature.

George Mason: All right. I don't know too many people who didn't take their Ritalin in the morning and then became mass killers. I think the problem with the language of mental health is it doesn't distinguish between people who are violent by nature in their mental health challenges or mental illness and those who aren't, and then everyone with mental health problems gets slandered by that kind of a designation, too.

Deanna Hollas: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

George Mason: Yeah. You have a T-shirt on that says, "March for our Lives," and that's the Parkland group and the young people that have been advocating for gun reform. They've actually just brought out a pretty comprehensive, significant plan. Can you describe that and tell me, do you subscribe to it fully? Or do you have issues with it?

Deanna Hollas: I don't know.

George Mason: Okay.

Deanna Hollas: I mean, it depends on what hat I have on, I think, as to whether or not I can say I fully subscribed to it.

George Mason: I understand.

Deanna Hollas: I know that, at this point in time, they're calling for things that Moms Demand Action does not advocate for. I think it's going to be interesting to see. And I value their voice. I mean, they changed the conversation quite honestly.

George Mason: Right.

Deanna Hollas: Those kids in their bravery, and their willingness to put themselves on the line, the attacks they've got for being victims and saying they don't want to be shot at.

George Mason: Right.

Deanna Hollas: So I applaud them, and I applaud how they are pushing us forward instead of letting us just continue to be like, "Well, this is really hard, so we don't want to anger anybody and get anybody upset." But they're reminding us. That's why I wore this. Because the reason why I do this is because of the children.

George Mason: Good.

Deanna Hollas: That's the cost. Our being silent or our being okay with gradualism, children are dying and they're dying every single day. And if they're not dying, they're being racked with the trauma of this.

George Mason: Well, they are. When school just started and you hear reports of children being outfitted with backpacks that have bulletproof material in them, what kind of world is this we are living in now, right? That you can't even send your child to school without hoping that there's some bulletproof vest that they're going to be able to wear to protect them. It's really scary. And not to mention the fact that they have to go through, now, not just fire drills, but active shooter drills in school. We've got to find a way to turn this in the right direction, don't we?

Deanna Hollas: Yeah. Other countries don't live like this. I think we've been running an experiment in this country. The NRA has said that more guns make us safer. I think, at this point in time, the data's in and we can say, "No, it doesn't."

George Mason: Yeah. Right. All right. When I talk to my friends who are worried about gun reform, what they say to me is typical of what happens often when we talk about laws. And that is, "The camel's nose is under the tent. So it starts with things that we could agree upon, universal background checks, red flag laws, maybe assault rifles. Next thing you know, they're never going to be happy until they confiscate your hand guns and those sorts of things." Are they right about that? Is there an ultimate goal that says, "Let's start here, but let's ultimately get to a gun free society?" Or do we have an ethos in this country that's always going to have some measure of gun availability and legal guns? So what would you say to that person who's asking that question?

Deanna Hollas: Well, I'd like to know how they're going to get rid of the half a billion guns that we already have, first of all.

George Mason: Yeah.

Deanna Hollas: If they've got a plan for that, let me know. Because it just ain't going to happen.

George Mason: Right.

Deanna Hollas: It's not even practical. There are already too many there, you know?

George Mason: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.

Deanna Hollas: So the best we can do at this point in time is always to be able to, "How are we going to have damage control?" It doesn't mean, though, as people of faith ... We hold the vision that Isaiah has of what this peaceable kingdom looks like.

George Mason: Right.

Deanna Hollas: Right? And in that, there will be war no more. Are we going to get there? I don't know. But as a person of faith, that is the vision that I hold on to. And I don't know that it means it's because they're confiscated. My hope is because people don't want them anymore.

George Mason: Right.

Deanna Hollas: They feel no need for them, and they will surrender their guns.

George Mason: Nice. Good. Yes, part of that whole vision is that the swords will be turned to plowshares, right? And that instead of learning war, we will cultivate life together in a safer kind of community that's productive. Our friend Shane Claiborne melts down guns and creates garden tools out of them. It's a beautiful practice. Some of our friends have bracelets that are from gunmetal that's been melted down, as well. Some of those things are, at this stage, just gestures in the direction. But the point is that people of faith are looking not just to minimize damage, but to promote the kind of wellbeing broadly where people live in safety and trust with one another. Right?

Deanna Hollas: Yeah.

George Mason: That's so beautiful. Well, thank you Deanna for your answering the call, the call to ministry, but the call to this particular ministry, and for helping us find our way with it.

Deanna Hollas: Yeah. Thank you.

George Mason: We're grateful. Thanks for being on Good God.

Deanna Hollas: Thank you for having me.

George Mason: All right.

George Mason: Good God is created by Dr. George Mason, produced and directed by Jim White. Guest coordination and social media by Upward Strategy Group. Good God, conversations with George Mason is the podcast devoted to bringing you ideas about God and faith and the common good. All material copyright 2019 by Faith Commons.