NC pastor: Jack Reacher and the myth of ‘good guys with guns’
Several weeks ago, in an attempt to be a good spouse, I watched the new Jack Reacher series now streaming on Amazon Prime. Like the movie starring Tom Cruise, the show is based on the wildly popular books by British author Jim Grant, who writes under the pen name Lee Child. The protagonist is an American man named Jack Reacher — he is strong and silent, skilled and smart. He’s handsome, brilliant and loves literature. He’s haunted by the violence he’s seen and the people he’s failed to save. He’s also funny and sensitive and gentle, when he’s not being heroically brutal. The series is incredibly well made, the acting is exceptional, the story is compelling, the violence is horrifying, the end seductively satisfying. I do not recommend it.
I hate how much I liked it.
Jack Reacher is the quintessential American hero. You can trust him. He selflessly risks his life to kill dangerous unredeemable people. A decorated former Marine, he is highly skilled and precisely targets his violence. He only hurts people who deserve it. He is a critical thinker with absolute control over his emotions, he is able to act without malice or bias. He is a white man with a Black best friend. He is humble and detached. He has no agenda other than to do what is right.
He is the archetype of a “good guy with a gun.” He is the myth of redemptive violence.
A myth is any story that explains a cultural phenomenon. The myth of redemptive violence is deeply embedded in Western culture and more American than apple pie. The myth of redemptive violence says that only violence can protect us from violence, so it is necessary that righteous and highly skilled people be permitted to discriminately use violence to protect the vulnerable. All violence is bad — except for the violence that stops violence — that violence is redemptive. That kind of violence is a happy ending.
Once you learn to look for it, you find the myth of redemptive violence everywhere. In blockbuster movies and best selling books, but also in the historical justifications of the genocide of Indigenous people and chattel slavery, Jim Crow and the prison industrial complex, in our passionate defense of capital punishment and the second amendment, and in our defensive and listless response to massacres in our grocery stores and elementary schools.
If you believe in the myth of redemptive violence, the answer is always more guns — because only violence is powerful enough to stop violence. The world is so dangerous and evil that only someone like Jack Reacher can save us, so we can’t take his weapons away from him. The myth of redemptive violence says our only hope is more good guys with guns, more Jack Reachers.
I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, so I renounce the myth of redemptive violence. It is the lie that killed my Lord and savior. Crucifixion —which is repeatedly depicted in the Jack Reacher series — was how the Roman Empire practiced redemptive violence. Crucifixions were celebrated as righteous, necessary and redemptive because they destroyed violent threats.
Powerful humans always believe they can use violence righteously — that was the argument of one of the religious leaders who condemned Jesus, it is better for one man to die than for the whole nation to perish. When one of his followers tried to prevent his death by violently attacking someone in the mob who came to arrest him, Jesus rebuked his disciple and healed the wounded man.
Faith in Jesus requires a willingness to die for righteousness, but it absolutely prohibits killing for it. Violence is destructive, never redemptive. For Christians, the cross reveals, once and for all, the destructive power of the myth of redemptive violence.
But sometimes the stories we love reveal more to us about our values than the prayers we pray. I’m not calling for any kind of ban or boycott of Jack Reacher. I just want us to notice how much we love him and wonder what that says about us. Because Reacher isn’t real, but the people who aspire to be him most dangerously are.
The myth of redemptive violence justifies violence against anyone perceived to be dangerous. In America, that includes Black people shopping in a grocery store, Taiwanese people worshiping in a sanctuary, and Latino children in elementary school.
Kate Murphy is pastor at The Grove Presbyterian Church in Charlotte.
