Faith And Firearms
BY Herschel Smith
11 years, 9 months ago
Oh brother. Not this again?
In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22, verse 36, Jesus tells his disciples to acquire a sword.
Or does he?
How that passage is interpreted has sometimes influenced believers to justify arming themselves. Owning weapons, namely firearms, has been part of the national debate on gun violence and gun regulation in the wake of the Newtown elementary school shooting and other shooting tragedies.
With the Bible and other church teachings in hand, the question of how involved Christian communities should be in the guns debate is as varied as the viewpoints in the entire dialogue itself.
At least one Licking County church recently has directly joined the conversation on gun violence prevention, and while other local churches aren’t directly demonstrating a particular stance, their leaders lent their thoughts about how Christians could regard guns.
In Feburary (sic), the United Church of Granville conducted a Gun Violence Prevention Sabbath, one of many across the country that did so, said Dwight Davidson, pastor at United Church.
At the sabbath, prayers were said for peace and congregation members placed stones on the altar that symbolized the number of lives ended by gun violence in Ohio in 2008, Davidson said. He said the event was meant to raise awareness about the prevalence of gun-related deaths in the U.S.
“On the theological question, ‘Is it God’s will for … people to die every year from gun violence?.’ The answer is ‘no,’” Davidson said.
Yes. Christ commissioned his disciples and told them to “go forth and be social planners.” I can’t think of anything better for a church to do than have a “gun violence prevention sabbath.”
Actually, Deuteronomy 29:29 tells us “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.”
Mr. Davidson no more knows the secret will of God for when or under what circumstances men will perish than does my dog. Davidson is lying. He doesn’t know what God’s will is regarding any particular event that has not been revealed.
But this is what has been revealed. He has told us that he has made man in God’s image and that failure to protect life is equivalent to murder. Davidson should go back and study the great commission to inform him whether God wants us to have a “gun prevention Sabbath.” And by the way, he should do some basic research before be preaches on firearms again. Finally, this is a reminder just what worthless junk most of the main stream churches have become.
On March 10, 2013 at 9:34 pm, Justin said:
Argh. Very frustrating.
This gets into the sovereignty of God issue, and I bet I know where this preacher stands on that. God must have overlooked gun violence when He created. Oops. So much for omniscience, I guess.
Besides that, no man has ever proved to me from the Word that citizen disarmament at the hands of government is justifiable.
That is what this boils down to in the material realm.
On March 11, 2013 at 2:15 pm, TeeJaw said:
Turning in your guns because criminals have too many guns is like getting a vasectomy because your neighbor has too many kids. God never counseled anyone to be so stupid, and no religious leader prior to the 1960’s ever counseled parishioners that the Bible tells them to go unarmed.
On March 11, 2013 at 2:18 pm, TeeJaw said:
The Pilgrims and Puritans parsed every word of the Bible, they were the most deeply religious people that ever lived, and they loved their guns.
On March 11, 2013 at 2:29 pm, Herschel Smith said:
Yes, and I point this very fact out in:
http://www.captainsjournal.com/2012/09/25/christians-the-second-amendment-and-the-duty-of-self-defense/
On March 11, 2013 at 9:07 pm, jdkchem said:
Christianity is not a suicide pact. I find it rather amusing that the further left the “church” strays the further away from the nature of free will they stray as well. The reason we do not have divine interventions is precisely because we have free will. you cannot have both.