God, guns, and church violence
I don’t want this to be just another blog ranting about gun control, so let me state my bona fides up front: I come from a hard-hunting, gun-toting family. Long-haired, dope-smoking, anti-government Harley riders on one side and country club-lunching, single malt-drinking duck hunters on the other, but gun owners all around.
Having grown up around guns and knowing lots of good people who not only own them but love them, I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I would have to write an opinion piece stating my opposition to bringing guns to church. I thought this might have been self-evidently a bad idea.
But then I read this article about a pastor in Kentucky who is encouraging people to bring guns to church tomorrow, June 27. According to the Associated Press, Pastor Ken Pagano of the New Bethel Church is “inviting people to bring their guns to church to celebrate the Fourth of July and the Second Amendment.”
I’ll be honest that I’m a little zealous about gun control. Years ago, I proudly took my baby with me to Washington, D.C. to be a part of the first Million Mom March and I have donated more of my personal lost-but-worthy cause money to gun control than to any other single issue. I have read and heard all the arguments anyone can muster (pun intended) about the Second Amendment and slipper slopes and individual rights and responsible gun ownership and what the Founding Fathers meant by a militia. And I believe that the government can and should put some limits on what kind of guns can be owned by individuals, including on where, when, how and by whom they can be purchased, and especially on how and where they can be carried and used. Which honestly is not code for anything, in spite of what the NRA says. I’m not trying to wipe all guns off the face of the earth.
Maybe you don’t agree with the gun-control agenda. But isn’t bringing guns to church over the line even for most pro-gun folks?
The pastor’s assertion that “recent church shootings make it necessary to promote safe gun ownership” makes absolutely no sense to me. Recent church shootings and safe gun ownership are unrelated issues unless what he really wants is for people to bring guns into church every Sunday, in an ostensible effort to make it a safe place. Responsible gun owners who leave their guns at home when they go to worship will be no more or less able to respond to or prevent church shootings than you or I or Billy the Kid will.
One might argue that people can arm themselves to the teeth and still be good Christians. Maybe. But parading guns around in church in this way strikes me as an act of idolatry, a refusal to let God be God, to put our selves in His hands and to trust in His providence.
And I’m not just picking on this particular pastor in Kentucky, who might very well be a great guy. What bothers me is that this whole “bringing guns to church” thing appears to be something of a trend. According to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, churches around the country are holding “church safety” seminars that sometimes include encouraging people to show up armed on Sunday. “As more shootings at houses of worship make headlines,” it states,
churches around the country are stepping up security, training their staff on how to detect and confront violent assailants, and asking congregants with licenses to carry guns during services.
I won’t even get into the fact that the pastor this article interviews is a pretty far-out, the-end-of-the-world-is-nigh character. Whatever your theology, church should be the place where we set aside all earthly defenses, physical and psychological, and give our whole selves over to God. Can you really do that while packing heat?
Pamela Dolan is on staff at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Webster Groves and is a Candidate for Holy Orders. After high school in Hawaii and college in California, she earned a master's degree in theology from Harvard before spending several years in New York studying medieval religion and literature. Pamela is married with two children. 
Hello Ms. Dolan,
Frankly, it does not matter whether anyone carries guns into church or not, or anywhere for that matter. It does not matter if one believes “God” is on their side; it does not matter if one is a Christian Soldier packin’ heat, or trained, or fast and accurate and makes the proper snap judgments at precisely the right instants. If a “bad guy” enters a church and starts shooting, survival does not depend on faith, or courage, or training, or speed, or accuracy.
The reason is painfully simple and plainly evident: “God knows All”. (Am I right, “hs”?) The days of each person’s birth and death were recorded in “The Book of God’s Plan” before we were even born, and there is nothing anyone can do to change it. Indeed, Psalms 139:16, “your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” No one can foil the absolute and certain destiny of “God’s Plan”, and how could any Believer think otherwise? If Sunday Church is Your Last Day, not a song, or a prayer, or a projectile weapon, or a Kevlar vest is going to change the outcome. While a little tangible life insurance might strengthen one’s confidence, Pastors encouraging, and Believers carrying, loaded guns in Sunday Church suggests a serious gap in faith.
Personally, Ms. Dolan, I support your contention that guns are unnecessary in church, even if it’s just Show ‘n Tell. It does smack a bit of “idoltry” (puttin’ faith in one’s gun instead of one’s “God”), but carrying them, especially loaded for protection, suggests fear and faithlessness. Most modern gun owners possess both, though, as the members your own gun totin’ family demonstrate, some also share an element of desire to perpetuate hunting skills and traditions. Do any of them carry loaded guns to church service?
Here is what God has to say through his servant Nehemiah:
– NEHEMIAH, CHAPTER 4 (New International Reader’s Version)
12. Then the Jews who lived near our enemies came to us. They told us ten times, “No matter where you are, they’ll attack us.”
13. So I stationed some people behind the lowest parts of the wall. That’s where our enemies could easily attack us. I stationed the people family by family. They had their swords, spears and bows with them.
14. I looked things over. Then I stood up and spoke to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people. I said, “Don’t be afraid of your enemies. Remember the Lord. He is great and powerful. So fight for your brothers and sisters. Fight for your sons and daughters. Fight for your wives and homes.”
15. Our enemies heard that we knew what they were trying to do. They heard that God had blocked their evil plans. So all of us returned to the wall. Each of us did our own work.
16. From that day on, half of my men did the work. The other half were given spears, shields, bows and armor. The officers stationed themselves behind all of the people of Judah.
17. The people continued to build the wall. Those who carried supplies did their work with one hand. They held a weapon in the other hand.
18. Each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked. But the man who blew the trumpet stayed with me.
19. Then I spoke to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people. I said, “This is a big job. It covers a lot of territory. We’re separated too far from one another along the wall.
20. When you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us at that location. Our God will fight for us!”
21. So we continued the work. Half of the men held spears. We worked from the first light of sunrise until the stars came out at night.
22. At that time I also spoke to the people. I told them, “Have every man and his helper stay inside Jerusalem at night. Then they can guard us at night. And they can work during the day.”
23. My relatives and I didn’t take our clothes off. My men and the guards didn’t take theirs off either. Each man kept his weapon with him, even when he went to get water.
“Maybe you don’t agree with the gun-control agenda. But isn’t bringing guns to church over the line even for most pro-gun folks?”
You may find the following surprising in light of your statement above…
Gun Control in Colonial New England: Some gun control laws of Massachusetts,
Plymouth, Rhode Island, and Connecticut—and for the most part, these were gun control laws that would horrify and shock legislators in those states today. These laws not only allowed almost every colonist to have a gun, but required nearly everyone to own gun, and to carry that gun to church, or when traveling away from home. http://www.claytoncramer.com/popular/GunControlColonialNewEngland2.PDF
I carry a gun to church each and every time I enter the building; to protect myself as well as those who choose not to carry or defend themselves. I know of quite a few others that do as well.
Stirring, you invoked me with the following: “The reason is painfully simple and plainly evident: “God knows All”. (Am I right, “hs”?) The days of each person’s birth and death were recorded in “The Book of God’s Plan” before we were even born, and there is nothing anyone can do to change it. Indeed, Psalms 139:16, “your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” No one can foil the absolute and certain destiny of “God’s Plan”, and how could any Believer think otherwise?”
I would suggest you’re misquoting a bit, but that’s your privilege. You’re conflating a totally fatalistic, even nihilist view with something else entirely. As you know, I tend to lean away from literalism, particularly in the portions of text that are obviously metaphorical in language. Reading a Psalm in particular as a literal text is, in my opinion, extremely hazardous. Poetry, in particular, must always be read as metaphor, mustn’t it?
As I’ve said several times along this thread, this whole thing about bring your guns to church day hits me wrong on many levels. Nuff Said?
If packin heat is really a God-given right, where is more appropriate than in a church? On the other hand, if you can’t also pack ammo, what’s the fun in that?
Ex-Marine Pastor Pagano is only doing what he knows best. He apparently has found a need from about 150 members and filled it. How does anyone load up a church? They are going to have a handgun raffle afterward.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2009/06/05/2009-06-05_kentucky_pastor_.html
Anyway, considering Reverend Pagano is in Kentucky, his congregation probably brings guns to church regularly. How do you have shotgun weddings without a shotgun?
STP,
Well said.
I am not a fatalist. While it may be said that fate is written for us, it may be presumptious to imagine how it may be written. It is possible that outside the context of time, choices impact what has been written.
It is difficult for me to imagine a God who honors choice above all things leaving it without impact or consequence, for us, and more importantly, for God.
God knows all things, yet consider in his creation of us, we do not. God may have a longing for this. God may not choose to exercise this knowledge. God may, at any moment, choose to forget all God knows, as God did for us.
I am not promoting this as the way it is. only that within my own feeble ways, I may imagine anything as possible. Only God is present to it all.
God, as evidenced in God’s creation of us, may want for God’s self what we have. We may provide this for God.
The fate of the omnipotent may not be the prize.
Hello “hs”,
Thanks for the favor of your reply in post#9, page#3 at 10:12pm June 27.
To be honest, I was just rhetorically enlisting your confirmation of a three-word definition of “God” you seem to have supported in earlier threads. Glad to read you felt “invoked” by all the rest, though I probably would characterize your arousal as “intrigued”.
Yet, while you avoided either explicit confirmation or denial of the “God knows All” definition, you suggested that I was “misquoting a bit”. I am unclear what “misquote” you feel I made. Would you please be more specific? I am happy to learn from and correct my mistakes, and to either amplify or clarify when a reader is confused by them, yet this is impossible when a post lacks specificity.
I quoted a definition commonly held by Believers but didn’t attribute it to anyone, so that seems an unlikely target of your remark. I quoted a biblical verse, but I diligently (or so I thought) transcribed it from the New International Version of “The Holy Bible”. Maybe your Bible is different? Which Bible is the “right” Bible, so I don’t have face future admonishments over “misquote” quibbles? Was it my interpretation or application that actually “invoked” you? Possibly so, since you made an issue about whether poetical verse from Psalms was valid for confirming or supporting commonly held religious perception. I recall you once represented yourself as a rational; one who likes evidence. Evidently you have found enough so that you can dismiss the literal truth of Old Testament prose and poetry. Can you share it, please?
Indeed, your evidence is more compelling than the “evidence” of “Jesus” own words, in Matthew 5:18 [NIV] “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” Has “everything” been “accomplished”? Have “heaven and earth disappeared”? I suppose it depends on the interpretations one picks and chooses, because I have heard many literalists rely upon “Jesus” words here to explain that Old Testament Law still applies. (Of course, none of them ever admit to actually stoning any adulterers or homosexuals or disrespectful children or avoiding shellfish in their diets or work on every Sabbath, so who can say what they actually believe? However they would have us believe they do!) I wonder what evidence you use to dismiss the literal truth of the Old Testament, what, if any, parts you do accept as literally true, what evidence serves your discriminating belief, and how you characterize your “literally true” belief in New Testament stories? (I think you know my position on these questions, “hs”, but I’ll happily repeat it for anyone who asks.)
If you are going to knock a quote or interpretation, which is your undeniable privilege, please have the courtesy and integrity to clearly identify it! I generally defend my ideas, as you do you yours; specificity aids in the efficient exchange. If left in the dark, then speculation can lead me to explore new subjects (see above!). Perhaps your confrontational style is to take vague pot shots then scurry off. Oops, sorry, I’m conflating you with another.
I share what I share with no commitment to being right, explaining, or defending it.
It is what it is.
A commitment to defend or explain (debate) in a manner to be right is a temptation to place righteousness over truth or what is, whether right or wrong.
To present a viewpoint for the purpose of oppostion is an exercise in folly.
I’ve been offline since I posted this and have to apologize that I’m not going to be able to keep up with every comment, although I’m very glad for the feedback.
First, let me just say to the person who told me that I should admit that I want to outlaw all guns–well, no, I don’t want that. I doubt anything I say will convince you otherwise, but it’s just not true.
Second, I also didn’t say that carrying a gun was idolatry. I said that bringing them to church in order to celebrate the 2nd Amendment strikes me as such. Maybe that’s being too tough, but then again I tend to discern idolatrous leanings in a lot of fairly common behaviors, including many socially acceptable things like putting career success before God. So be it.
There has been some good push-back on the self-defense issue. I’m willing to think about it some more, and to post on it again later. I have known law-enforcement officials who carried concealed firearms in church, and I didn’t have the same level of discomfort with that. I’m not so sure that I am a pacifist, or at least not a very consistent one. I certainly don’t want anyone to be hurt in church, physically or in any other way, but as one of you said, wishing doesn’t make it so. I also try hard to hold to one of the primary tenets of my faith, which is that “the life everlasting” is real and is our ultimate end.
So I appreciate the conversation, heated as it has become at moments.