Keep Your Piece?

Recently, while wasting time on the internet doing important research, I ran across this article about a pastor in Kentucky who is inviting his parishioners to bring their guns to church.

The church is hosting a Saturday event that welcomes "responsible gun owners" to wear their firearms inside the church. The event will include a gun raffle and information on gun safety.

According to pastor Ken Pagano, the idea is to "celebrate the upcoming theme of the birth of our nation, and we're not ashamed to say that there was a strong belief in God and firearms."

At this point my bias kicked into full gear, and I started running through a mental list of emotional kneejerk reactions clever reasons why this is a terrible thing for a church to do. July 4th is not a religious holiday! How dare they align God and guns so closely? Do they realize how dangerous this is? This sounds like a setup for an episode of SNL's "Appalachian Emergency Room"!

Despite my cynical response, I soon realized that this type of thing is what I'd like to see churches do more. Admittedly, I have personal questions about how easy it is to obtain and legally carry a gun. Those issues aside, it's obvious that this church is engaging their local community in a creative and meaningful way. So often, churches can seem disconnected from the realities of everyday life. Undoubtedly, there are many people in every town and city across the country who are very passionate about their right to bear arms. And through this event, they can see that New Bethel Church cares about that as well.

But what do you think? Is this a meaningless, possibly dangerous, publicity stunt? Or is this church doing something that other churches could learn from?

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Comments (15)

I was in the Army for many years as a Military Police person and an investigator. When I retired I continued to carry a weapon leaglly and have a permit to carry concealed as well as my wife. We practice every three months to keep up on what to do in a situation that may come about. We also go to church and always leave the guns in the truck or car. If you care about yourself and others and want to keep them and you safe, then do what is right. Go to classes, practice with your weapons often, get your permit leaglly and don't abuse the privilege given to us by our fore fathers. Be safe in what ever you do and only use it to defend yourself or others. In God's Grace John
While there's nothing wrong with a responsible person, who has been properly trained, owning and even carrying a gun ... I can't imagine that I could answer "Yes" to the question "Should we encourage people to bring weapons to church?"
My concern with guns has never been their legality, but that by their very design, their purpose is a destructive one. Are they necessary? Can they be handled safely and responsibly? Certainly on all counts.

But, especially for non-hunting guns, they're not tools for building like a hammer or an axe; they're meant only to do violence if necessary. They restrain other people with the threat or actual bodily harm.

I think as a church, we at the very least have to lament that we need guns due to our sin and the brokennes of our world.


And the USA wasn't founded on a "belief in firearms," but a belief in a nation's right to defend themselves against tyranny.
I'm a gun owner. I take pride in them. But New Bethel has stepped across the line (and I don't mean William barret Travis', either). This is as far from the Gospel as obedience to the Law is to obedience to the Christ.
In my state, you are not allowed to carry on church property w/o pastors permission. I asked the pastors permission and he asked if we could leave them in the car. If we park them in the car, they are still on church property. So he said OK. Next week, he asked if he could see my pistol. We went in his office. A few weeks later we had a men's fellowship at the range, and invited friends and relatives. It turned into an outreach.
My son has a permit, and he wanted to know what happened to "turn the other cheek". I told him that that dealt with insults, not defense of family and friends, and even strangers.
When someone comes into a church to start shooting people, it's nice to be able to protect your neighbor.
I don't think I'd go as far as this pastor and "encourage" people to bring their guns to church, but maybe the range.
I think this was poor publicity on a national scale (internet), but in his local community, maybe this is reasonable and encourages some people to enter a church for the first time in years, and be reached.

Let's start with the fact that we are living in a society which is simply wallowing in guns, where there have been 30 major school shootings in the 10 years since Columbine, a society where people are many times more likely to be shot then in, say, Japan or England. Let's next look at all the statistics that show that people who have a gun at home are more likely to use them on each other then on burglars. Let's then recognize that guns are a problem, not a good thing. In light of all this, "bring your gun to church day" is sending completely the wrong message. As Christians, we should be pro-life, and that means not just anti-abortion, but anti-anything that cheapens the value of human life. Basically, if a Christian sees a situation which requires deadly force, he is obligated by his faith to turn it over to the lawful authorities rather than settling it himself. Maybe if the churches were sending this message we wouldn't have such a need to keep guns ourselves in the first place. So no, "bring your gun to church day" is a bad, bad idea.
Not jiving with this. I think like the last response mentioned, I am all for our rights but this crossed the line. There is an appropreate time and place for everything and I don't see how bringing a gun to church is going to further the Gospel of Jesus!
i think that if what they are doing is reaching a group of people that wouldn't normally go to church, then it's a good thing, as long as the message still stays focused on God. it's hard to say if it's a publicity stunt because i don't know the real intentions behind it.

that being said, my church is one that focuses on reaching people who don't like church. we have an AWESOME worship team and great music and we emphasize our lack of formality. it's what we do to get people in the door and then we SHARE THE TRUTH with them. we don't dance around any subject and we make sure to be God-focused all the time.

so, again, is it wrong to invite people to bring guns to church? depends on why it's being done.
I am a long time hunter and fisherman and as long as the focus is on Christ and not guns, there should be no problem.
This weekend I watched an independent film on spirituality. Inevitably, a southern pastor was interviewed whose responses to questions like, “Who would Jesus shoot?” caused an audile grumble to ripple through the crowd (if eye-rolling had a corresponding sound, the audience’s overall reaction to him would be it). As he voiced his staunch support of guns, the army, and our nation, I wanted to jump up and explain that not all Christian’s think that way – that not everyone uses the Old Testament to justify our current wars, violence in the name of national security, etc.

After hearing all the less-than-flattering comments about his interview, I guess I would say that, while pastor Pagano may get a few more people in his church on that particular Sunday (which is arguably good), what is the overall message is he sending to the world about Christianity, and how many people is he further alienating from the church at the same time? My guess would be quite a few.

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