OK guys & ladies, I am gonna get a bit into the religion field which I am very reluctant to do, but I have to finish with the post from yesterday. That one was on the funnier side, this one goes a wee bit serious.
Minister Willis Pershey:
I was still thinking of your God Damn Guns post and realized how sad it must be for you. You made a commitment to serve Our Lord and its Children, but somehow I see your lost your direction.
I am still impressed at the vitriol coming out from a Person of the Cloth. Don’t get me wrong, as a Gun Owner and Gun Rights fighter, I am used to see hate spewed at me and my cause from the Opposition. We have been falsely accused of many crimes and being accomplices to many deaths by people who have placed themselves in an alleged superior moral platform. I expect that, even welcome it knowing that in the political game, you know you are winning because your opponents resort to vilification as the rest of the arguments have been lost.
I hate guns.
I hate the assault rifle Adam Lanza carried into Sandy Hook Elementary School. I hate every single bullet that pierced the flesh of every single one of the 1,883 people who have been shot in Chicago this year (as of 11/1). I hate all the guns that were fired on accident, killing the very children they were kept on hand to protect.
God damn guns is what I want to say, and I mean this in the truest sense of the phrase. I would rejoice to witness every single firearm to ever emerge from a weapons assembly line thrown into an everlasting Lake of Fire. Truly, I cannot imagine that there is a place for guns in the new Creation. If there is no more mourning nor crying nor pain, that must mean there are no more triggers.
Has your devotional education been forgotten? A thing, an inanimate object is not evil. It does not project evil, seek it, create it or conjures it. So where is Evil? You may want to go to Ecclesiastes 9:3 for the answer.
The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead.
Jesus never blamed the whip, or the thorns, or the sword, or the lance or the nails or the cross for His suffering. He knew where Evil truly resides and gave his life for not only redemption of the faithful but for the redemption of all. He did not call for the damnation of the steel or the leather but forgave those who wielded them in anger and with darkened heart. I would understand if you had said that in a moment of weakness, you had hate in your soul for Adam Lanza for what he did, but you blame the object and not the Evil in the heart of the man. Even Jesus got angry in one occasion, but he never stop forgiving. It is up to you to follow His example.
Ephesians 4:31-32
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
God Bless you.
Great post! Amen my brother!
Thanks! 😀
Freeman: Your post went into the spam folder and I compounded the fail by deleting it accidentally. My apologies and comment again.
Freeman? Gordon Freeman? Quiet fellow, but probably knows better than anyone that the right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world.(And that the gun is the great equalizer between a theoretical physicist and an army of monsters from beyond space and time)
ROFL!
To be fair, Mr. Pershey comes from a culture that regularly denounces video games, violent television, drugs, alcohol, and even dancing as being evil… which may be one of the reasons I so rarely get along with other Christians.
2000 years ago, the Pharisees would have agreed with him. They had taken something that was supposed to be personal and meaningful, and legalized it into a set of rote ceremonial practices.
It’s part of the reason I hate ceremony so much. It’s far too easy to forget what it’s supposed to mean and represent, and get caught up in the actions.
Amen. Grew up strict Southern Baptist, it wasn’t until I got out on my own and started actually READING the Bible that I realized that a lot of the rules and regulations I’d grown up with were just that…rules and regulations and not expressly forbidden in the Bible. Good suggestions, yes, but not Holy Writ.
Amen.
Just an expanded version ;of Dante’s endorsement. I don’t think I could have said it so well. I know, being pretty much irreligious, I couldn’t have given the words the same weight. I know it can’t be any easier for you to heed those words than it is for the rest of us. Profound respect to you for giving her more than just a factual and logical answer.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.”
– Matthew 23:23-24
2000 years later, some people still insist that it’s what we do or say that matters, and not what’s in the heart of mankind.
Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weakling say, “I am strong!”
Joel 3:10
Thanks for your response. I appreciate your arguments and recognize that you, too, write from a place of faith in Christ. I do respectfully ask that you please refrain from assuming that I have lost my direction in serving God and God’s people. Simply because I have come to different conclusions than you does not mean that I am unfaithful to the gospel. I assure you that I have been and continue to be prayerful about my words and actions. I have felt a deep call to ministries of reconciliation and peace, and to advocate for victims of gun violence and their grieving families.
You are right that I am angry, but I hope you understand that it is an anger rooted in profound grief and lamentation. So many lives have been lost! So many families in mourning. And you’re absolutely right: the evil in the hearts of men and women is the culprit. It’s just that easy access to guns has empowered people to act upon that evil so successfully. So many victims who might still be with us if not for the effectiveness of firearms. I think about those parents who lost their beloved children last year – and the hundreds more since. How can we not respond to that horror with grief and rage? I lift up my bitterness and horror to God in prayer, and wait upon the time when our broken creation is restored. I do not place my hope in guns, but neither do I place my hope in gun control. Not anymore. I did advocate last year for what I believed to be completely reasonable measures, including the closure of the loophole for background checks. It was astonishing to me that these basic reforms were rejected.
But, you’ll note that in my post on a Deeper Family I wasn’t actually talking about gun control. I’m talking about the Kingdom of God – the New Heaven and the New Earth. And it’s in my deep hopelessness that humankind can ever save ourselves that I turn to God, and through tears of sorrow trust in the eschatological hope that in the fullness of time, all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. My friend who was killed on the street when he was yet a teenager will be restored to life everlasting. The boy who murdered him with a handgun will be forgiven, the vestiges of evil in his heart burned away by God’s refining fire. Every heart – my own included – healed, nevermore tainted with sin, nevermore burdened by sorrow. It is a glorious vision, my only real hope. And as I closed my post, I close this ridiculously long comment by again imagining this: if “Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more,” there will be no guns in God’s kingdom.
Thank you for reading my response. It is hard to convey tone in writing, but I mean very much to respond kindly, despite our differences of opinion. May the peace of God be with you.
You are angry about the lives that have been lost. You are angry about the children of Sandy Hook… and you are not alone. If there is a group that is angry and for much longer is us: The Gun Culture.
We are angry because in 1994 when this idiotic Gun Free Schools bill was passed, we warned that it was a monumental mistake that would cost more lives. Unfortunately we were proven right with Columbine shortly after.
We are angry because politicians, pundits and the useful idiots blamed us instead of admitting it was mistake and double down on restricting our freedoms.
We are angry because the killing in Schools continued proving our point with bloody certainty.
We are angry when we proposed solutions and we were laughed out of the room….just to be proven right as in the New Life Church shooting and just last week in the Arapahoe High School. In both cases it was a righteous individual who faced Evil…and triumphed.
We are angry because we saw our places of prayer converted into political whorehouses this past weekend under the guise of “doing it for the children.”
We are angry because at least one of our own was prohibited to enter the House of God because his stance on gun rights and it clashed with the political soiree played inside.
You know all those leaders of the Gun Control Movement? None of them could have done a thing to stop Sandy Hook or Columbine or any other shooting. You simply do not stop the Evil those shooters do by blowing litigious smoke and waving shinny political mirrors. At best they are good to stop a bullet and that is it.
And I know that my any in brethren would not hesitate one second and run towards the sound of shooting to stop the killing in any school, any time, anywhere. We would gladly put our lives at risk for the children to live. But we are not allowed by the law as we would become felons the second we go inside a school. Not that we would care, but you tell me what that says to reasonable people: Those who are willing to put their lives on the line to save others are to be considered felons.
I understand Faith but it has to be tempered with reality. You said “So many victims who might still be with us if not for the effectiveness of firearms” but we are now in times where all violent crime has actually descended to a 40 year low while gun ownership is at an all time high. The tall tales of unchecked crimes are lies repeated with the convenience of not doing due diligence and trusting those who have already proven themselves untrustworthy. They have no shame in lying if it makes them reach their goal and it is not a lofty one.
And that is why we will keep fighting for Life and all Families.
We will submit to God’s Will, but we will not submit to political and religious pharisees or their minions whether they know they know they wrong or not.
And if we are to lay down our lives for one’s friends, we shall meet our Maker knowing that we followed His commands.
No regrets.
^ This ^
I recall a prayer of mine, one day, “Lord, I kneel before you and you alone. No man is my master.” Such is how I view this debate.
That’s good, can I keep it?
How would you like to be attributed?
Cash, ammo or just a mention 🙂
A gun enables an evil man to do more evil, yes. However, that same gun allows a good man to do more good, and the reason evil men with guns are able to do their evil is because guns have been taken away from all of the good men.
How many children would have died in the Sandy Hook massacre if ONE teacher had been permitted to carry a firearm? You want to be mad that evil men are able to do evil unchecked? By all means. However, for evil to be halted, GOOD MEN MUST BE ALLOWED TO DO GOOD.
“So many lives have been lost!”
True. And just think of the tens of millions of lives that were lost in the last century alone because they were unarmed and defenseless when their own governments slaughtered them.
I think Herod would have had a bit more trouble with his massacre of the innocents if a rifle waited behind every door.
They’re not Christians in any sense. For one, they ignore Christ’s own directive to be armed. Second, there’s this line:
“I cannot imagine that there is a place for guns in the new Creation”
What is this “new Creation”? I submit it has its roots more in Marx than in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
The new Creation – new heaven and new earth – is the last vision and lasting hope for Christians, beautifully described in the passage from which I quoted in the essay. See Revelation 21.
Again, I respectfully ask that all consider refraining from accusing those with whom they disagree of not being faithful Christians.
That’s great for the New Creation. For now, we’re still stuck in the broken-down and rotting one.
“The man who walks unarmed in paradise had best be sure that’s where he is.”
(And if there are no firearms in Heaven, how can we have friendly shooting contests?)
I think there are firearms in Heaven.. at least they have coon hunting 🙂
http://youtu.be/5L1BSnxH4b4?t=6m50s
go to 6:50 and start there
A historical point to ponder as well. In 1913, tyrannical governments were rare. Following WW1, tyrants sprouted up like mushrooms- Portugal, Spain, Italy, Russia, Germany, Japan, all within at least 20 years of 1913.
Ponder also how many enlightened governments were conqured by tyrants: France, Belgum, Austria, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland…
And even after WW2 ended, the tide of tyrants willing to murder off an unpopular part of the population continued: China, Cambodia, Burma, North Korea, Bulgaria, Romania, Iraq, Cuba, much of Africa.
And never forget that an enlightened, liberal president threw American citizens into concentration camps. Can’t happen here? It did.
If one truely understood that tyranny is not a rare event, one would understand why we are so adamant against gun control.
KWP may have the false belief that heaven can be achieved on Earth. She needs to realize that yes, God will destroy Satan, sin, and death and then there will be no more tears. But not before!
Meanwhile, the huge net benefit of firearms in the hands of citizens (and especially Christians) does much to protect innocent life. As noted above, weapons are intrinsically morally neutral and thus her raging against them is counter-productive and against good. Christ never condemned soldiers for their profession or the necessary use of force to punish the evil-doers.
So, she is deceived and yes, I doubt her faith when she rants for a situation that makes me vulnerable to thieves and murderers so she can feel good about doing something. A real simple question would be if all guns vanished in an instant, would evil cease? No, so work within the reality of our fallen creation to protect innocent lives.
Oh yeah, and sell your cloak and buy a sword…here endeth the lesson.
I’m not going to respond to the parts of your comment that insult me and misrepresent what I wrote. I will clarify that I do not subscribe to the belief that heaven can be achieved on earth. However, I do pray, daily, along with all Christians everywhere, that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I also believe that since Christians are citizens of the kingdom of God, we are called to live according to the ways of Christ – according to the value and ethics of his kingdom, not the broken and unredeemed earth.
If all guns vanished, evil would not cease. Obviously. But also obviously, it would be a lot more difficult to kill twenty-six people in five minutes.
I continue to be perplexed as to why it is a controversial statement to imagine that there will not be guns in heaven.
“If all guns vanished, evil would not cease. Obviously. But also obviously, it would be a lot more difficult to kill twenty-six people in five minutes. ”
How about 87 people? One can of gasoline and a match was all it took.
http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/mass/happyland/fuego_3.html
You still do not get it: Not the tool but the evil in man’s heart that needs to be fought.
By blaming the tool, you blame those of us that have them and defend the right to own them…. and that is the real insult.
And I forgot: Th top three mass killings have been done by Arson or Explosives:
Hartford circus Arson: 169 dead
Oklahoma City bombing: 168 Dead
Dupont Plaza Hotel arson: 97 dead.
Happy Land Arson is a sad fourth place.
all very fast…many deaths. Yet nobody is blaming hydrocarbons or fertilizers.
When you mix Faith with the temporal and very fallible politics, you lose your path.
Seek the truth…. and you know the rest.
The ministry of Jesus was explicitly political. There certainly an appropriate separation of Church and State, but there is no way to extricate faith and politics. Faith has political implications.
More than 30,000 people are killed by people using guns each year. And while I do not blame responsible gun owners for these deaths, I am bewildered as to why responsible gun owners repeatedly fight common sense reforms to prevent further tragedies.
The reason I raise the issue of idolatry is that it appears – even if it is not in fact the case, it nevertheless appears – that there is more value placed on the firearm than the lives of the victims, more desire to protect gun rights than prevent violence.
“The reason I raise the issue of idolatry is that it appears – even if it is not in fact the case….”
You may want to recheck Matthew 7:1
“…that there is more value placed on the firearm than the lives of the victims, more desire to protect gun rights than prevent violence.”
Somehow you have bought into the whole “If there are no guns, the world will be a better place with no killings.” But we had killing and still have them without one shot being fired. Famine is a tool quite well used by warlords in Africa today as Stalin used it in the 1930s in Ukraine. Rwanda saw over 600.000 murders in a couple of months by the use of machetes and blunt instruments. Zyklon-B was used with extreme efficiency to wipe out over 10 million undesirables from Germany and all over Europe.
Do you know what all those victims had in common? They were unable to have the tools to defend themselves. They were sold a nasty bill of good which proclaimed that being peaceful (unarmed) was the best solution to the worlds problems and that they must leave their self-defense in the hands of “better people.”
That is a death warrant.
I said it before: None of those in favor of Gun Control would have been worth a damn if they happened to be in Sandy Hook that horrible day as they could not have stopped the cretin Adam Lanza. One of us at least would have had a good chance to stop him in his tracks.
The way you think (mostly feel) gets innocent people killed. At Arapahoe High School, Evil was stopped from doing further damage by somebody with a gun, not happy wishes.
When you side with those seeking to restrict our right to fight evil, you side with evil.
Time to open your eyes to the realities of life.
As I recall there is a parable remonstrating one to remove the plank from their own eye before attempting to remove the speck from their brother’s.
That is essentially what we are saying to you. Would removing guns from the world magically make it demonstrably more difficult to kill 26 people in 5 minutes? In actuality no, even setting aside the fact that the most heinous killing of school children was accomplished with homemade explosives and not firearms (the Bath school massacre in 1927). In fact, please note that there were exactly 0 restrictions on firearms at that time and that fully automatic weapons were readily available and the perpetrator still chose to use homemade explosives instead of a firearm.
Regardless, it is possible to kill 26 people in 5 minutes with melee weapons (swords, knives, clubs, etc…) within that time period. Heck, with enough physical prowess it would not even be difficult.
However, by eliminating firearms one eliminates the ability for anyone weaker to oppose the evil doer and evil is only stopped when it is opposed.
If you want to know what a world would look like without firearms, just look at the Dark Ages. The strong oppressed the weak, and there were atrocities much more heinous and much more common than the mass shootings of today.
One good man with a gun also makes it harder to kill 26 people in 5 minutes.
The right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world. So wake up, Mr. Freeman. Wake up and…smell the ashes.
It seems that KWP will never admit that firearms are a huge net benefit. Evil exists and will only be deterred on Earth until Christ returns to rule.
Let me extrapolate…nuclear weapons ended WWII and saved a multitude of lives by making Operation Varsity (invasion of Japan) unnecessary and preventing WWIII in Europe. Yes, they are terrible weapons, but they have been invaluable. In a similar fashion we are not threatened by the nukes in friendly and good Britain and India, but we should not let evil Iran get one. Same holds true for firearms.
KWP, I offer my apologies for the insulting tone I displayed earlier. My passion got the better of me. I do still hold the general view that your understanding of the role of weapons and use of force and violence is a sad reality of our fallen nature. So to fantasize that eliminating an object will correct the flaw of sin is false. Numerous examples above confirm this.