Suddenly a beautiful space in my life was reduced to a jarring juxtaposition of God’s peace and John’s piece. What fresh hell was this?
Before I share directly from the book, I wanted to say a few words about my own interest.
I have a gun, here, in my home, somewhere. But I live in the country... So when I bought my cabin from my brother-in-law, who was the executor after the deaths of his parents, I wasn't surprised to find guns here.
There are many in my family and in the area that hunt.
Kole specifically states that he is not talking about those who use guns for hunting, or even for competition... That has happened for hundreds of years...
But that was before
Make America Great Again
I had retired, spending time working on my new homeland, but I also had started watching news channels...
Additionally, this book merges with the part that started me on my own campaign to read and talk about what is happening to our nation.
What I think about the past is far different from those who created that slogan of wanting to go back...
You all know that already
But when the Evangelical church supported a criminal for president, I was shocked and confused
I still am and this is the first book I've seen or heard about that merges the two most important issues for me personally.
It has already split my family
Which makes it even more confusing.
Because I know what Jesus said about our children...HIS Children
At least the group has broken off and now call themselves Christian Nationalists
This man says there is no place for gun violence within the life of a Christian...
I will be reading this entire book by reprioritization
because I "really" need to learn more for my own understanding of God's Truth
I believe this Book will provide a major step...
But I'll never forget Shea's magnificent voice...
~~~
My Highlights--So Far
Most troubling of all: their inexplicable fervor for firearms. Aggressively promoting the right to own and carry an instrument designed specifically to take a human life felt like a betrayal of everything Christianity promised...
And it was, for a few days. My own church dimmed the sanctuary lights and convened a somber prayer meeting. We wept for Sandy Hook’s children and our own, and we cried out for healing and mercy. We, like so many in the aftermath of such tragedies, sent our thoughts and prayers to the families and survivors of the tragedy. And then we spoke of it no more. That’s how it is with “thoughts and prayers”: the fleeting good intentions with which the proverbial road to hell is paved. Such words absolve us from doing anything to make sure such a horrible event never happens again. If you really give a damn, you do something.
My exodus from evangelicalism was triggered by a revelation so personally startling, it’s what roused me to launch the investigation you’re about to read. On a sweltering weeknight in 2016, I was rehearsing onstage with my Massachusetts megachurch worship band when I noticed my bass player, an earnest and affable man I’ll call John, stop to loosen his guitar strap. “Too much lasagna for supper?” I teased. “Nah,” he said. “It’s just that the strap is rubbing against my 9-millimeter.” The truth took a few seconds to sink in. John had come to practice with a SIG Sauer semiautomatic handgun. I must have looked as dumbfounded as I felt, because he quickly assured me he had a concealed carry permit. But that’s not what had me so shaken. Moments earlier, we’d been singing about divine mercy and grace. Suddenly a beautiful space in my life was reduced to a jarring juxtaposition of God’s peace and John’s piece. What fresh hell was this? Not long thereafter, I realized, to my horror, that John wasn’t the only one showing up armed at the altar. John’s wife carried a small-caliber pocket pistol in her purse, and several of the men in the congregation possessed concealed firearms. They claimed to do so under the auspices of a church “security ministry,” but it looked and felt more like vigilantism to me. I left that congregation, but the guns stayed behind. They’re surely still there, spirited into the sanctuary every Sunday, cleaned and oiled and loaded and ready for Lord knows what.
But here in the United States, it starts with winning over the hearts and minds of the 60 million white evangelicals—many of them armed—who are reshaping the nation’s political landscape from the front lines of the culture wars.
Like everyone else, I’m struggling to practice what I’m preaching in these pages, starting with Jesus’s all-encompassing command: Love your neighbor. I merely wish to hold up a mirror to America’s most devout people, who mystifyingly and stubbornly cling to a belief that the answer to our gun problem is more guns, and ask a single piercing question: Why? Why do people who claim to follow a man called the Prince of Peace devote themselves so religiously to ensuring military-grade weapons are easier to buy than some forms of birth control? How did a group of Christians who claim to be staunchly pro-life come to so warmly embrace guns, whose primary purpose is to kill? When will we vote for politicians who will summon the courage to enact commonsense, lifesaving gun measures—simple things like universal background checks—that surveys consistently show most Americans want? To my many evangelical friends, who have the political clout to change the country’s trajectory on gun violence, I offer an olive branch and a beatitude of my own:
Blessed are the kingmakers, for they can save lives.
What you’d surely never suspect in a congregation like this of several hundred rapturous souls: Dozens of guns, maybe more; holstered and hidden from view but no less lethal. These are my people. Or they were, before I realized how many of them are armed to the teeth.
It’s no secret that America is awash in weapons. In fact, there are far more guns than Americans themselves: 120 firearms for every 100 citizens, the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey says.1 That’s 393 million firearms in total, not counting police or military weapons or untraceable homemade “ghost guns,” in a nation of 330 million people. That’s nearly twice as many guns per capita as the Falkland Islands, the second-ranked nation on the global rankings, with sixty-two guns for every hundred people. Every year, 3.6 million babies are born in this country, and 22 million guns are sold. That’s six guns for each of those newborns. There could be even more. Since 1899, more than 494 million guns have been manufactured for the US market alone, according to federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives data, and more of those weapons than you might think could still be in circulation.
!!!
GABixlerReviews
No comments:
Post a Comment