"Bring guns to the church so that we can shoot at the devil when he shows up."
But seriously, if you can't even go to a church without packing a gun, then why bother pretending that you have faith? Or maybe it's all part of the delusional game that Christianity is because it's exciting to be a Christian if you think you're being persecuted.
But seriously, if you can't even go to a church without packing a gun, then why bother pretending that you have faith? Or maybe it's all part of the delusional game that Christianity is because it's exciting to be a Christian if you think you're being persecuted.
Quote:More Christian leaders are welcoming guns in church
With violence at houses of worship grabbing headlines, more U.S. churches are relying on members of the flock — and even pastors — to defend the congregation in case of a mass-shooter attack.
A growing number of conservative Christians also see it as their spiritual duty to pack in the pews and get firearms training.
"Religion and guns have become intimately entangled over the past few years," said Ryan Burge, a political scientist and professor at Washington University in St. Louis.
U.S. clergy said they had become more reliant on armed parishioners for security. Only 21% said they would prohibit firearms in their house of worship.
Pastor Jimmie Hardaway of Trinity Baptist Church in Niagara Falls, New York, defends the acceptance of firearms in the pews. He carries a .380-caliber pistol in church and advocates for his parishioners also to come armed. He believes it's "a spiritual duty to protect."
"We talk about the devil, but he's not just trying to destroy us spiritually — he's trying to get us physically, too," Hardaway told The Record. "We need to protect those that we care about. It's our obligation."
He knows many critics will argue that "Jesus turned the other cheek," he said. But Jesus also "cleared the temple and chased people out who were doing wrong," Hardaway said.
Today, he said, "We live in a different time," when guns are needed for self-defense.
"From Catholic churches to Jewish synagogues and beyond, faith communities across America are awakening to the urgent need to protect their congregations amid a disturbing rise in targeted attacks on places of worship,” Justin Davis, the National Rifle Association's director of public affairs, said in a statement.
In recent years, the organization has also been using religious language to frame gun rights as a divine right.
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/r...490412007/
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
