Gun Toting Deacons

Say it ain't so, Arkansas! The state legislature has evidently decided to consider a Concealed-Carry law that would allow church members to take their guns to church. While there have been a small number of church shootings in the news in recent years, it seems wrong to me to allow concealed weapons in church. Why not go with a general warning that no guns are allowed on the premise? But--you might argue--people who have an intent to wound or kill others would not be dissuaded by a simple sign.

As Christians have been doing for a number of years, we need to ask ourselves once more, "What would Jesus do?" Jesus' life was one of pacifism, never violence. He is the one, you remember, who taught us to turn the other cheek, to go the extra mile, and most importantly, to "resist not evil." He is the one who did not choose to call ten thousands angels to His side before He was crucified in order to rescue Him from His fate. He did not ask His disciples to pick up swords, as Peter tried to do, to protect Him.

Fighting violence with violence is never a solution to a problem in my opinion. I do confess, however, that I have not always been consistent with this lofty view and have loaded our household gun whenever I have feared violence in the past. My stepfather bought the gun for me, a German Luger, when I was a young woman living in downtown Wichita a few years before the BTK killer would murder numerous people there.

That confession made, I still have great difficulty seeing how gun toting deacons will make me feel any safer as I attend my church in downtown Little Rock. The whole idea seems to be an oxymoron.