Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Baptists Disarm Teens ... For Now

A Baptist congregation in Oklahoma City hosts a yearly youth gathering, attended by teens from "as far away as Canada."  For reasons that are not entirely clear to us, this gathering features a shooting contest, and last year the winner was awarded a AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle.

The giveaway was planned for this year as well, but was cancelled because the pastor emeritus injured his foot.  We're not sure what that has to do with the price of bullets in China, but just go with it.

Our spineless liberal readers may squirm, but we think this is a great idea -- giving kids lethal weapons as a way to spread the Gospel.  It's part of a grand evangelical tradition.  Some churches give out little bracelets made of bent nails, but that's just gutless.  Do you know how long it takes to kill somebody with nails?  (Actually, we just checked.  About three hours.)

And can you imagine how much better things would have turned out for the apostles, if they had all carried  some heavy ordnance into the mission field?  Let's just say that St. Paul wouldn't have had to wait for an earthquake to bust him out of the slam, because he would have been prepared to defend his rights as a Roman citizen against any and all comers.  And as for Simon "Two-Gun" Peter, let's just say that the first pope wouldn't have needed any Swiss mercenaries in colorful costumes -- not if he was packing his AK-47.

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