The sign on a Church door, sent to me by a reader.
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Comments
Now that’s a powerful sign, bound to work miracles.
June 04, 2014,
Nigeria: Boko Haram Attacks Borno Church, Kills Nine
http://allafrica.com/stories/201406030911.html
In Texas, that sign would have no legal standing.
As a point of clarification in Texas all churches by law are gun free zones.
Texas Penal Code Sec. 46.035 (b)(6)
On reading this, my first thought was: who is the state to be telling a religious organization what it can and cannot do? At what point do religious groups have a say in this thing referred to as “separation” of church and state? Seems to be a very one-sided arrangement. Anyone ever heard of a church making rules about what the government can and cannot do?
Texas churches are not gun free zones by default. See Texas Penal Code Sec. 46.035(i), which requires churches to display the 30.06 sign to be gun free.
Churches take up collection. Collection is money. Churches have people. Some people have been known to have complicated lives with crazy spouses who are willing to gun them down in a church. That combination of money and crazy means churches get hit. No need for a sign that is a welcome wagon for thugs and crazies.
Turn the other cheek, one of the most mal-interpreted sayings of Jesus, does not mean take a bullet from a thug or a crazy. Self defense is allowed.
Christianity is the paradox of strength in weakness, true, but some pastors seem to think the weakness means being a doormat. Pastors and congregations would do well to let their brains engage before their mouths and hands say and do stupid things.
Love mandates providence, not stupid, blind peace and love notions like some commune of hippies.
When you love your family and neighbors, you prepare to defend them from evil.
Seems to me…
I’ve heard leftists say they wouldn’t shoot someone in order to prevent an attack on a loved one because (they say) killing is just wrong, period. So, feeling moral superior is more important to them than promoting the best outcome.
A lot of Christians operate on the same principle. They think God will reward their moral purity even if they neglect (or prevent) the actions that would actually help innocent people.
OK. There are loopy people scattered all over the political spectrum.
They sort of limit their contribution by Darwinist principles.
Don’t they…???
I’ll wager everything I have that at least one one, possibly more, people attending this church sees the folly in this and come to church discreetly armed.
“Protecting the flock” has a whole new meaning these days.
Pews full of sitting ducks – an invitation to the nutjobs. This is very sad.
Shane
You are not offering good information about churches. Read down a little farther. A 30.06 sign would be notice.
(i) Subsections (b)(4), (b)(5), (b)(6), and (c) do not apply if the actor was not given effective notice under Section 30.06
Knowing how many people die each year in the U.S. from blunt trauma like hands, feet or objects that are not usually considered as weapons but are used as clubs, one wonders whether that sign is just wishful thinking.
The sign is another example of rationalization of a concept taken to an extreme to the hazard of the rationalizer. Drivers sometimes drive the wrong way on roads clearly marked “One Way”.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/accidents/driver-in-fatal-wrong-way-crash-on-i-275-was-extremely-drunk-autopsy-finds/2169477
Declaring a place to be peaceful does not make it so – a wishful fantasy unfulfilled. Someone who means to inflict harm will go past that sign knowing that many there will have complied with that sign, rendering them relatively defenseless. Would it better to post a “Defenseless Victims Zone” or “Fools Inside” sign instead? The sanctuary of Canterbury Cathedral did not help Archbishop Thomas Becket with King Henry II’s knights.
http://www.davekopel.com/2A/LawRev/The-Torah-and-Self-defense.htm
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/3220/jewish/The-Jews-Double-Standard.htm
I’m just curious if the church has any artwork of holding swords or other weapons?
*artwork of saints or angels
This would be sop much easier if there were an edit button.
I also wonder if that church is familiar with the phrase “the sword of the Lord”? It is not used as a peaceful reference. Shepherds were not expected to be peaceful when a wolf was near their flock. Fathers were expected to protect their families in Biblical teaching.
Their love runs shallow. Guns are dual-use items. So are scalpels. Of the two, scalpels are used in the abortion/murder of over one million wholly innocent human lives annually in America alone. While guns are used predominantly by government agents and criminals to murder around ten thousand innocent and not so innocent human lives annually. The choice is clear. Ban scalpels and other instruments used to commit abortion/murder.
They seem to have forgotten the Gospel of John, in which Saint Peter brings a *sword* to the *Last Supper*, and *uses* it to defend Jesus from those who had come to arrest him (in the process, cutting off the High Priest’s slave’s right ear). Moreover, when Jesus chastises Peter for his actions, it’s *not* for carrying the sword, but for preventing the fulfillment of prophecy.
So I guess in *their* version of John’s Gospel, Jesus instead turns to Peter and says, “Simon Peter! You can’t carry a sword here! This is a Sword-Free Zone!”
I would terminate my relationship with that church. I will not attend a Rape and Murder sanctuary.
Weird, I’ve read the New Testament many times. Jesus’s Disciples carried swords on most of their travels and Jesus never rebuked them for that. The only time He spoke about their having swords was when Peter used his sword to try to prevent the Roman soldier from arresting Jesus.
One might conclude that having a sword for self-defense didn’t concern Jesus.