No Guns
I was sitting on the red bench near the garage, enjoying the freshness of the early morning, and all of a sudden he came around the corner spraying for spiders, and other little varmints he might encounter.
As he raised the nozzle of his spray gun to spray for spiders, the right side of his T-Shirt raised slightly. I couldn't help but notice what I thought was a weapon. I mentioned it to him. He said, "That's right", I carry it all the time, even to church.
Many years prior to the visit of our Pest Control Man, I was a young student pastor in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky. I often heard the old timers talk about a certain traveling "Circuit Rider Evangelist", who on those hot summer evenings during highly exciting and sometime emotional revival meetings, he would enter the pulpit and immediately place two objects on the pulpit, his bible on the left side, and his six shooter on the right side. You see he was right handed. It was show time and everybody from far and wide turned out for the happening.
Then, he would open his bible and commence his fiery discourse. Needless to say his congregation, young and old alike, the meek, mild, and not so mild, wild and wooly sat frozen to their seats for as long as the Evangelist chose to speak. What would you have done?
I thought at the time, stories like the traveling evangelist were amusing, just like the stories of Peter Cartwright the famed Methodist Circuit Rider Preacher who blazed a stormy evangelistic trail across early America, and who, one night in the midst of his revival meeting sermon, left the pulpit, went outside and broke up a fight and ushered the culprits into the meeting, sat them down, entered the pulpit, picked up his sermon, and went on with where he had left off.
With slight editorializing, there was the time that Cartwright was traveling through the mountains of Eastern Tennessee and stopped off at a roadside Tavern for the night. During a musical interlude the preacher was approached by a young lady who invited the stranger to dance. He accepted her invitation, took her firmly by the hand and walked out on the dance floor, paused and said, "I always pray before dancing". As she fought to free herself, they knelt and Peter prayed, and he prayed, and he prayed.
The story is Cartwright's presence was so overwhelming, before he went on his way in a day or so, the Tavern was turned into a Church Meeting House. The Bar Tender became the preacher, and the young lady, Cartwright's dancing partner, the church choir director.
Those amusing incidents of long ago, and others just like them, whether completely true or not is one thing. But "Guns In Church" today in modern America in the 21st Century is no laughing matter. From what the Pest Control Man said, "Laws in Kentucky permit the open carrying of guns, and also the state has a Concealed Weapon Permit". His was a Concealed Permit, even in church.
With all the reckless, random shootings across the country today, in church, shopping centers, movie theaters, along the streets, and highways, and such, it would appear the country has reverted to the "Old Wild West Days" of Wyatt Earp, The James Gang, Quantrill's Raiders, Doc Holiday, Bat Masterson, and Billy The Kid.
The Pest Control Man asked, "Do you own a gun"? I said, "No". He went on to stress that we need to consider the purchase of one. Thugs break into homes every day. You just never know. But his statement that he carried his gun to church was a first for me. Not since as a young student pastor when I heard the story of the Traveling Evangelist in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky had I heard of guns in church.
In light of what has happened in churches and other locations around the country, the man went on to say, "His pastor encourages the Deacons in the church to carry concealed weapons, and be on the ready for what might come".
Guns In Church! What would Jesus do?
The Rev. Billy J. Cox is a retired United Methodist minister, a World War II veteran, and served as a captain in the U.S. Air Force chaplain corps.