It’s been almost seven years since I stepped away from my church home. I grew up as not much of a Christian–including explicitly not being a Christian for a good while–until I had a moment that changed everything and put me back in church, this time willingly unlike in my youth. I was baptized and found my way to Christ.
I’m still not a good Christian, but I know enough to know about how too many denominations are more worried about being of the world, rather than just in it, and in 2019, it became clear that my church, which was affiliated with Presbyterian Church USA, could no longer be my home. After all, while Christ told his followers to sell their cloaks and buy a sword, PCUSA was working against the right to keep and bear arms.
Now, it seems the organization is totally cool with bearing false witness, too.
Nationwide, 5,821 people have died from gun violence as of June 16. Mass shootings have occurred in 35 states, “so many that it seems we’ve grown numb,” Oakes Daugherty said.
Dr. Andrew Peterson, representative for peacemaking and gun violence prevention in the Office of Public Witness, noted that guns are now the leading cause of death for the nation’s children, for Black men under 44 and pregnant women. “Our lawmakers are not going to save us,” he said. “If we are going to see shalom in our communities, we’re going to have to pick up that work to do ourselves. It’s difficult work to do.”
The Rev. Margery Rossi, Presbyterian Peace Fellowship’s minister for gun violence prevention and the pastor of South Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry, New York, called the narrative of “thoughts and prayers” “a lie. Do not believe it. There are tens of thousands of people of faith across the nation working in many ways to end gun violence — educating, researching, interrupting community violence, teaching children about peacemaking and chopping up guns and forging them into garden tools, which you can watch right behind you.”
First, guns are not the leading cause of death for American children. That’s a lie that was created by omitting infants but including adults aged 18 and 19. Infants are unquestionably children, but are fragile and die from all kinds of causes that have nothing to do with firearms. Adults under 20, though, are more likely to be engaged in gang activity and culture, which means they’re more likely to be targeted by violent people.
While you can no doubt make the case that these homicides are tragic, because they often are, they are not children, and either Peterson has never read the so-called studies that made those claims, or he knows they’re male bovine excrement and he’s spouting them anyway.
If it’s the latter, then he’s bearing false witness in an attempt to discredit those who disagree with him.
Rev. Rossi is no better. She dismisses the claims of “thoughts and prayers,” and for no other reason than the fact that many of us disagree with her about the solutions to violent crime. She’s calling every one of us who has ever said those words a liar. If you’re not chopping guns up to become gardening implements, even if you know that accomplishes absolutely nothing at all, you’re lying in her little world, even though she has to realize that many people actually have good-faith disagreements with gun control.
They have a right to believe what they want to believe, but as Christians and as members of the clergy, they should be a lot more careful about what they say. From where I stand, they’re engaging in sinful behavior that they’re pretending is righteousness. They can be as sanctimonious as they like, but they’ll have to answer for it sooner or later, and not to you or me.
When I became a Presbyterian, I felt at home. I felt right for the first time, but I didn’t know PCUSA’s history.
I will never allow that to happen again. I won’t side with anyone who abuses their position as a person of faith to strip us of our God-given rights.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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