I
originally wrote most of this in 2009. I updated it in 2015. The warnings and
advice here are tragically illustrated in this terrible attack. Our thoughts
and prayers go out to the victims in Southerland Springs, and our admonition go
out to all.
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Imagine
the following scenario: At church this Sunday, while reviewing the list of
announcements and upcoming events for your church, your pastor adds, “Oh, and
don’t forget: on Sundays we have our regular target practice. Make sure to
bring your guns. Make sure to bring your pieces to church.”
Absurd,
right? Not so. It used to be the American way. For example, a 1631 law in
Virginia required citizens to own firearms, to engage in practice with them,
and to do so publicly on holy days. It demanded that the people “bring their
pieces to the church.” Somewhere along the line we have lost this mindset.
Today the ideas of church and arms are assumed to be at odds, as if loving your
neighbor has nothing to do with the preservation and defense of life and
property.
But the
idea of Christian society and an armed, skilled populace actually have deep
historical roots. Alfred the Great codified the laws of England in the 9th
Century, often resorting to biblical law in order to do so (where he departed
from biblical law, the integrity of his famous law code is quite poor). Alfred
applied the Deuteronomic laws of kings that forbad a standing army (Deut. 17), and as a result developed a
national defense based on militia:
By the Saxon laws, every freeman of an age
capable of bearing arms, and not incapacitated by any bodily infirmity, was in
case of a foreign invasion, internal insurrection, or other emergency, obliged
to join the army.…1
This
required and encouraged an armed citizenry:
Every landholder was obliged to keep armor
and weapons according to his rank and possessions; these he might neither sell,
lend, nor pledge, nor even alienate from his heirs. In order to instruct them
in the use of arms, they had their stated times for performing their military
exercise; and once in a year, usually in the spring, there was a general review
of arms, throughout each county.2
Imagine!
Imagine the government poking its nose in every year not to register and
license weapons for possible future confiscation, but to ensure that each house
indeed possessed weapons. Imagine that instead of imposing fees for licensing
schemes, the government levied fines for not owning a firearm.
This was the case in Massachusetts in 1644. The state required that “every
freeman or other inhabitant of this colony provide for himself and each under
him able bear arms a sufficient musket and other serviceable piece” as well as
“two pounds of powder and ten pounds of bullets.”3 Those who neglected
this duty could receive fines up to ten shillings (for laborers, roughly a
day’s wages).
In 1623,
Virginia statute forbade anyone to travel unless they were “well armed,” and
required that all men working in fields likewise be armed.4 1631 laws repeated
the same requirements and added to them: all able men should bear arms and engage
in practice with their arms. The law specifically required “All men that are
fitting to bear arms,” and to “bring their pieces to the church upon pain of every
offence.”5 (Equally shocking to
most modern evangelicals is the fine for not obeying these laws: landowners who
did not so arm their laborers and workers were required “to pay 2 lbs. of
tobacco,” and this fine in tobacco was “to be disposed by the church-wardens,
who shall levy it by distress.…”6
Imagine
that: the government desiring, commanding that
every able citizen own weapons and be skilled in using them!
And to do so on “holy days” and at Church.7 (It’s even more
unbelievable that the government assumed all men were going to church every
Sunday. Perhaps we could increase their numbers if we could reinstate target
practice fellowship.)
The
legacy of arms and freedom as Christian virtues continued into American
Revolution. The Lutheran pastor John Peter Muhlenberg is perhaps the most
famous of the “fighting parsons.” He answered George Washington’s personal call
to raise troops using his own pulpit and Ecclesiastes 3 to do so. Other ministers
of the gospel were well known to preach with loaded guns in the pulpit with
them. Pennsylvania preacher John Elder provides a great example: “Commissioned
a captain by the Pennsylvania government, he led a company of rangers and was
accustomed to preach with his loaded musket across the pulpit.”8 Likewise, Rev.
Thomas Allen, a later collaborator in writing the Massachusetts State
Constitution, himself fired the first shot at the Battle of Bennington. In the
context of the War for Independence, ministers saw guns as tools of liberty and
defense against tyranny.
In a
later context, some ministers saw the continued usefulness of firearms. A
former cowboy and confederate soldier turned Methodist circuit rider, Rev.
Andrew Jackson Potter, preached among tough neighborhoods in the old West. He
would regularly walk up, lay his two colt revolvers across the pulpit, and
begin to preach. He retained order and security, and encouraged an atmosphere
of respect. In this scenario, arms served less as tools of national liberty and
more as tools of preservation of life and individual liberty and property.
This same
scenario goes on today, by the way. As recently as 2009, pastors in the Detroit areahave
begun to arms themselves in the pulpit and while on church property. Rises in
Detroit crime in general as well as attacks in church buildings in particular
have awakened the attention of many Christians. While it is illegal in most
states to carry guns on church property, Michigan allows it for the pastor and
those he approves. [Author’s note: even since the original publication of this
article, many states have revised their concealed carry laws to allow for
church carry. Consult your state’s laws for details.]
Christians
should be aware that the use of force in preservation of life is a biblical
doctrine (Ex. 22:2–3; Prov. 24:10–12; Est. 8–9; Neh. 4; cp. John 15:13–14). Likewise, those who possessed
weapons in Scripture are often said to be well skilled in the use of them (Judg. 20:15–16; 1 Chron. 12:1–2, 21–22). We can only surmise that 1) God gave
them talent in this regard, and that 2) they engaged in target practice
regularly. Further, under biblical law, to be disarmed was to be enslaved and
led to a disruption of the economic order due to government regulations and
monopolies (1 Sam 13:19–22). But the
mere presence of a couple weapons had psychological effects that put criminals
to flight (1 Sam 13). (See my sermons on these chapters
in my Commentary on 1 Samuel,
or here online for free.) There
is a reason why Scripture tells these stories: they illustrate the defense of
life, liberty, and property in the midst of a fallen world (and fallen
governments).
The
American Second Amendment did not spring into existence from nowhere. It had a
long pedigree. The Christian society emerging from the old laws of Alfred
continued to include the ideal of an armed populace as a means of securing
human liberties. The Founders, many of them lawyers, had studied that legal
tradition and would have read William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the
Laws of England (1765–1769). The first part of the first volume
elaborates on the subject of our “principal absolute rights… of personal
security, personal liberty, and private property [i.e. life, liberty, and
property].” It then covers five means of securing and protecting these rights
“inviolate”:
The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject,
that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence,
suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which
is also declared by the same statute I W. & M. st.2. c.2. and is indeed a
public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of
resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are
found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.9
Within
that same legal tradition, and more than a generation earlier, the English
philosopher John Locke voiced the sanctity of life, liberty, and property as
well as our duty even to use force to preserve it:
Every one, as he is bound to
preserve himself… so by the like reason, when his own preservation
comes not in competition, ought he, as much as he can, to preserve the
rest of mankind, and may not, unless it be to do justice on an
offender, take away, or impair the life, or what tends to the preservation of
the life, the liberty, health, limb, or goods of another.
Locke
elaborated these views within the context of belief in God’s ultimate
sovereignty, ownership, and law-order over all of creation:
being all equal and independent, no
one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions: for men
being all the workmanship of one omnipotent, and infinitely wise maker; all the
servants of one sovereign master, sent into the world by his order,
and about his business; they are his property,
whose workmanship they are, made to last during his, not one
another’s pleasure…10
Thomas
Jefferson clearly took his phrase “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”
from Locke, likely via Blackstone. It is no irony that Jefferson kept a
portrait of Locke on his parlor wall. Both hated tyranny, and saw freedom as
requiring the defense of person and property via use of force if necessary.
Both derived this from the Christian legal tradition they inherited.
Today, so
many Christians are brainwashed or affected by progressive propaganda that
we have an uneasy feeling even broaching the subject of guns. Constant
liberalism in the media and years of government-school indoctrination have
eroded the foundations of liberty in this nation. Ironically, Christians think
themselves conservative when they back everything the military does. Conservatives
think that to oppose the military is to be a leftist. They have no idea that 1)
the tradition of imperialistic war grows out of leftist, not conservative,
ideology, and 2) the Bible forbids nations to have standing armies or stockpile
offensive weapons. The Bible calls for national defense through an armed
populace and militia upon necessity. A standing army is an affront to God. But
for some reason, alleged conservative politicians easily persuade Christian
voters that the next military maneuver is of necessity an expression of
conservative values, and the Christians cheer. In reality, it is an
anti-Christian position to have all arms in possession of the state and the
populace dependent (let alone cheering) on the state for protection and defense.
We are
further brainwashed into thinking (and feeling) that guns are somehow dirty and
evil, and that Christians should have nothing to do with them. In this view, we
have departed from the Scriptures, Christian legal history, as well as
America’s Christian history.
As a
remedy for the situation, we should both learn and exercise our gun rights.
This article provides merely a beginning of the necessary education. We need
much more. Every Christian should read and understand the laws of their
particular state. Good places to start are www.handgunlaw.us and opencarry.org (the
former site includes coverage of concealed carry laws and much more; the latter
deals mainly with open carry). Not only should you know about laws pertaining
directly to carrying, but also to those pertaining to the use of deadly force.
These vary per state, and Christians should be aware.
In
addition to knowledge, we should also begin to exercise our inviolable
rights. Every able Christian should own a firearm, and each should seek
instruction and training in how to use them. This includes handguns, shotguns,
and rifles, each of which has a particular strength in self- and home-defense.
Elders and pastors should teach on the topic and its history, and should help
aid church members in obtaining fitting pieces and proper training in legal
settings.
One great
expression of both education and practice appears in the Appleseed
Project. These training camps are steeped in American history and
wish to advance the forgotten legacy of the American rifleman. Using focused
and professional training events across the country, this project teaches and
hones shooting skills toward the goal of making you accurate at 500 yards.
In
addition to that great project, I recommend taking classes in handgun defense
and general home defense. These are offered by gun shops and firing ranges
around the country. Make use of them.
In states
that oppress the inviolable right to bear arms, the best we can do is to
organize politically and locally to change the laws. [Even here, things are
changing.] This is not easy, of course, but Christian society demands it as a
measure to stop the tyranny of governments and the advance of individual crime.
To allow unjust gun laws and prohibitions to continue unchallenged is to fail
in loving your neighbor and to vote in favor of servitude. This, of course, demands
its own article, but deserves at least mentioning here.
Christians
need to understand and act upon these biblical ideals. While this article
hardly provides the last word on the subject, we ignore the lessons of the
Bible and history to the peril of our freedoms and lives. Evil ever advances
upon our families, churches, and states. Evil seeks positions of power, such as
government, and from there seeks to eliminate the avenues of power that
threaten it (an armed populace). Thus tyrannical government seeks gun control
laws. Wise Christians see past the propaganda and stand for freedom. Those who
remain silent are by their silence complicit in the tyranny and the crimes in
which it results.
With
relentless expression of our rights through education, publication, exercising
the right, and challenging unjust laws, Christians can at least create a
society hungrier for freedom. At best we may roll back the various
infringements upon those freedoms. If we change the laws well enough, we may
indeed once again hear pastor say, “Oh, and don’t forget: on Sundays we have
our regular target practice. Make sure to bring your pieces to church.”
