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Baptist churches in Kentucky are giving away guns as prizes in the southern state in hopes of drawing wayward locals to Christ.
Lone Oak First Baptist Church is hosting the next "faith and firearms" event on Thursday and has invited the townsfolk of Paducah to come by for a free steak dinner and a chance to win one of 25 handguns, long guns and shotguns which have been donated as prizes.
The purpose is to "point people to Christ" while also celebrating gun rights and the great outdoors, the church said.
Preacher Chuck McAlister -- who used to host a popular hunting show on the Outdoor Channel and is a member of the Kentucky Baptist Convention's executive team -- will be the guest speaker.
McAlister's ministry "revolves around God, guns, good ol' boys" and has helped more than 3,000 people find Christ in the past two years, the convention said in an article on its website.
"That's a phenomenal number of souls saved under one man's ministry by anybody's standards," said Paul Chitwood, executive director of the Kentucky Baptist Convention, an umbrella group for 2,400 autonomous churches.
"Chuck has a unique gift that makes him especially effective in reaching out to us good ol' boys, and he does it with passion."
The "Second Amendment Celebrations" have drawn the ire of clergy across Kentucky, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported.
"How ironic to use guns to lure men in to hear a message about Jesus, who said, 'Put away the sword,'" Reverend Joe Phelps, pastor of Louisville's independent Highland Baptist Church, told the paper in an article posted Monday.
"Can you picture Jesus giving away guns, or toasters or raffle tickets?... He gave away bread once, but that was as a sign, not a sales pitch."
Nancy Jo Kemper, pastor of New Union Church in Versailles and former director of the Kentucky Council of Churches called the events a "travesty."
"Churches should not be encouraging people in their communities to arm themselves against their neighbors, but to love their neighbors, as instructed by Jesus," she told the paper.
"How terrible it would be if one of those guns given away at a church were to cause the death of an innocent victim."
McAlister insisted that guns are a great way to reach out to the "unchurched."
"You have to know the hook that will attract people, and hunting is huge in Kentucky," he told the paper. "So we get in there and burp and scratch and talk about the right to bear arms and that stuff."
© (c) 2014 AFP
21 Comments
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Noliving
Yep, do you even understand the moral of that story?
SuperLib
Any background checks being done?
JTDanMan
If you know about why Southern Baptists are Southern Baptists, this should come as no surpirse.
Rainbow_Demon
As with Islam, so with Christianity. A few nutters lay claim to a religion, suddenly those few nutters define the entire religion and all believers for some people. You might think guilt by association was an idea left behind in the middle ages. Not remotely.
SwissToni
The misinformed pandering to the insane. Thers humour to be found in this, albeit a dark, tragic comedy of errors.
SenseNotSoCommon
Casting the first stone?
TorafusuTorasan
All that gun talk and scratching of nether regions at church sounds sac religious. With "burp and scratch and talk", is McAlister listing interchangeable communicative practices in Kentucky? Does a faith healer come in to rid these hillbillies of their gas and skin fungus ailments? I bet there will be loud snickering when some wiseacre belches "amen." Either that, or a volley of bird shot out of a dozen blunderbusses to shut up the gaseous heathen.
Jean ValJean
I find this rather perplexing. The 2nd Amendment has nothing to do with religion. Clearly, I support both religious freedom and gun rights, however including firearms in a church raffle leaves me near speechless. I've gone hunting with various church members, but not a one would, I think, propose to offer one for proselytizing. Non sequitor.
globalwatcher
Madness and disgrace. I see JC is shedding tears on his face.
Repent we are all sinners and forgive those who know nothing.
Wolfpack
Surely it is possible to be a responsible gun owner and a Christian. Oh yeah radical secularists think Christianity & guns should be eliminated.
SenseNotSoCommon
Christianity Fried.
jforce
Oh religion, you have now made people officially loonier.
taj
So the 2nd Amendment outweighs the 6th Commandment?
Noliving
In other words they are losing their flock to this guy and they don't like it.
In other words you are giving guns to sinners.....
bass4funk
Unbelievable!
Nat Turner
God & Allah must men different things these days.
alimel1969
This is in bad taste. In 1997 there was a school shooting incidence in this city where a high school student opened fire on a group of students that were praying. I never lived in Kentucky and as soon as I read this I remembered so how can a church community in the same city have already forgotten? I am without words to the insensitivity.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heath_High_School_shooting>
cleo
It's good that a 'church' pulls this kind of stunt. It shows them up for what they are (definitely not following the teachings of Christ), so's sensible folk can avoid them like the plague.
Nenad Jovanović
Omg, I cant believe it, where is morality ? I am shocked and disappointed, I would gladly put those people in jail , really, connecting religion with guns, religion need to calm down people aggression , not to promote with guns. This is sick .
nandakandamanda
Sounds like something the Taliban might do.