Gunz 'n' God

Well now, this is interesting:

An Oklahoma church canceled a controversial gun giveaway for teenagers at a weekend youth conference.

Windsor Hills Baptist had planned to give away a semiautomatic assault rifle until one of the event's organizers was unable to attend.

The church’s youth pastor, Bob Ross, said it’s a way of trying to encourage young people to attend the event. The church expected hundreds of teenagers from as far away as Canada.

“We have 21 hours of preaching and teaching throughout the week,” Ross said.

Well, thank goodness they have preaching and teaching in addition to the firing of live rounds of ammunition at this gathering! Otherwise I might begin to worry.

Look, on the one hand, I suppose this is no different than organizing a preaching event around skateboarding, or rock music, or whatever. But it reminds me of just how different my conception of what is appropriate to Christianity is from others in other parts of the country. It would never, in a million years dawn on me to offer to give away guns to people coming to hear a sermon. And furthermore, if someone proposed the idea, I would laugh hysterically at them and then kick them out of my office!

So then, does this say more about me, or about the people who think this is a good idea?

UPDATED TO ADD IMAGE

Comments

[Richard]

It does not happen that often but that story shocks me - and the claim that there's 21 hours of preaching does nothing to assuage. If they're willing to promote the firing of semi-automatic weapons as a leisure activity I don't want to know the content of the sermons!