Posted on 07/17/2017 4:50:02 PM PDT by boycott
Comments are priceless!
I was a member of First Baptist Dothan for 5 years.
I was starting left fielder. I remember we played a lot of other churches but for some reason don’t recall that one. It may have grown since the 70s.
I am on security at my church. I am armed, as is a couple of others. The pastor and deacons say that the church nor our insurance will cover me or other security that are armed IF we were to get sued for shooting or pulling our weapon on someone on church property. However, they know I am armed, but ignore it. They have never told me not to carry in the church. I would even if told not to. They would have to tell me to leave the premises, which I would do. We went to another church before this one. I was on security there. ALL the security were armed there. Many of the people there, including women were armed. The pastor and deacons knew it and wanted it. I simply told my current pastor and deacons that I did not care. I was coming armed. I would not stand by and allow some thug or murdered to come in and start shooting, killing or robbing people. We are a small church and our people are older people. I will not stand by and let some thug murder some 85 year old woman in our church. I am retired military. I defended this nation for over 20 years in the Army. I swore to protect and defend. As far as I am concerned when it comes to me, my wife and my old friends in this church, I will defend them. One younger guy, in his late 30s come armed. He feels exactly as I do. I will protect all of us there, including my pastor and deacons that act like they don’t know I am armed. I don’t know how they expect me to protect people in the church without being armed. I guess they expect me to throw song books at them. But, if you will go and check around on the Internet you will find that bunches of churches are becoming easy targets to attack. The church I used to attend, before I was there, had an incident where the security had to use force to protect the church. I will do the same. We are easy targets. People have money to give on Sundays, so crooks and druggies know that. And the religion of peace knows where we are also. Small churches are easy targets.
Love a story with a happy ending!
I suspect the same scenario would play out at my church - lots of old curmudgeons there, armed I’m sure (including my no nonsense minister).
At the very best it isn’t an easy situation.
We don’t know all the details. What weapon did the robber wield? What other means were available to stop the robbing? Would there have been a difficulty using the gun to hold the robber?
What’s legal may be much more generous than what’s strictly Christian.
The devil is in the details, but if possible I might well jump on the back of a robber to stop him. I’m not super strong but I am pretty heavy.
In the gospels, Jesus is recorded telling the disciples whom He was soon to leave (to be crucified), to procure a sword. What followed, however, seems more ambiguous. Peter did pull out the sword, to defend Jesus, and in what looks like an attempt to cut a soldier’s helmet in two, instead sliced the soldier’s ear off. Jesus rebuked that, not for the lousy aim, but saying “he who lives by the sword will die by it.” And then healed the cut ear. There may be a metaphor in this, in that Jesus is warning that gratuitous violence on the part of Christians can blunt the hearing of the gospel.
And I’ve sometimes wondered if Jesus’ statement was a permissive, rather than desirous, one. I.e. in the manner that God tells the devil to do something evil that the devil has been fervently wishing to do. God didn’t wish the evil; the devil did; God granted permission.
Anyhow, I’d be far, far, far more disturbed at all the rejoicing over “happy ending” than at the way the actual incident ended. God gets no pleasure out of the death of the wicked, but again this is something Christians are expected to understand.
Ultimately, what impact will this event have upon the gospel and gospel belief? I’m truly not sure it would be as salutary as other ways it might have played out.
I know you are not Christian, Tiger, but I am talking this way for the sake of others who are, or may be considering becoming such.
Taking an other’s life is always difficult but in this case he may well have saved many other people from being robbed or worse.
I think he did the right thing.
Maybe he did, and yet in the manner of Satan.
God’s will was carried out, and yet by someone who did not have a Christian ideal in mind.
One question I would ask, is did the robber have a gun or was this strong arm robbery?
And I would be far less concerned about this one incident than at whether it is being roundly supported in that church as a general M.O. going forward, rather than as a learning opportunity. If it is, without further consideration of what a Christian might do, that church may find itself backsliding.
Just saying.
And the devil is in the details. What were the people on the scene aware of? Was this stopping a killer or simply a thief?
It’s wise for that church to review the situation with an eye to the future. There is a security team on the church where I go, per Nebraska law. Would it shoot, or try to stop and hold, a strong arm robber? I am not so sure that shoot would be the first move. If only because that sends bullets around and where they go can’t always be well planned.
Bye-bye....sigh
I attend a small church too. I am not armed in church but I know that others are. Our minister has said so on more than a few occasions. I am glad to have them there.
Our Founders thought it legal to rebel against the King of England to avoid an ungodly man. They shot and killed many and lost no sleep over it. I assure you they knew more about the Scriptures than most of us on FR put together. Self defense is very different than murder. If we were all conscientious objectors, we would have been wiped out eons ago. The Romans and the Muslims tried hard to kill us all.
If this church allowed this to happen, there would be multiple robberies the rest of the year until someone finally fixed the problem.
I think you’re trying to shout down your own conscience.
You’re indulging in the fallacy of the excluded middle, which says that they’d just wave the robber back out.
And how do YOU know the founders didn’t agonize under the moral weight of what they had done? Do you see that assertion backed up by history, or are you arguing from the silence of your ignorance?
The new America also sometimes did worse things to itself than that King George would have done. Slavery wouldn’t have even been a question, for one thing. Would being free of slavery have been worth being part of England’s empire for a longer time?
God granted America’s freedom, but not without a stiff smack on the face to go with it.
Cutting down the thieves, cutting down the thieves, we shall come rejoicing, cutting down the thieves.
Kyrie Eleison.
I just watched the local Dothan news.
They did not add much. The one thing was that he had robbed one person and was attempting to rob others. They did not say if he was armed or not but I think he must have been since he was robbing multiple people.
You normally do not try to rob a bunch of people with no weapons.
They also said the Dothan police had no plans to arrest anyone, but the case could go before a grand jury later. That is pretty much standard procedure for a justifiable homicide.
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