Our Great God Gun

This gun-obsessed society is a disgrace

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You dare to call yourselves a Christian Nation? Not hardly. The United States is a wretched, wretched society, electing politicians over and over who are willing to sacrifice its children and adults on the altar of profits and power from gun violence.

Today, six more people have been killed in a school shooting. Three children, three adults were shot at a Nashville, TN Christian School. The shooter was killed by police.  

The shooter, identified as a woman, had two “assault-style rifles” and a handgun.  

As of Sunday, there were 13 mass shootings with four or more dead this year — killing 69 people.

Assault-style guns have increased dramatically in popularity in this gun-obsessed nation. The AR-15 is the best-selling rifle in the United States, industry figures indicate. About 1 in 20 U.S. adults or roughly 16 million people own at least one AR-15, according to polling data from The Washington Post and Ipsos.

But statistics, as horrifying as they are, do not get it done, I believe.

I would like to call on every church to include this rewrite of Isaiah 58 in worship every Sunday until the carnage stops.

I know, I have said this before and I will keep saying it until the guns fall silent.

Confession, repentance, and change are what are called for now.

1

Shout out, do not hold back!

Lift up your voice like a trumpet!

Why does the United States worship guns

Instead of God?

2

Yet day after day they seek me

and delight to know my ways,

as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness

and did not forsake the ordinance of their God;

They ask of me righteous judgments,

they delight to draw near to God.

3

Why do you go to all these churches, but you do not see?

Why do you humble yourselves, but you do not notice?”

Look, you serve your own interest on your worship day,

And then just do the bidding of the National Rifle Association.

4

Look, you pray and then go out to buy and sell guns

And make it easier for many to commit mass murder.

Such prayers as you do today

will not make your voice heard on high.

5

Is such the worship that I choose,

a day to make it easier to sell guns?

Is it to bow down the head in prayer,

And then call for prayers for gun victims?

Will you call these prayers,

a day acceptable to the Lord?

6

Is not this the prayers that I choose:

to free the nation from the yoke of the NRA,

to undo the fraudulent interpretation of the second

amendment,

to let those who fear guns in their neighborhoods be freed,

and to overturn the gun lobbies?

7

Is it not to share your opposition to out of control

guns with your neighbors,

and to bring better policy to our nation;

when you see those in terror of gun violence,

protect them and keep them safe?

8

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,

and your healing shall spring up quickly;

your vindicator shall go before you,

the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

9

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;

you shall cry for help, and God will say, Here I am.

Amen.

Links:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2023/ar-15-america-gun-culture-politics/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/03/27/nashville-shooting-covenant-school/