I went to bed Sunday night with a heavy heart. Another depraved monster opened fire at a church in Kentucky, Richmond Road Baptist Church, killing at least two and injuring several others. And I quickly learned from messages popping up on my phone that we had a connection to that church; some of our members grew up there.
The news out of Wayne, Michigan, a couple of weeks ago was better. The attacker who tried to murder innocent people at Crosspoint Community Church was killed by church security before he could do so.
These incidents against churches are happening with greater and greater frequency. And in today’s world, that is very much to be expected for three reasons. The foundational reason is that, in the words of Jesus himself to his followers in John 15:18-19, “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” It would be foolish to think that a world that hated Jesus enough to crucify him would think any better of those who follow him. Beyond that, the nature of media and social media greatly exacerbates the problem. Everyone wants to be famous, and those who succeed at these heinous attempts never have their names forgotten. The legacy of Herostratus never dies, it seems.
Another crucial reason for these attacks, though, is that churches are generally perceived as soft targets. It is commonly assumed that Christians are old, soft, unarmed pacifists who will merely cower and pray while being murdered. And while the first two reasons likely cannot ever be fixed, that third one can at least be ameliorated.
When the attacker in Michigan was stopped by a deacon wielding a Ford F150 as a weapon, and then by a gun, I quipped online that, at our church, he would have been run over by four or five F150s, several GMCs, a few clunky Dodges and then shot by several Sigs, a few Glocks and a Kimber or three. Pretty quickly, a lady who was once a member of our church until she married and moved away replied, “I have never felt safer than when I was at Cornerstone!”
Her words absolutely made my day. That is the way I want every lady and child to feel when they are with us.
Already, some people are reading this column, fuming and muttering, “Jesus would never be OK with that!” And the Jesus they have created out of whole cloth certainly would not. The Jesus of the Bible, though the one who said, “He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one,” definitely would. That Jesus was a man’s man. He made a whip and chased people out of the temple; he flipped tables over; he was beaten to ribbons, and yet carried a heavy cross up to Calvary. That Jesus prescribed a millstone around the neck and a deep body of water for anyone who hurt children. That Jesus is coming back in Revelation 19 with his eyes flaming like fire, wearing a garment dipped in blood and wielding a sword to smite the nations. That Jesus, as the second member of the Trinity, is also the author of all of Scripture, not just the handy-dandy parts in red. This includes passages like Psalm 82:3-4, which commands us to defend the weak, and Deuteronomy 22:27, which makes clear that ladies in peril are to be rescued by strong men.
I could give many more scriptural examples, but will not do so, both for space reasons, and because none of them will ever shake any cowards cloaked in their mythical Jesus clothes of their unwarranted self-righteousness on this issue.
Churches should do everything in their power to protect the innocent who come to worship. There will never be a guarantee of 100% success, but there should at least be a known guarantee that anyone who tries to murder innocent people is himself going to be facing certain death on the spot. That, all by itself, will stop a lot of trouble before it ever even starts.
There are firms and individuals who teach churches how to do this. Some local law enforcement will do so as well. If you are wondering what we do, the brief summary is as follows. We have an armed security team headed and trained by a longtime law enforcement veteran. Each year, we do range training and qualify with the weapons we carry. We pass, or we do not carry at church. Even church members who are not on the security team, if they carry in church, are expected to qualify.
We have a camera system monitoring the entire property, and a security member watching it at all times. Once service starts, all of the doors are locked. Anyone wanting to get in after that has to be cleared by security. We have security stationed at key places in the auditorium and elsewhere. No matter where trouble may start, someone ready to deal with it is only a few feet away.
This is not everything that we do, but it is enough to give you the idea. Again, we are neither arrogant nor foolish enough to think we cannot be taken. But we are prepared and ready enough to know that we are not sitting ducks, not in the least.
We are praying for the good folks in Kentucky. And I am hoping that this column may prevent such a thing from happening elsewhere.
Bo Wagner is pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church of Mooresboro, North Carolina, a widely traveled evangelist and the author of several books available on Amazon and at wordofhismouth.com. Email him at 2knowhim@cbc-web.org.