MO Church Giving Away AR-15 Rifles to Boost Attendance
What kind of gun would Jesus shoot? It’s a question that theologians have debated throughout history without being able to settle on a satisfying answer. Some subscribe to the school of thought that he would carry something small and tasteful, like a .32 caliber hand gun, because there’s little room for anything bigger in those flowing robes. Others say he’d wield an AR-15, because Jesus is a badass and anything less than maximum destruction power wouldn’t make sense for the Prince of Peace.
That’s apparently what a church in Joplin, Mo., had in mind for a Father’s Day promotion last week, in which fathers were offered raffle tickets to win one of two AR-15 rifles. For every child he brought with him, he’d get another chance at taking aim with the Lord.
“We thought instead of a lot of small things, we’d give away stuff the guys were interested in,” Heath Mooneyham, the head pastor of the appropriately named Ignite Church told The Joplin Globe.
In a YouTube video announcing the promotion, Mooneyham, who also couldn’t have had a more appropriate name, teased the promotion in a message incongruously soundtracked by liberal heathen indie rock band Modest Mouse. “We’re gonna give away two of these stinkin’ guns. You know why? Because we can, and we’re awesome like that,” he said. About the Smith & Wesson AR-15 he said, “You could kill a weak zombie with that thing. But if you really want to double tap a zombie in style, you’re going to want our grand prize…. The Lamborghini of AR-15s.”
You know who the original zombie was, right?
“Don’t cry to me that you’re a pansy and you can’t set your alarm. You’re a big boy. You got big balls between your legs. You’re a dad right?” he went on:
“Peace,” Mooneyham says, ending his message.
“If we get people in the door, we get to preach the gospel,” he told the Globe. “If we can get more people to follow Jesus, I’ll give away 1,000 guns. I don’t care.”
Guns don’t kill people, he reminded us, referencing Cain and Abel, people do. “People are crazy, period. Murder has been going on since the beginning of time. The first murder recorded in the Bible was with a rock.”
What’re you going to do now, liberals, make rocks illegal? Didn’t think so.
Sounds like pretty provocative stuff, but gun giveaways at churches aren’t all that uncommon of late.
A Kentucky Baptist church held a steak and gun giveaway back in March, which somehow seems like an appropriate paring. It’s not just a practice that goes on in the south either, as you may be thinking. A Baptist church in Troy, NY held an AR-15 giveaway in March as well.
“It’s a legal product. Churches raffle off items all the time,” New York Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin said at the time. “My church has a $10,000 raffle every single year. I mean, I don’t know how it’s a controversy, quite honestly, that law-abiding, church-going citizens of New York that are legal gun owners are taking part in a raffle to raise funds for a church… I don’t know why that’s controversial.”
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>> Luke O’Neil is a journalist and blogger in Boston. Follow him on Twitter (@lukeoneil47).
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
