American Evangelicals are famously supportive of gun rights. But a religious southern coalition, the North Carolina Council of Churches, believes that guns have become modern graven images and that they aren’t the “solution to our safety.” To that end, the council has put up a billboard just outside of Burlington picturing guns, ammo, and quoting the Second Commandment (the Protestant version, which Catholics usually count as part of the First Commandment).
“For many of us, guns have become the symbol of safety, the idol we turn to because we ‘believe in them’ to keep us safe,” the North Carolina Council of Churches told local news channel WBTV. “God commands the people not to have any idols. Idols can assume a lot of guises in our world that we don’t immediately understand as idolatry.”
Surely, the Second Amendment must never overshadow the Second Commandment, and the Christian can find true hope not in this earthly kingdom but in the next. In short, Moses wouldn’t look kindly on skipping church for the gun range.
But following the straight and narrow doesn’t mean unilaterally disarming. Not at all.
In the same way the Ten Commandments condemn idolatry, they also condemn murder and set up a moral imperative to self-preservation. The divine has given life and expects good stewardship. It’s why the ancient Israelites fought wars to avoid being annihilated, and it’s why the son of God told his own disciples to sell their cloaks and buy a sword.
Perhaps obeying that latter commandment, Stephen Willeford bought himself his own gun. Last November, that Texan confronted and stopped the madman who was murdering the congregation of First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs.
Certainly that good Samaritan wasn’t disobeying God.
So, dearly beloved, avoid the temptation to kneel and offer burnt offerings to your grandfather’s deer rifle. But no, the Second Commandment does not condemn the Second Amendment.
