First off, the shootings in Colorado were horrible, inexcusable, murderous, and tragic. I don’t have any first-hand knowledge of the circumstances, and certainly can’t place any blame in this sad story.
That said, I found some very interesting things to think about in the story of the Colorado church involved.
Perhaps they were too busy demonizing people (or worrying about their male-prostitute loving founder Ted Haggard) to read the Bible, which among other things teaches us through parables such as, oh, not turning away people who need lodging or churches as sanctuary or just plain old Christian charity.
First up, as the story goes, a man with a beard appeared at the Youth With a Mission Christian missionary center asking to stay the night. The Christian missionaries refused. I don’t know why they did, and there may have been a very good reason, but doesn’t the mere idea of a Christian missionary center refusing lodging to someone in need strike you as, well, hardly charitable? Makes me wonder just what the mission of these youth might be. Jesus would likely have invited him in, gave him his last hunk of bread, and then washed his feet. What a sap, eh?
Then, a “black-clad gunman” opened fire at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, where a security guard shot and killed him. Constitutional rights and the fact that she may have saved other lives aside, what does it say about a church that it requires not only security guards, but armed security guards?
It is no secret that I am thoroughly opposed to “organized” religion, which to me is akin to “organized” crime. I’m also very good at snap judgements, and in this case I am finding it hard to believe that a church that was founded by an anti-gay demagogue who was secretly a client of a male prostitute, a church that turns away people in need, and requires armed security guards — well, I can’t really believe that they can be very effective as a charitable venue. At least, in the classic definition of “charitable.”
I’m sure this will all be fodder for the “war on Christianity” pundits, although I really don’t think of this kind of church as even remotely Christian. It is a scary and difficult world we live in, and I understand that we can’t live our lives as if it is a parable in the Bible. Still, the irony of all this is that I believe that the vast majority of the strife that causes such Christian values to warp away from these teachings is caused — you guessed it — by religion itself.
