SECOND AMENDMENT: Scripture teaching was out of context
It saddens me when I see a pastor take a quote out of the Bible and use its meaning out of context to make a popular political point. Guest columnist the Rev. Thomas E. Rush of Berean Baptist Church did just that (“Guns in church really are OK,” Opinion, May 2) when quoting Luke 22:35-38. He used that passage basically to say that Jesus approved of violence in defending oneself. If the good reverend had bothered to quote the full verse, he would see that Jesus was making a spiritual point about relying on God instead of the methods of man.
I love the Baptist church, and hate to see the warping of the mission of Jesus coming from its pulpits.
DAVID C. HOLMES, MARIETTA
What would Jesus do about firearms?
I was raised a Christian, but stopped declaring myself one when I was quite young. In the 40-odd years since, though, I have always held Jesus in the highest esteem. I have told anyone that listened that Jesus’ teachings of the power of love and forgiveness have been an enormously important influence on Western civilization, and that as the originator of the philosophy of non-violence, Jesus was probably the most important teacher in history.
Pastor Thomas Rush in his column really opened my eyes, however. According to Pastor Rush, Jesus urged his followers to be armed to the teeth and to be prepared to stick it to anyone who tried to interfere with the spreading of his gospel of love. Thanks to Pastor Rush’s Bible lesson, I now know I can strike Jesus’ name from the list of men I admire and need never to look to him for guidance again.
ED UDALL, MARIETTA
RELIGION: Americans should know Bible better
Thank you for publishing Nicholas D. Kristof’s column (“Heaven’s sake! Do you really know the Bible?” Opinion, A17). His comments about America’s religious/biblical ignorance are stunning. Americans need to wake up and realize the Bible is America’s primary foundation of its constitutional freedoms; that the cornerstones of America’s freedom and liberty are indeed “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” as Thomas Jefferson declared in his Declaration of Independence; that Gen. George Washington declared on 66 separate occasions that it was only with the help of “Divine Providence” that his ragtag army defeated the largest army in the world; that James Madison was inspired by “the perfect laws of liberty,” words he found in James 1:25, to pattern America’s Constitution after; that the “perfect law of liberty” he found in the Bible’s Old Testament, and especially America’s Bill of Rights, are patterned after the Law of Moses; and that America’s future freedoms depends on Jefferson’s “Supreme Judge of the World.”
DONALD S. CONKEY, WOODSTOCK
