Don't Mess With Jesus, He's a Good Shot...

Unless you have been living in a cave the last few days, you surely have heard about the tragic shootings at a Youth With A Mission center and finally the New Life Church in Colorado Springs CO (where Ted Haggard was pastor). The situation is tragic and difficult, but raises some serious questions that we have to grapple with.

As a pastor I have seriously mixed feelings about this episode, primarily because of the message that it sends. Do we want people to look at this and say, "Christians aren't wimps"?

Years ago, a Baptist pastor by the name of J. Frank Norris shot and killed a man in his office in what he called self defense. His justification was that the visitor went for something his inside coat pocket during an argument. The "assailant" turned out to be "armed" with papers from his lawyer.

On one hand, you have the Exodus passage exonerating one from blood-guilt if you kill in self defense. On the other hand, Jesus didn't have a security detail.

As a pastor/father, it is one thing to allow myself to suffer harm, but what am I to do when others suffer at the hands of evil men. For years, I was a strict pacifist until I ran into an ethical brick wall called The Holocaust. Should the lives of others be snuffed out meaninglessly if I can stop it? Yet at the same time, when this young man was killed/killed himself he was most likely sending himself into eternity without Christ. A similar thought has crossed my mind in the war in Iraq/Afghanistan. Every Muslim that we gun down spends an eternity in Hell. Is that the cost of freedom?

So, what would I do? I honestly don't know, all I can say is that I hope to God I would do the right thing. But in this case, I am most concerned about the message that this sends.

Lastly, I fear that this congregation is under assault from the Enemy, or perhaps they are experiencing the inevitable entropy associated with the Mega-Church movement. Perhaps only time will tell. Either way, we should be praying for them and the families involved in this terrible event.