March 21, 2016

Guns in worship services

To the editor:

As always when the Herald arrives, I began by reading the March-April Editor’s Letter. In it you agreed with one person who said “it would be hard to be worshipful if they’re sitting next to a person with a gun exposed.”

The church we attended for 15 years in North Carolina was in the forefront of Christian issues such as acceptance as members of all persons regardless of race, the inclusion of women in all aspects of church work, the acceptance and welcoming of all persons as members and ministers regardless of sexual orientation, and a woman’s right to have an abortion. Given those stances, there were obviously people who felt differently than did we on every one of those issues — even to the point of threatening to disrupt our worship services.

I was very comforted by the knowledge that, sitting on the back row of our services was a retired police captain who carried and would not hesitate to take out any person bursting into our church with a gun to do us harm.

I was very sorry that no such person was present at a Bible study of the Charleston church last year when a demented person walked into their Bible study and used a firearm to kill a number of people.

Frank Kendall via email