Bring Your Guns to Church

One of the most fun conference talks I ever gave was this one in Monroe in 2020, developing a theology of self-defense and applying it to congregations. Thanks to Aaron Fudge, I now have an AI-generated transcript I can share. I have not edited this, but hopefully it’s pretty accurate.

—

# Bring Your Guns to Church

## By Rich Lusk

It’s great to be with you again. I enjoy being part of this conference and hearing the other speakers.

I grew up in a public school system and attended public high school, where we had to give a speech every year. For four years, I delivered the same anti-gun control speech. Tonight marks the first time I’ve publicly addressed the subject of guns and gun control since the early 1990s, so I’m excited to be here. I know people are waiting on pins and needles to hear what I have to say, and I hope to address this topic shrewdly.

After the last talk, we, as Christians, know we are called to suffer. Sometimes, we’re called to suffer persecution or even martyrdom. There is nothing more glorious or powerful than one who gives his life out of loyalty to Christ, laying it down for the cause of the gospel. The church father Tertullian put it this way: “We conquer in dying; we go forth triumphant at the very moment we seem subdued. The more often we are mowed down, the more we grow in number. The blood of Christians is the seed of the church.” I love that quote because it captures so much.

But I want to ask a question from the other side: Are there ever times when we can and must resist enemies who would inflict harm on us or our loved ones? Are there times when we can defend ourselves against someone who would cause suffering? In this talk, I’m interested in self-defense, particularly what you might call congregational or sanctuary defense. I want to develop arguments that justify this kind of defense. Is it appropriate for a congregation, when gathered, to be defended by armed men during worship services? Should we be like lambs led to the slaughter if an attacker, an assailant, or a would-be mass murderer enters? Or, as I’ve heard it put, should it be “Glocks for the flock” or “lambs to the slaughter”?

My guess is that most, if not all, of our congregations have already answered that question in the affirmative. But I want to develop a theology that undergirds this practice while carefully contextualizing it. We Americans, especially Southern Americans, can get as excited about guns as we do about college football. It’s easy for that enthusiasm to get out of hand. I don’t necessarily want to curb that enthusiasm, but I want to place it within a broader context so you can understand where it fits.

There are certainly times when we must accept suffering as our calling. When the Romans came to arrest Jesus, Peter was wrong to draw his sword. That wasn’t the right response at that time—it was time for Jesus to die, to go to the cross, not to be defended with arms. Similarly, it would have been unfaithful for Hugh Latimer or Nicholas Ridley to resist martyrdom in the 16th century. On the other hand, I believe it was entirely appropriate last week in Texas for Jack Wilson to gun down a would-be mass murderer who entered his church with intent to kill. Wilson pulled his gun and shot the man dead on the spot, and that was a righteous, holy, and loving act. I want to make a case for Jack Wilson, for the Jack Wilsons of the church and the world.

There is a time to be killed, but there’s also a time to do the killing—that’s biblical wisdom. There’s a time for martyrdom and a time to fight back. Johnny Cash sang, “Don’t take your guns to town, son, leave your guns at home, Bill.” Maybe Bill needed to leave his guns at home, but what about taking our guns to church? I argue that all our churches should have armed security. This is a duty before God. At least some men in our congregations, particularly those in church office, should take their guns to church. They have an obligation to protect their flock from acts of terrorism, just as they must protect the congregation from false teaching or idolatrous liturgy. Thankfully, many of us live in places where we can lawfully do so. Not everyone does, but in America, for the most part, we can and should avail ourselves of that right.

Not every man in the congregation needs to be armed—that could lead to innocent people getting caught in the crossfire if everyone tries to shoot an assailant at once. But certainly, some men should be armed. As with every topic, we must start at the beginning, so let’s go back to the Garden of Eden in Genesis.

When Adam was alone in the garden, God told him to serve and guard it. These are the same verbs later used to describe the work of the Levites and priests when the tabernacle was built. Adam had a priestly calling, a priestly vocation in the Garden of Eden. You can learn a lot about Eden by reading the Bible backward, as later scriptures shed light on what was happening. The Garden of Eden was the original sanctuary, the original temple. Like the temple built later in Israel’s history, it was on a mountain. The tabernacle and temple had imagery reminiscent of the garden, like golden lampstands molded to look like trees and cherubim figures woven into the curtains, veils, and on the Ark of the Covenant, recalling the cherubim stationed at Eden’s entrance after Adam and Eve’s exile.

Given these links, we can say the Garden was a sanctuary. The fact that Adam was told to guard it in Genesis 2 suggests there would be an intruder. In Genesis 3, a satanic serpent enters and begins to question God’s word, acting as a false teacher in the sanctuary. Where was Adam during this? In John Milton’s *Paradise Lost*, Adam is absent, letting him off the hook. But in the biblical account, Genesis 3 shows he was right there, standing by, watching. What should Adam have done when the serpent questioned God’s word in conversation with his wife? He should have stepped between the serpent and his wife and crushed the serpent’s head. If the last Adam crushes Satan’s skull at Golgotha, the first Adam should have done so in Eden. Had Adam been faithful, Eden would have been Golgotha, the place where the skull was crushed.

The fall happened because Adam failed to guard the garden, specifically by not exercising holy violence against the satanic intruder. The fall occurred because Adam became an effeminate pacifist instead of a manly warrior. You could say effeminacy, pacifism, or cowardice was the original sin, characterizing Adam’s failure to fight and defend his bride.

On a related note, everything you need to know about the sexes is found in Genesis. The man is given a job before a wife, a mission, and then God gives him a woman to help fulfill it. This is foundational to the husband-wife relationship. The man was made to die for the woman, to fight for her; the woman was made to give the man something worth dying or fighting for. Adam’s bride was worth fighting for, but he failed to fight on her behalf. The fall was due to a failure of manhood, as Adam emasculated himself and failed to destroy the intruder in the sanctuary. He abdicated his manly responsibilities, failing as a man, husband, and priest to do the guard duty God commanded.

Later in Israel’s history, when Levites guarded the tabernacle—a new Garden of Eden—they were armed. Numbers 1:53 indicates they were to slay anyone who trespassed onto God’s sacred turf. The tribe of Levi has a violent history, sometimes wickedly violent, as in Genesis 34’s Dinah incident, and sometimes righteously violent, as with Phinehas in Numbers 25, guarding God’s worship by slaying idolaters. In Genesis 49:5-7, Jacob’s prophetic blessing over Levi recognizes their violent nature, which plays out in their history, both good and bad. The Levites had an Adamic task to guard, requiring weapons, sometimes used as Phinehas did with his spear. They were warrior-priests, a militia distinct from Israel’s other fighting forces. Priests could not be pacifists like Adam became; a failure to fight when necessary is a sin of cowardice. Priests shed blood—animal blood daily and human blood when required—for masculine work of guarding and protecting.

You cannot draw a straight line from Eden’s sacred space to modern church buildings, as sacred space works differently in the New Covenant. It’s fulfilled by people — we are the temple. But there are still connections to be made.

Let’s develop some other arguments. The classic text on self-defense in the Torah is Exodus 22, which states that if a thief is caught breaking in at night and is struck and dies, there is no blood guilt. But if the sun has risen, there is blood guilt. This law teaches that if you hear an intruder at night and strike them, you’re innocent—no questions asked. This law is rooted in the right to life and property. The right to life means no one can take your life unless authorized by God. In Exodus 22, it’s property under threat, but if you can lawfully kill a thief, how much more a murderer? The law is clear: we have a right to defend our homes and lives against thieves and murderers. Human life has value because we’re made in God’s image and protected by God’s law.

The right to life and the right to defend life are linked. Self-defense is the most basic right, as other rights depend on it. To defend yourself typically requires a tool—whether a baseball bat or an AR-15. The right to self-defense includes the right to the means of self-defense, which is the logic of the Second Amendment. The right to life is the right to self-defense is the right to keep and bear arms—they’re all linked. Even if statistics showed gun ownership led to more crime than banning guns (a counterfactual), it wouldn’t defeat the right to self-defense or gun ownership, as it’s grounded in God’s gift of life, not pragmatism. Talking about a God-given right to a gun makes sense, even though guns aren’t in the Bible, because these rights cohere.

Nehemiah 4 is another example. Nehemiah led the Israelites in rebuilding Jerusalem’s wall, a holy city (like an enlarged temple), with all Israelites elevated to a priestly status. They faced opposition from satanic intruders like Sanballat and Tobiah, who plotted to fight Jerusalem and stir trouble. Nehemiah prayed to God and posted a guard day and night (Nehemiah 4:9)—a great mission statement for church security teams: pray to God and post a guard. The enemies planned to kill and stop the work, but Nehemiah stationed people with swords, spears, and bows— note the “open carry”—at vulnerable points. They carried weapons even to get water, frustrating the enemies’ plot to attack God’s people. Strength deters; peace through strength is biblical. Nehemiah’s workers had a sword in one hand and a trowel in the other, fulfilling the Adamic task of working and guarding the garden-city.

Human life is valuable and worthy of protection, a duty especially given to men. Women bear life; men protect it. Alistair Roberts notes that men in Scripture’s leadership are not pushovers—most have killed someone. Masculinity is a controlled capacity for work, violence, sex, influence, and power. True masculinity directs these capacities wisely to worthy ends, including controlled violence. A man who cannot be violent when needed is not a good man; a man who doesn’t control his violence is bad. Good men protect from bad men, using self-control and wisdom to apply violence rightly. Good men are peaceful but not harmless, dangerous when needed, especially fathers, the most dangerous men because they have the most to protect. G.K. Chesterton said soldiers fight not against what’s in front of them but for love of what’s behind them. Good violence is motivated by love.

Some might argue this is Old Testament thinking, and New Testament piety is softer, even pacifist, with turning the other cheek. But the New Testament doesn’t support a dispensational view pitting Old Covenant masculinity against New Covenant masculinity. God hasn’t changed, nor has manhood. Turning the other cheek is part of our ethic, but not the whole. There are times to turn the other cheek and times to shoot a dangerous intruder. Hebrews 11’s Hall of Faith includes both victorious warriors like David and Samson, who killed righteously, and martyrs like Isaiah, who suffered. Both are models, showing complexity—neither pacifism nor trigger-happy attitudes capture it. Wisdom knows when to be a martyr or a warrior.

Jesus affirms this in Luke 11:21-22: a strong, armed man guards his homestead, but a stronger attacker can overpower him. Jesus sees being armed as a deterrent. His disciples carried swords, and in Luke 22:36-38, Jesus didn’t object, even telling them to sell their cloak to buy one for future self-defense. There’s a time to kill and a time to be killed, a time to resist and a time to surrender. In the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21), Jesus prophesies Jerusalem’s destruction in 70 AD, his wrath leaving not one stone of the temple upon another. This was Jesus’ judgment, executed through Roman armies, showing he’s not just the Prince of Peace but a judge with a sword (Revelation 19). Shane Claiborne says Jesus carried a cross, not a gun, and told us to love enemies. True, but Jesus also protected his bride by destroying Jerusalem. The Reformed tradition distinguishes righteous from unrighteous violence, insisting on the duty to defend innocent life, as seen in the Westminster Larger Catechism. The fifth commandment requires superiors (husbands, fathers, elders) to protect and provide for inferiors. The sixth commandment includes preserving our lives and others’ through just defense against violence, comforting the distressed, and defending the innocent.

In American history, guns were tools of liberty against theft, murder, and tyranny. The Second Amendment wasn’t about hunting but resisting tyrants, foreign or domestic, as the Founders guarded the biblical right to bear arms to preserve liberty. In 1 Samuel 13, the Philistines denied Israelites weapons to keep them enslaved, a point the Founders used to argue for the right to defense. In colonial times, Massachusetts Bay Colony required men 18 and up to come to church armed or face fines. In Virginia, Rhode Island, and Delaware, similar laws existed. Colonial clergy kept loaded guns in the pulpit, and schools had gun clubs, with young men trained in firearms as a rite of passage.

Today, guns are blamed for wicked actions, and gun culture is seen as toxic, not virtuous. People who depend on the government for protection become godless, emasculated, lazy, irresponsible, immature, idolatrous, and endangered. The police can’t help when a crime is in progress—“when seconds count, the police are only minutes away.” We have the right and duty to defend ourselves and others, modeled in Scripture, God’s law, and American heritage. Church officers should devise security plans to protect the flock from deadly intruders, not out of bloodlust but as an outworking of faith and love, taking responsibility virtuously. A church without strong men to protect it is like a garden without a fence, a house without a door, a nation without an army, or a body without an immune system. Don’t let that be you. Bring your guns to church.

Let’s stand and sing number 147.

### Closing Prayer

O God, from whom come all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works, give to us, your servants, that peace this evening which the world cannot give, that our hearts may be set to obey your commandments, and also that we, being defended from the fear of our enemies, may live in peace and quietness through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.