New Life Church, the 14,000-member institution founded by the Rev. Ted Haggard, has armed security guards?
After the second shooting incident in Colorado the shooter was killed by an armed guard in the inside the church, which apparently had about 7000 people in it.
Granted, he probably saved lives but isn’t it really far from the basic tenants of christianity to have an armed guard at a church service? It’s too strange for me.
I’m going to bet the shooter had some affiliation with this or another conservative christian institution as well.
Well, if everyone is tithing properly, I’d guess that the guards are there because they’re collecting as much money as a bank branch. Not to mention the video equipment that some churches have, now, which could be a theft target. I’m guessing that, with that many people, having the guards lowers their insurance premiums.
This doesn’t preclude the guards being there because of potential weirdness, but there could be sound and boring reasons for having them, too.
At my large church, we do have a police officer. She spends most of her time patrolling the parking lot. There are a lot of cars there, and that is very inviting for thieves.
Of course, there is a large amount of cash in the offering. In addition, when you have so many people leaving at once, that is very inviting for pickpockets.
I don’t have a problem with it. It’s not like she’s a bouncer at a nightclub.
I’m glad there was an armed guard to stop the bloodshed in this event, but I agree that it shouldn’t be necessary - it could just as well have been an armed churchgoer. IMHO, it just goes to show that there’s no place where good people should be unarmed.
HER capacity, I just found out, which I find doubly cool. Apparently, she also has a law enforcement background, but I don’t know if that’s also her present occupation.
Yeah, it SHOULDN’T be necessary, but in this day & age, it is. And no, it’s not at all contrary to the Faith. We’re not called to be sitting ducks for whatever wacko decides to have a meltdown. Too bad someone at YWAM couldn’t have iced him the night before (assuming it’s the same guy).
Per CNN, the female guard is a parishioner volunteer. The church put in extra security that morning, because of the shooting earlier in Arvada, CO.
As for
:
Of course, it would have been much better if several people in the congregation had pulled guns out and started shooting at the killer, all in a crowd of 7000.
At my church, we have discreet cameras and a security guy who sits quietly in the back, in a jacket, looking like a moonlighting bouncer. He’s not armed but has a radio link to the police, who in midtown NYC are a couple of blocks away.
We have some priceless artwork in the place (it was built in 1885) and a bookstore that deals mostly in cash right near the front door. We also have a small population of homeless people that wanders in and either sleeps in the pews or actually attend Mass as best they can; I was a lector once and the guard had to come up and quietly remove a guy who had come up on the altar and was muttering at the priest during the communion prayers :eek: which was kinda scary if the guy had been armed.
So far, they haven’t been. There was a guy who stabbed an usher in St. Patrick’s a decade ago or so, but other than ACT UP! people standing up and shouting sometimes in the nineties, Catholic services seem to be pretty serene in this country. After 2000 years guess we know what we’re doing.
St. Patrick’s guards are armed, I think, because the cathedral’s near some major landmarks. And after the Danish jibes at Mohammed were printed, my church and most other large ones (we’re #2 or #3 in size in NY and are the backup in case something happens to St. Pat’s) had some city cops posted outside in case somebody decided to car-bomb us. They were there for about nine months during the morning masses. I think cops also guarded mosques right after 9/11 and continue to do so each anniversary; the larger synagogues have concrete Jersey barriers blocking them from the street to this day against car bombs.
I can certainly understand a large CO church asking for help after a freakin’ shooting the same day at another church with the gunman still at large.
Matthew 5:38-48
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.”
I’m not certain, but I don’t think I disagree with you that the security guard had the right to shoot. But I believe the bloodthirsty language is uncalled for and unhelpful. It’s violent, which is part of what Christianity is supposed to be against. Mourn him, don’t curse him. I know he did horrible things, but anger doesn’t help.
What bloodthirsty language? What cursing? I wish that he had been stopped when he started, lethally if necessary. He is before a Higher Court now facing whatever Justice & Mercy are due him.
And there’s nothing wrong with some anger, provided it doesn’t go into meltdown.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ amends the Law of Moses which had been distorted into a justification for personal vendettas. He doesn’t nullify the proper place for justified force/violence. I fully believe that it was Christ’s Voice also at Mount Sinai.
Mind, I’m not saying that you should just stand there and let yourself get shot, I just figured that it was one of those cases where practice understandably falls short of the ideal.
Well, I would notice that the offender in the parable is slapping, disrobing, or maybe kidnapping you, and the theoretical you has a chance to make a choice how to react to the offender. Getting gunned down in cold blood doesn’t give you a chance to choose your reaction at all, no matter how Christian it would be.
It also does not say that you should turn the other cheek to another person being hurt. The heroine in the New Life Church did choose to risk her life, striding towards the gunman, to protect innocents.
The money issue certainly isn’t why we need guards at synagogues on holidays- Jewish law forbids handling money on Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur. We don’t pass collection plates then or on any ordinary Sabbath (when handling money is also forbidden), so that’s not the reason.
Do most people who tithe to their church really take the money in in cash and put it in the collection plate? You’d think the church would be willing to take a check, instead- that would be easier and safer for everybody involved.