“That is awesome.We’ve got an army right here!”
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In an effort its spokesman has described as “outreach to rednecks,” the Kentucky Baptist Convention is leading “Second Amendment Celebrations,” where churches around the state give away guns as door prizes to lure in nonbelievers in hopes of converting them to Christ.As many as 1,000 people are expected at the next one, on Thursday at Lone Oak Baptist Church in Paducah, where they will be given a free steak dinner and the chance to win one of 25 handguns, long guns and shotguns.
The goal is to “point people to Christ,” the church says in a flier. Chuck McAlister, an ex-pastor, master storyteller and former Outdoor Channel hunting show host who presides at the events as the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s team leader for evangelism, said 1,678 men made “professions of faith” at about 50 such events last year, most of them in Kentucky.
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Nancy Jo Kemper, pastor of New Union Church in Versailles and the former director of the Kentucky Council of Churches, said: “Churches should not be encouraging people in their communities to arm themselves against their neighbors, but to love their neighbors, as instructed by Jesus.”
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“The day of hanging a banner in front of your church and saying you’re having a revival and expecting the community to show up is over,” said McAlister, who hosted the religious-themed “Adventure Bound Outdoors” on the Outdoor Channel for 16 years.
“You have to know the hook that will attract people, and hunting is huge in Kentucky,” he said. “So we get in there and burp and scratch and talk about the right to bear arms and that stuff.”
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Wearing a camouflage shirt and frayed cap, McAlister ambled onto the stage, where he was surrounded by stuffed game and firearms.
“How many of y’all own guns?” he asked in his South Carolina accent. “Lemme see a show of hands.”
“That is awesome,” he said, as the hands went up. “We’ve got an army right here!”
McAlister sought to win the souls of the unchurched by appealing to their love of hunting and enmity toward gun control. For 30 minutes, he mentioned nothing about God or Jesus.
Kentucky Baptists use gun giveaways to lure unchurched to Christ | The Courier-Journal | courier-journal.com
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