Although I am not aware of anything like this event happening here in north-central PA (hunting central) where I live, it would not surprise me if it did occur. We have "gun raffles" and "gun bashes" almost monthly as some form of fundraising. It is a sub-culture I do not "understand" but am aware of.
Anywho,,,
Since the initial post, this story seems to be causing a bit of a dust-up amongst the Baptists as Bob Allen of ABPnews/Herald points to an interview with Robert Parham, Executive Director of the Baptist Center for Ethics
“There is no conflict theologically between Christianity and hunting,” Robert Parham, executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, said in an interview on the Voice of Russia American edition from Washington.Joseph Phelps, also of ABPnews/Herald, opines on the spiritual or religious ramifications of such an event:
Parham said by renaming this week’s “beast feast” a “Second Amendment Celebration,” Lone Oak First Baptist Church in Paducah, Ky., shifted the focus from hunting to a celebration of guns.
“I think the event runs the risk of being politicized, pitting gun control advocates of faith against anti-gun control advocates of faith, and that’s divisive and counterproductive,” Parham said.
Parham said wild-game dinners traditionally have been a time of fellowship and outreach, celebrating God’s bounty and welcoming visitors to church.
“When so-called ‘beast feasts’ shift from celebrating God’s bounty to the Second Amendment, then the tradition begins to break down, and the event shifts from God’s blessing to political posturing,” Parham said.
There is something so obviously amiss with the Kentucky Baptist Convention’s gun-giveaway evangelism that it may not require commentary. But ecclesial silence might be confused with complicity. Someone needs to state the obvious.I find this fascinating. On one hand you have McAlister who is seeking to win the souls of the unchurched by appealing to their "love of hunting and enmity toward gun control." On the other, we have Parham saying. theologically Jesus is okay with hunting, just not the whole gun debate. But both seem to miss the bigger picture, according to Phelps,
[,,,]
But as one of the clergy in the news article who noted the disconnect between Jesus and guns, even more alarming is the story’s broader insinuation about religious experience. In the aftermath of Ken Ham’s and the Science Guy’s creation debate this story adds to the argument that religion is downright ludicrous.
But you couldn’t defend it by this story. Surely there is more to a faith experience than wandering into a church service that is veiled as an outdoor store. You show up like an unsuspecting deer at a feeder near a deer-blind, on the off-chance of winning a gun, but to your surprise amidst the jokes and hunting tales you hear an entirely new philosophy of life which awakens you from your nightmare of materialism and the love of violent weapons which drew you like a junkie to this event in the first place.
In this sudden awakening you believe that you have so thoroughly examined the strengths and weaknesses of this radically new value system that you make a decision more life-altering than signing the lease on that new fully-loaded truck without telling your wife or best friend, a decision that could possibly dissuade you from owning the very weapons that drew you to this evening’s program in the first place.
Perhaps gun-giveaway evangelism wouldn’t feel like a caricature of genuine religious experience if it didn’t claim to do more than it does, at best: plant a seed of spiritual curiosity in an unsuspecting someone.
Then, to use Jesus’ analogy, we’ll have to wait to see if this seed landed on hard soil, rocky soil, weedy soil, or good soil.
