Why Are Some Pastors “Packin’?”
From AP
DETROIT – The Rev. Lawrence Adams teaches his flock at the Westside Bible Church to turn the other cheek. Just in case, though, the 54-year-old retired police lieutenant also wears a handgun under his robe.
Adams is one of several Detroit clergymen who have taken to packing heat in the pulpit. They have committed their lives to a man who preached nonviolence and told followers to love their enemies. But they also say it’s up to them to protect their parishioners in church.
“As a pastor, I’m referred to as a shepherd,” Adams said. “Shepherds have the responsibility of watching over their flock. Do I want to hurt somebody? Absolutely not!”
Responding to a break-in at his church Sunday evening, Adams surprised a burglar carrying out a bag of loot and shot the man in the abdomen after the man swung the bag at him.
The burglar survived — for which Adams is grateful — but the reverend said he could have been hurt or killed if he had not been armed.
Nation’s highest homicide rate
Detroit had the nation’s highest homicide rate last year among cities of at least 500,000 residents. The city has been losing manufacturing jobs for decades, and these days about one in four working-age residents is without a job.
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Comments
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Where the hell is all the “I have faith in god $HIT”?!!!!!!
This negro is carrying a GUN where you go to worship and no one seem to have a problem with it..
WFT!!!!!!
Black people need to leave church alone and get back into knowing your neighborhoods.
Get back into making your kids eat at the table with there parents.
Get back into telling kids it is not okay to run around being a bad-ass..
TURN THE TV OFF SOMETIME PEOPLE!!
Ok ok you got your gun out, and you say the burglar swung at you with his bag, so you shot him? That’s crazy! In fact it’s unbelievable!
Responding to a break-in at his church? Isn’t that what the police are for? He could have killed that burglar, and it would have been on his conscience for the rest of his life. A pastor should know the junk in the church are material things you can’t take it with you. He should have just stood aside and let the man go, but he had that gun burning a hole in his pocket. Why Are Some Pastors “Packin’?” is the title of this article, and the question remains unanswered in my opinion.
The bishop created a dangerous situation that should have never occurred.
I frankly don’t want to be a in a church where the pastor has a gun. I don’t want guns in church period.
Luke 22:36: “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.”
Swords the assault weapon of their day.
About GODDAMN time these preachers stopped acting like PUSSIES!!! This is the land of the GUN and WHITEBOYS have no problem using them.If anything they should have prayer meetings at the gun range on Tuesdays…call it Gunshop bible studies…LOL!!! Then they can praise the lord and learn the nomenclature of a weapon and the nomenclature of the bible at the same time to PROTECT their families as well as themselves. We should have been packin at the church a long damn time ago but we were acting like PUSSIES to get along which made us HATE ourselves..in America we are conditioned to wait on the police like FOOLS when the perpetrator has his gun right now…U better pack regardless if U got a license or not because there is no law on earth thats going to protect U except having a gun to protect yourself…Why U think the police keep guns? TO PROTECT THEMSELVES!!! YAH BLESS!!!
I HEAR Y’ALL…BUT IF YOUR PASTOR DOES’NT KEEP THE FAITH…WHO’S FOLLOWING HIM?….THAT’S WHY I TRY TO FOLLOW GOD AND NOT A HUMAN…..FYI,THAT’S ALL!SOME PEOPLE NEED PROTECTION FROM THEIR PASTORS TOO…LIKE THAT OLD MAN IN MD. WHO WAS KILLED BY SOME4ONE WHO WAS HIRED BY HIS PASTOR AFTER SIGNING HIS LIFE INSURANCE BENEFITS TO HIS CHURCH….
Wake up,pastors get robbed,beaten and murdered.it may say that no weapon formed against you shall prosper,but you must be living in a cave if you don’t know what is happening in the cities.christians are the perfect victims.because you know that they won’t fight back that’s why thugs and hoodlums target religious people.I am an ordained deacon but I will not turn the other cheek. And I am not prey for some predetor.I will will fight for my life, because I know about living, but nothing about death.pastors have the right to try an protect themselves.
I’m sure there’s something in that dysfunctional literature (aka ‘The Bible’) that condones Priests/Pastors/Reverends/Prophets carrying deadly weapons of some sort. Not much surprises me anymore about the anti-progressive nature of Religion! The very same Bible that not only CONDONES Slavery, but also ENCOURAGES it, is liable to condone MUCH MORE SINISTER behavioral patterns!
Bishop Ellis employs security??? You mean to tell me he hasn’t inspired enough of his congregation who feel compelled to secure there Bishop?? I think they should take a page out of the Nation of Islam’s book!