Will We Have to Start Going to Church Packing Pistols? Nothing Could Be More American

Cry-bully Antifa terrorist Matthew Banta (l.) and American hero Kyle Rittenhouse (r.).

By John Zmirak Published on August 10, 2021

Nancy Flory reported it here: A political mob of anti-Christian thugs attacked a Portland, Oregon, church service outdoors. They used shields, pepper spray, and other weapons to shut down a public prayer event. Police were called but didn’t show up to intervene. Antifa won. The service was cancelled. Just this past weekend. In the United States of America. A profoundly dangerous precedent now stands. Which church will be next?

The Servile Sorority of Sloth

I know that some servile Christians out there will read this news and feel warm and fuzzy. Persecution, they’ll sniff from the comfort of their suburbs, is our natural state anyway. At least, they will think, no Christian Nationalist zealot was present to pull out a weapon and try to defend the event. That would have scandalized people and violated the Spirit of the Gospel. 

Cheap Grace for Virtue-Signaling Male Karens

People who think this way have never consoled Iraqi Christians ethnically cleansed from their families’ homes of 2,000 years. Nor escapees from concentration camps in China. Such comfy beta-Christians did nothing while Syrian Christians fought back and helped conquer ISIS. Pacifists, in my experience, are people who lead comfortable, well-protected lives, parasitical on the sacrifices of others.

Dorothy Day of The Catholic Worker was safe in New York City when she called for the US to do nothing in response to Pearl Harbor. I suspect if she’d witnessed the Rape of Nanking, or was sitting in Dachau along with the thousands of Polish priests the Nazis rounded up and sent there, she would have sung a different tune. (She certainly did in later years, when she praised Communist revolutionaries Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro.)

Gather With God and Guns

Here’s what I think needs to happen. That very same church should gather next week in the very same spot, surrounded by Christians with legal firearms and the fortitude (if need be) to use them. And that service will proceed peacefully.

Antifa is a conspiracy of cowards, who know that the cops won’t bust them — because the leftist politicians in power have their backs. Any believers who show up ready to defend their religious freedom don’t need to fear such sniveling LARPers. At the first sign of counter-force, these snowflakes turn brittle and shatter. Let’s never forget Wisconsin crybully Matthew Banta:

A Neenah man had a flamethrower, smoke grenades and fireworks during a demonstration in Green Bay Saturday night, according to police and prosecutors.

Matthew Banta, 23, is charged with obstructing an officer and two counts of felony bail jumping.

The criminal complaint says Banta “is known to be a violent Antifa member who incites violence in otherwise relatively peaceful protests.” Police say he’s known as “Commander Red.”

A responding officer says he saw four individuals walking towards a protest with baseball bats. One man was wearing a metal helmet with goggles and military-style gear with multiple pouches, and was carrying an Antifa flag. When the officer pulled his squad car in front of the group, they ran away. The officer caught Banta, who was carrying the flag, and says Banta “dropped into the fetal position and began crying.” He accused the officer of lying on him; the officer replied nobody was on him.

Don’t Fear Antifa, but Our Anarcho-Tyrannical Government

No, what such Christians need to fear instead will be the police. Should a believer need to defend himself or others against assault or even deadly force, politicized prosecutors will falsely charge him with murder. As they did Jake Gardner, goading that combat veteran to suicide. As they’re doing to Kyle Rittenhouse as you read this.

That courageous Christian marksman who steps out to defend the First Amendment rights of others will be vilified like Nick Sandmann. Lied about like Mark Judge. Targeted like Mike Flynn and Carter Page. He will be slandered as a “white terrorist.” His own pastor might even publicly condemn him. That’s how Anarcho-Tyranny works: the faction with legal power gets to wield illegal street militias, and imprison its victims if they dare to defend themselves. That’s how the Nazi brownshirts won, in the end, with the help of biased prosecutors and judges.

A Buyer’s Market in Human Souls

And Servile Christians will look the other way. They might even join in with the lynching, proof-texting and virtue-signaling with scraps of Scripture here and there. What a cheap way to buy yourself temporary exemption amidst a general attack on Christianity. But then souls are going cheap nowadays. You’ll get them for pennies on the dollar — it’s an all-time buyer’s market. Want to know which Christians will act like this? Check out which ones still call the January 6 political prisoners “terrorists.”

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If you agree with Gandhi that Jews should not have forcibly resisted the Holocaust … stop reading now. I have nothing to say to you. If you think only Christians are enjoined from fighting persecution, because the New Testament completely overturned the Word and the God of the Old, then you’re a Marcionite heretic. The Jesus you preach would be the enemy of the human race, but most especially of his followers. You can learn nothing from me.

No Second Amendment, No First

Assuming you’re a sane Christian who isn’t beguiled by esoteric gnostic theories, you’ll agree that Christians must be ready, willing, and able to use force in self-defense. Now think through the facts of our present situation: In some places like Portland, Christians are denied the protection of public authorities. Like “infidels” in ISIS territory, we’re fair game for attack.

It was situations like the one that arose in Portland that gave birth to the Second Amendment. No, I don’t mean attacks by Indians — though of course, church members had to be ready to respond to those. I’m referring to English history.

The Second Amendment was closely based on a similar provision in the English Bill of Rights. That was drawn up in 1689 and forced on the newly crowned monarchs William and Mary. The Protestants who’d rebelled against absolutist James II and put that couple on the throne remembered how James, and before him Charles I and Charles II, had targeted Puritans and other “non-conformist” Christians. Eager to shut down these low-church dissidents from the Church of England, they’d singled out such churches and their members. They spied on these believers, shut down their meetings, and tried to seize all their guns. To render them literally defenseless.

That’s why the English Bill of Rights specifies that “no Protestant” may be denied the right to bear arms. (As a well-armed Catholic, I’m grateful that our Second Amendment is more ecumenical.) From our Constitution’s beginning, religious freedom and gun rights have been inextricably intertwined. No Second Amendment, no First. 

A Million Kyle Rittenhouses Could Save the Country. That’s Why He’s “Dangerous”

You or I may not be called on to step forward with an AR-15 or Berretta to defend our congregation against a gang of black-clothed thugs. But we can and must stand up for Americans like Kyle Rittenhouse, Jake Gardner, the peaceful protestors of January 6, and others whom our Deep State and lockstep media have targeted for destruction. Any politician who claims to represent us and will not speak up for them is not on our side. And these days if you aren’t with us, you’re against us.

 

John Zmirak is a senior editor at The Stream and author or co-author of ten books, including The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Catholicism. He is co-author with Jason Jones of “God, Guns, & the Government.”

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