This isn’t satire. This is really happening:
A church in northeast Pennsylvania is telling couples to bring their semi-automatic rifles to a blessing ceremony next week.
The event is meant to give couples an opportunity "to show their willingness to defend their familiars, communities and nation," The Times-Tribune in Scranton reported.
The blessing ceremony will be held just weeks after a gunman, using an AR-15, opened fire at a high school in Florida, killing 17 people.
The whole point of separation between Church and State isn’t to protect government from religion, but rather the opposite—it’s meant to protect religion from government. At some point, rightwing zealots have successfully hi-jacked what it means for a large segment of the population to be “Christian”.
In every book of the New Testament, Jesus is consistent on two things: He rails against the evils of wealth, and promotes peace. Rather than follow the Bible, hatemongers have projected their own sins onto a blasphemous, rightwing idol—a “dark Jesus”, if you will— who blesses killing machines designed solely for mass-slaughter, hates immigrants, and only looks after the rich (“prosperity gospel” BS).
Oh yeah, new twist-— if you are a powerful, sinful man who hurts women and never asks forgiveness? That’s okay. You get to have “mulligans”.
This is beyond a perversion of Christianity. It’s just pure evil.
Good Christians have a moral and religious obligation to call this out. Otherwise, you are just as complicit by looking the other way.