A draft letter for your Pastor

Here's something I drafted up which you may feel free to share with your pastor regarding the gun grab.  Feel free to cut, paste, adjust, print it off, send it, or share it directly with your pastor.  Fair warning, I've not done a thorough proofread-you just can't proof your own work.  If I goofed something, let me know.  Edits welcome.  I'm tired and still have stuff to do that isn't on this keyboard so it's as complete and coherent as I can do. 

Mark closely what answer you get.  I know I will.
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When do you intend to declare where you stand on this gun grab issue?

The simple fact is that those people in Washington intend to take away firearms from every American. Regardless of which path they choose, it’s a declaration of war against America by this Government.

You have firearms owners within this congregation. Lots of them. You have law enforcement in this congregation.

If this whole thing proceeds forward, then everyone will have to choose where they stand. Those who wear a badge will have to choose whether to honor their oaths or obey their orders. People like me will have to decide when, where, and against whom we fight and whether to play defense or go on offense.

As the pastor you have the unenviable task of being the undershepherd to this church and delivering God’s word. You have to take a stand and speak what you think is true and right whether anyone supports you or not. But as the leader, you do not have the luxury to just wait and see. 

We are headed towards a showdown about restrictions on government and the rights of the people. About who’s in charge and who is the servant. About whether government is our servant or our master. About whether we’re citizens or subjects. And these are truly talking irreconcilable viewpoints here. There is no middle ground where we should be compelled to accept partial slavery here. There is no middle ground where we should be compelled to accept a little more tyranny. If there were, then we should all be British subjects and the founders would have all swung from the gallows.

History has shown us many times how this works for tyrants. Registration, Confiscation, Extermination. It happened to the Armenians in Turkey. It happened to the Jews in Germany. It happened to the Russians after the Bolsheviks took over. In the last century alone, more than 170 million people are estimated to have been slaughtered not in war or by simple crime, but by a comprehensive and coordinated policy of their government. To think that it cannot happen here is folly. It is beginning here. Again.

In 1775, General Thomas Gage sent out parties to confiscate war-making materials from the colonists. Muskets, ball, cap, cannons, and powder were to be taken. This worked once, but it helped to create the Powder Alarm and ultimately the alarm system. When Gage sent his troops out on the night of April 18th towards Lexington and Concord, the alarm system sprung into action. Instead of meeting sleepy villagers climbing out of their hut surprised at the approach of the army, they met determined men in formation, armed, and ready. The problem was that it was not merely Lexington and Concord that were awakened. The entire countryside was buzzing. As the British moved to meet the men of Lexington and Concord, they didn’t just face armed men in formation, they soon found themselves being watched from behind as other units arrived from surrounding villages. So it wasn’t a matter of the muskets that they faced, it was a matter of all the muskets that faced them. If necessary, this will all happen again. 

Our founding fathers recognized tyranny for what it was because of the power with which their preachers delivered the word of God as it pertained to liberty. More than anything else, this is why the American Revolution succeeded. America today is angry enough to spit nails. But we haven’t got a mustard seed of the righteousness of our founders. Put another way, had we the righteousness of our founders, America would have long since revolted.

I think it’s time that the preachers of this country return to the idea of boldly preaching liberty according to God’s word, rather than a 501(c) compliant (i.e state approved) message that interprets Romans 13 to mean eternal subjection to the whim of the state and the rulers appointed over us. If that were the case, then would it not mean that every martyr for Christ DESERVED every lash of the whip that they received for violating the laws of the ruler appointed over them? Would that not mean that they sinned in violating man's laws to obey God's laws? Would that then imply that we are free to live out the word of God only where we are allowed by the laws of man?  I believe that had pastors and priests remained true to the ideal of liberty preached to our forefathers throughout the last two centuries we would not be in the awful state we’re in. But I recognize my own shortcoming here as well. Jesus called us sheep for a reason and he was right on the money.  We stray. 

We live in a representative republic that our founders risked their all to create. And many of them indeed did lose their all. They addressed the King’s policies and that didn’t work. They addressed the King’s property and that didn’t work. Finally they addressed the King’s men and there was no way to ignore their grievance. If we really believe that we’re so free, if we really believe that God blessed America to be so unique and special, if we believe that we’re this shining city on a hill in this world, if we believe all that we hear preached about the greatness of America today, then the reality of the founding of this country must be faced.

Our forefathers were not American citizens. They were British subjects who revolted against the legal and rightful authority of the British crown. The fact that this authority was tyrannical is irrelevant-they revolted. They broke the windows. They destroyed the King’s property. They tarred and feathered his men. They took up arms in formation and faced off against his soldiers that night in Lexington and Concord. And they prevailed.

Now for the catch, if we really believe all that we preach about America’s greatness, how God has blessed us, then we approve of the right of the founders to revolt against the rulers appointed over them. And if it is acceptable for those men to resist, to refuse to comply, to revolt in their day, in accordance with God’s word for the sake of liberty, then it must also be acceptable for men to do so today. If not, you have the opportunity to explain why before any of them do. 

If it’s not acceptable for men to revolt against tyranny for the sake of liberty according to God’s word today, then it wasn’t acceptable then either. And if that’s the case, then we are duty bound to apologize to the British, pay them reparations, and then willingly surrender and submit ourselves to be subjects of whatever authority appears in our own land without regard to the evil that they perpetrate upon the people, the property, and the liberty of the nation which was bought by the blood of free men. If it is not acceptable for men to revolt against tyranny, then we should surrender today to try and negotiate for better terms. We should agree with the enemies of liberty that the Articles of Confederation, our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, our Declaration of Independence are all meaningless. We should negotiate today for whatever rights our government will allow us to have, which bunk we will have, how many ounces of gruel, and how many cubic yards of copper ore we must dig per day in the Gulag.

It’s either right or it’s not.

There’s a well documented case for why the founders did what they did. They wrote this down for us so that we would not be ignorant as to where we came from as a nation. They wrote it down so that we would understand that we did not come from a raucous mob that simply got angry and started a war. We came from men who depended upon God’s leading in their endeavor for liberty and who believed that they were simply obeying God’s will. All of those founding documents are still as applicable today as when they were written. They still mean today what they meant when they were written. Those founding documents are either completely true and still valid, or they are completely false and invalid. In this regard, they are no different than the Bible. If you can prove any piece of the Bible to be false, then the whole thing is false. We are either free men or we are slaves. There is no middle ground.

The same people who seek to take guns away from the law-abiding are the same people who walked guns across the Mexican border into the hands of the lawless.  I would say that you could ask Brian Terry or Jamie Zapata, but they're both dead.  Killed with weapons that our government handed to drug cartels.  With that alone in mind, this whole gun control debate isn’t about guns. It’s about control.

Who is going to control America? Who is going to be in control? Government and criminals (sorry to be redundant there) or free men?  Will we willingly yield ourselves up to be the serfs of a tyrant having once been free? God forbid. Will we take arms and immediately commence firing against the tyrant and his men without first addressing the policies and the property before turning all attention towards the tyrant’s men?

What are we going to pass on to our children, Liberty or Slavery? More directly, what are you going to preach on this subject?

Let me take it a step further, pastor.  Allow me to point towards the funerals that you will have to preach and widows and families that you will have to console. It may be funerals for free men who died trying to remain free and preserve this for their posterity. It may be funerals for servants of the government who decided to obey their orders instead of honoring their oath. You have both in your congregation.

On a personal note, seeing the boldness of our foes, the lack of genuine opposition in our government, the lack of allies around me, and the fear struck into the hearts of free men, I fully expect to be either dead, in prison, or kidnapped in a black bag operation (made "legal" by the 2012 NDAA) where I’ll have no contact and you’ll only know I’ve disappeared. In any case, my voice will decrease and the government's volume will increase. And they will spread all manner of slander and calumny about me in every outlet they can find so as to justify their own actions.  Live or die, my life as I’ve known it will be over and you'll know that every word I've written here is true. 

So let me offer you some thoughts for how I’d like my funeral to go.

Preach the following:

1. The gospel.
2. Liberty and resistance to tyranny.
3. I presume that I will die resisting. Preach it. If I go out resisting, I’ll leave with a smile because I went with my boots on and can rest unashamed.
4. Justice against those who did it. Plead the case of the widows and fatherless.
5. Victory.

For the record, if I did resist unto death, then there's a good chance that I sent some of the tyrant's men onward ahead of me. There's no joy in killing.  There's no glory there except in weakening the aggressor team for other resistors who shall eventually prevail by God’s grace.  If I am wrong about all this, then I'm just a murderer.  If I'm right though, then I hope you can preach it as I've outlined it. 

I ask you to carefully and prayerfully consider what I've written. I welcome your response.