Gun giveways being used to lure Kentucky Baptists to worship

PADUCAH, Ky., March 3 (UPI) -- The Kentucky Baptist Convention is taking its best shot at drawing new worshipers to Christ by holding "Second Amendment Celebrations” around the state and distributing guns as door prizes.

The next such celebration, which Kentucky Baptist Convention communication director Roger Alford has described as "outreach to rednecks," will be held at the Lone Oak Baptist Church in Paducah. The 1,000 or so expected guests will have the chance to dine on a steak and dinner and be given the chance to win one of 25 handguns, long guns and shotguns.

The Kentucky Baptist Convention's team leader for evangelism, Chuck McAlister, said the purpose of the campaign is to "point people to Christ."

"The day of hanging a banner in front of your church and saying you're having a revival and expecting the community to show up is over," McAlister told the Courier-Journal. "You have to know the hook that will attract people, and hunting is huge in Kentucky. So we get in there and burp and scratch and talk about the right to bear arms and that stuff. [It’s a] bridge to unchurched men so they will hear what we have to say."

He reported that more than 500 people showed up to a Second Amendment Celebration in Louisville in January and that 61 of them decided to seek salvation. "We have found that the number of unchurched men who will show up will be in direct proportion to the number of guns you give away," McAlister said.

At another giveaway that distributed 80 guns, 382 people made "professions of faith."

"I don't know, but he was pretty handy with the whip when he ran the money-changers out of the temple,” McAlister said when asked what Jesus would think of the campaign.

[The Courier-Journal]