Grace Baptist Church<\/a>, said the service and gun raffle are aimed at \u201chonoring hunters and gun owners who have been so viciously attacked by the antichristian socialist media and antichristian socialist politicians the last few years,\u201d according to a letter he posted on the church\u00a0website.<\/p>\nKoletas, who works as a Rensselaer County court reporter, said he wanted to show support for Second Amendment\u00a0rights.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just trying to be a blessing and a help to the gun owners and the hunters and give away a free AR-15,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the right thing to\u00a0do.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the constitutional right to own a gun should not be abridged, any more than First Amendment rights should\u00a0be.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf someone doesn\u2019t want to own a gun, that\u2019s their right,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the same time, I don\u2019t think we should be critical of legal gun owners who gave us our\u00a0freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
Members of his family, congregation and the owner of a gun shop that will donate the Smith & Wesson semiautomatic rifle backed his contentious\u00a0plan.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Source The pastor of a\u00a0Lansingburgh Baptist churchplans to give away an AR-15 assault rifle to the winner of a free raffle at an upcoming Sunday\u00a0service. A provocative flier he distributed rallied supporters of gun rights and stirred controversy among anti-gun advocates and some who considered it un-Christian. The Rev. John Koletas, pastor of\u00a0Grace Baptist Church, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
Wacky Stuff<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Source The pastor of a\u00a0Lansingburgh Baptist churchplans to give away an AR-15 assault rifle to the winner of a free raffle at an upcoming Sunday\u00a0service.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2014\/03\/12\/wacky-stuff\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Wacky Stuff\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Source The pastor of a\u00a0Lansingburgh Baptist churchplans to give away an AR-15 assault rifle to the winner of a free raffle at an upcoming Sunday\u00a0service.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2014\/03\/12\/wacky-stuff\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-03-12T15:09:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-03-08T16:09:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2014\/03\/12\/wacky-stuff\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2014\/03\/12\/wacky-stuff\/\",\"name\":\"Wacky Stuff\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-03-12T15:09:06+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-03-08T16:09:46+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"Source The pastor of a\u00a0Lansingburgh Baptist churchplans to give away an AR-15 assault rifle to the winner of a free raffle at an upcoming Sunday\u00a0service.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2014\/03\/12\/wacky-stuff\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2014\/03\/12\/wacky-stuff\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2014\/03\/12\/wacky-stuff\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Wacky Stuff\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. 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