NC Pastor Shows What It Looks Like To Trust In God Rather Than Guns

revwright (Credit: Larry O. Wright Sr, Facebook)

There are 2 insidious lies that, perhaps more than any of the other misinformation and propaganda out there, stop the gun control debate before it can even begin.

The first is the myth that the only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. The second is the assumption that a commitment to nonviolence means a commitment to doing nothing in the face of evil.

Both lies reveal a profound lack of imagination in America. Not the sort of imagination that conjures up stories like Peter Pan and Alice In Wonderland, but the kind of imagination that looks at a violent world and envisions both alternative responses and creative preventative actions which do more than simply continue the never-ending cycle of violence.

But for Christians, adherence to these lies is even more problematic. For not only does such a commitment render us guilty both of bearing false witness and ignoring the life and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth, it also reveals a sad truth: our deepest trust is ultimately placed not in God, but in guns and the false sense of hope and security they provide.

Thankfully, though, we still have people like pastor Larry Wright in our midst, exposing these lies through a bold and courageous commitment to the way of Jesus.

During a recent New Year’s Eve prayer service at his church (and while Rev. Wright was in the middle of delivering his sermon on violence in his community), a man walked into the sanctuary of pastor Wright’s church with a gun in one hand and a loaded magazine in the other.

According to the Fayetteville Observer,

Wright said the man, who has not been identified by police yet, was carrying the rifle without a clip in one hand and a loaded ammunition clip in the other hand. But, Wright said, he didn’t know if the rifle had a round of ammunition in it.

Wright stepped down quickly from the pulpit when he saw the man, who appeared to be in his late 20s.

The man continued moving toward the front of the church, pointing the rifle into the air.

The two met, near the front of the sanctuary.

“Can I help you?’’ the pastor asked the man.

Wright, who is a 57-year-old retired soldier, said the man’s answer determined his next action.

“If he was belligerent, I was going to tackle him,” said Wright, who is 6-foot-2 and 230 pounds.

But the stranger was calm, and Wright took the weapon from him. He then patted him down, and the pastor summoned four strong deacons to embrace the disarmed man, in an effort to make him feel welcome.

Wright then prayed for the man, who fell to his knees and began crying.

The man was then invited to sit on the front pew, and Wright resumed the Watch Night service. During the altar call at the conclusion, the man came forward and asked for salvation.

“He gave his life to Christ,” Wright said in an interview Saturday with The Fayetteville Observer.

Shane Claiborne is famous for saying you can’t carry a cross in one hand and a gun in the other.

This is a great example of why I think Shane is right.

In many churches throughout our country, this stranger’s actions might have been a death sentence carried out at the hands of a pistol packing parishioner who had ordained themselves the church’s protector.

But in Rev. Wright’s church, a much different, much more Christian outcome unfolded because he chose to place his trust in the transforming power of the cross rather than the momentary power of the gun.

If Rev. Wright had followed the path of folks like Jerry Falwell Jr. and others who think it acceptable to bring an instrument of death into the sanctuary of the God who gives life, the man would likely be dead, instead of on his knees at an altar giving his life to Christ.

Rev. Wright trusted in God instead of guns and it made all the difference in his enemy’s life.

This is what trusting God looks like in the face of violence.

It doesn’t mean doing nothing and it doesn’t mean trusting that God is always miraculously going to keep us from harm. It means trusting in Jesus that his call to put away the sword and become peacemakers might actually be a viable path towards “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in haven.”

And it means trusting that if death does come, it is not the end.

No question about it, it’s much, much easier to write and preach about these sorts of things than it is to take the risk Rev. Wright did in the face of possible death. But if we’re going to profess our faith in the resurrection and proclaim our trust in God, then we need to either live it out, or at the very least, stop singing about it so boldly on Sunday morning.

That way we at least won’t look like such blatant hypocrites when the moment comes that we turn our back on confession.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath.
Jesus commands my destiny.
No power of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home,
Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

I don’t know if Rev. Wright is a committed pacifist or an adamant proponent of just war. But what I do know is there’s an important lesson to be learned in the actions of a preacher who denounced violence in the pulpit only to face that very threat in the middle of his sermon.

And that lesson is this: we can’t proclaim the death conquering power of the cross one moment and embrace the death causing power of a gun the next.

We have to choose between the way of Jesus and the way of the world.

Again, it’s far easier said than done and should the moment ever come, I don’t know what I would do.

But I know what I hope I will do.

If the moment comes, I hope I can find the same courage as Rev. Wright did and actually live what I preach.