Pastors behaving badly

by John Boch
(Guns Save Life) – I spoke with Pastor Gary Grogan of Urbana’s Stonecreek Church, formerly known as the Urbana Assembly of God church some weeks ago after the formal announcement of their gun buyback program.

He claimed he was a member of the NRA and seeks more gun safety education to keep our families safer. I told him we shared that desire and Guns Save Life would be delighted to work with the church in that endeavor, but that we saw gun buy backs as misguided foolishness.

Out of respect for a church that some of our members attend and the meager offer for guns, I told Grogan that Guns Save Life would not be participating and would not work to embarrass them as we did Chicago earlier this summer.

True to our word, we didn’t participate.

However, when I heard of the rudeness, intimidation and unpublished conditions imposed upon those who wished to participate I was shocked.

Men of the cloth acting impolitely to their neighbors? Men of the cloth telling others to lie to those who wished to surrender unwanted guns per published terms?

What has our nation come to?

It makes me doubt Pastor Gary Grogan is really an NRA member as he repeatedly claimed in his phone call with me.

Initially, I was going to offer Pastor Grogan a firing sawed-off shotgun for a copy of his NRA membership card to verify his claim of NRA membership.

But then my friends let me know that frankly, it’s not worth the $100 we could get for that gun in Chicago next year.  That $100 might buy a couple of thousand rounds of ammunition to bring along several future gun owners, NRA members and shooters into the fold.

With that in mind, I agreed that offering a $100 gun just to see a man’s membership card was a poor trade.

The bigger question is, I suppose, how poor of a trade did members of our community get for what they “sold” to the church for $50.  If the church only accepted “working” guns, how many people traded a $200, $300, or a perhaps a $1000 collectible for a $50 gift card?

We’re working on finding that out, actually.  We’ll let you know what we find.