{"id":12506,"date":"2025-10-16T22:17:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T02:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/?p=12506"},"modified":"2025-12-14T19:16:27","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T00:16:27","slug":"noted-without-comment-white-evangelical-gun-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/2025\/10\/noted-without-comment-white-evangelical-gun-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Noted without comment: White evangelical gun culture"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Religion News Service reporter Kathryn Post has an interview with William J. Kole about his new book, “In Guns We Trust,” to report on White evangelical gun culture. In the interview, titled “‘In Guns We Trust’ challenges white evangelicals to rethink their alliance with firearms,”<\/a> Kole says that he was a part of White evangelical churches, but has been “deconstructing” his Christian faith over his perception that gun culture (and its ally, Christian nationalism) has nothing to do with Christianity:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“…I feel like the historical Jesus is objectively nonviolent. I understand that evangelicals will cherry-pick Scripture to find a few verses to help them feel more comfortable with gun culture, but I find it completely unbiblical. The churches that are embracing gun culture now were almost entirely pacifist up until the late \u201960s and early \u201970s, when a shift began. Even the Assemblies of God, where I served as a lay missionary for three years in Europe, was officially pacifist in its constitution and bylaws. So, they\u2019ve had to pivot, and it\u2019s a perplexing pivot for me. I just don\u2019t see how weapons have anything to do with a faith tradition that is rooted in nonviolence.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kole also says that he’s now “reconstructing” his Christian faith, adding: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I just can\u2019t, in good conscience, continue in the evangelical tradition.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Religion News Service reporter Kathryn Post has an interview with William J. Kole about his new book, “In Guns We Trust,” to report on White evangelical gun culture. In the interview, titled “‘In Guns We Trust’ challenges white evangelicals to rethink their alliance with firearms,” Kole says that he was a part of White evangelical … Continue reading “Noted without comment: White evangelical gun culture”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,16],"tags":[743,1191,1181],"class_list":["post-12506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-political-culture","category-religion-people-places","tag-christian-nationalism","tag-commonplace-book","tag-nonviolence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12506"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12659,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12506\/revisions\/12659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/yauu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}