Bible Baptist Church in Carthage, Missouri, is “a very patriotic church,” says Pastor Kent Hogan. The church has an American flag in the building, and every morning at summer youth camp, the teenagers pledge allegiance and sing the national anthem. Patriotic holidays are big doings: veterans wear their uniforms and the preacher salutes them during the morning worship service. The church loves the military. Thus, it was a tremendous shock to find out that the National Guard from the nearby armory would not attend the church’s annual Vacation Bible School to be honored by the church. After all, the theme was “God’s Rescue Squad,” and the paramedics, fire department, and sheriff’s department all showed up earlier in the week. “We were going to thank them for protecting our religious liberty,” said Pastor Hogan. “It was more of a promotion for the military – to show the kids what the military does.”
To show the kids what the military does? Was the church going to show the kids dead bodies, pools of blood, body parts, widows, orphans, refugees, and bombed out villages? Or just U.S. soldiers with no arms, legs, or genitals as a result of participating in an immoral foreign war?
3:21 pm on July 27, 2014
