Jesus Guns

Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald wrote a political column about a company that makes night vision sights. Pitts writes that "there was this fellow named Glyn Bindon, who used weapons of war to speak for his faith." He explained that Bindon's company has been outfitting the U.S. military with gunsights containing a "secret code" referencing Bible verses.

Pitts notes that the scripture references provide a recruiting tool for Islamists, who tell followers the U.S. is shooting at them with "Jesus guns." He says there's a "jarring cognitive disconnect involved in seeing weapons of war used to lionize the prince of peace."

He asks, "is this not one of the cheesiest expressions of religious faith you've ever seen? Not that that would make it unique. On the contrary, we specialize in cheesy expressions of faith here in God's favorite country. Indeed, you could build a tower unto heaven itself out of all the roadside Jesuses, prayer cloths, Ten Commandments rocks, and other trinkets of a cheap, disposable faith that says nothing, costs nothing, does nothing, "risks" nothing, that speaks not of God, external and eternal, but only of the grubby, temporal perspectives and fears of ground-bound women and men."

Wow. It's not unusual for the media to beat up Christianity, but this piece was particularly venomous, misguided and factually misrepresentative. Let's look at it.

First, Mr. Pitts gives the impression that Mr. Bindon (who died in a plane crash in 2003) was simply an unthinking, over-the-top Christian zealot. Actually, he was an accomplished engineer who solved difficult aeronautical, automotive and missile problems; his work helped Apollo 13 return. Later, he designed optics for his own company, Trijicon, Inc. It's said that throughout his life, he "developed things that shouldn't work," according to Trijicon's website.

Second, the "secret code" looked like this: "2COR4:6" or, as Mr. Pitts translates for us, "2 Corinthians 4:6." Just a guess, but most people probably could have decoded it without Leonard's help. It certainly wasn't much of a secret.

Third, it's possible that guns with Bible verses could be used to impute a religious element into America's missions. The impression given is that they were put on the sights foolishly, given the nature of our current wars. But they've been there for almost thirty years, long before we even knew who al-Qaida and the Taliban were.

Pitts never mentions Mr. Bindon's purpose: providing spiritual support to individual soldiers in dangerous situations. The verses were uplifting, like the aforementioned 2COR4:6, which reads "God said, 'let light shine out of darkness." This has nothing to do with fighting a modern crusade.

Finally, Mr. Pitts's dismissal of expressions of faith he deems "cheesy" and indicative of "grubby, temporal perspectives and fears" assumes he knows what's in everyone's hearts. Maybe he's psychic: after all, he was able to decipher the secret code.

It's truly amazing that a well-meaning gesture can be distorted and exploded into a condescending, ill-tempered diatribe. The attitude behind this is common but it's usually more subtle. Unfortunately, it creates barriers to faith for those who don't understand Christianity and don't check the facts.


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