Word: bethell
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...five minutes before New Bethel Church's highly publicized "open-carry service" was set to begin Saturday evening, Lynne Smith walked into the sanctuary with her husband and two friends and took a seat in the front row. Asked what weapon she had with her, Smith had to stop and think about which gun she'd brought but finally said it was a Beretta .25 automatic. Her husband, Michael Houston, wore a Browning .380 in a holster. Their friends, Ted and Barbara Grant, were also carrying weapons. Barbara, wearing a NYPD baseball cap, had a Ruger .38 revolver, while...
...congregating arsenal was all perfectly legal as well as perfectly acceptable to the leaders of New Bethel, an Assemblies of God church in Louisville, Kentucky, that invited people to bring their unloaded guns to this first-ever event. Neither of the two couples in the front row are New Bethel members. Smith told TIME she read about the service in the Louisville Courier-Journal and came "to see what was going on." All four are longtime NRA members, she said, and all are deeply worried that the federal government will mount an effort to take away the right to bear...
...acknowledges that recent news events may color perceptions of the New Bethel event - the murder of Dr. George Tiller, the shooting at the Holocaust Museum and the fatal shooting of a teen near New Bethel Church - but says they actually strengthen his argument that people who own guns should learn how to use them. Yet he also acknowledges the open-carry controversy has grown uglier than he expected and hinted at personal threats from across the religious-political spectrum. Pagano says the church's insurance carrier, after giving an initial go-ahead, has now told him it cannot insure...
Some locals opposed to Pagano have planned an alternative rally, "Bring Your Peaceful Heart ... Leave Your Gun at Home," which is scheduled to coincide with the New Bethel event. Terry Taylor, executive director of Interfaith Paths to Peace, which organized the rally, told TIME he is particularly troubled by the open-carry service because it gives the wrong impression of Louisville, which he believes is the "spiritual center of the United States" because of its mass of interfaith work, connection to the late monk Thomas Merton and the presence of the Southern Baptist and Presbyterian seminaries and the Presbyterian Church...
David Lowley, a New Bethel elder and board member, tells TIME the service is simply an effort to "think outside the box" and increase outreach. He says he raised several what-if scenarios, and after extensive discussion, the board green-lit the idea last year. He says he did not anticipate the level of attention but adds that "it is what it is, because the Lord made it be what it is. We'll go with it and take from there...