Presbyterians aren’t the largest group of protestants in the nation by a long shot, but they’re not exactly a tiny sect of Christianity, either. Of course, I’ve been a bit biased since I’m a Presbyterian myself. I personally liked the more mellow approach to preaching rather than the “fire and brimstone” pastors I’d experienced in my youth.

I even worked for my church part-time back when I first started writing here at Bearing Arms. It was a church that is part of Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA), the largest Presbyterian group in the country.

As of today, though, I’m done with PCUSA. While there’s been a leftward lean over recent years, they finally crossed a line for me and, I suspect, many others. They’ve just guzzled from the gun control Kool-Aid.

Deanna Hollas’ daughter was in college in Texas in 2016 when that state enacted a “campus carry law,” allowing people 21 and older with concealed handgun licenses to take their weapons onto public university campuses.

That didn’t sit well with Hollas.

“I felt like she wasn’t going to be safe,” she said. Statistics show that the chances of being fatally shot increase when there’s a gun in the home. She thought they probably increased when one was in the classroom, carried by a student who may not have fully understood the risks. That worried her.

She joined Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense, an organization that advocates for gun control, and started visiting lawmakers in Texas, petitioning for gun violence prevention efforts.

This month, Hollas — now the Rev. Deanna Hollas — was ordained by the Presbyterian Church USA, the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States, as a minister of word and sacrament. Her new job title is gun violence prevention minister — the first position of its kind in the nation, the church says.

…

Hollas, 52, who is based in the Dallas area, will oversee over 800 local Presbyterian gun violence prevention advocates across the country and work toward making churches more active in preventing gun violence, a role she says will be different for each place. She will help people at different levels of the church stay involved and informed about preventing gun violence.

Don’t misread any of this. When they say “gun violence prevention,” they clearly mean gun control. Why else ordain a gun-control activist for the role if it wasn’t?

Look, I’ve ignored a lot from PCUSA through the years. I’ve focused mostly on the faith itself and not so much what the governance of the church was involved in. Clearly, I shouldn’t have.

Instead, I see PCUSA not just opposing something I believe in, but clearly working to actively suppress my rights as both an American and as a human being. Further, it’s part of my livelihood that they’re working against.

I’d always wondered where my line in the sand would be. Well, this is it. This is where I cut my ties with the PCUSA and, unfortunately, any church that continues to be a part of it. I just can’t support an entity that will work against not just my principles buy my family’s wellbeing.

Plus, I tend to remember this passage when the subject of guns and gun control comes up.

Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.

-Luke 22:36