When Sanity Disappears

I just finished reading an article about church security and how it has become an increasingly important topic for all houses of worship. The opening paragraph stated that while Jesus may have taught to turn the other cheek, more and more churches are considering armed guards to ensure the safety of their parishioners. Going back two millennia to figure out some itinerant preacher’s take on how to deal with aggression apparently just doesn’t make much sense anymore, but even going back a couple of centuries doesn’t seem to address this contemporary crisis. The founders of this nation of ours saw fit to protect the right of the people to bear arms, but I know they didn’t do it in the context of trying to figure out how to keep someone from murdering someone else while they were attending church. When sanity devolves into insanity, the whole Constitution becomes archaic. Freedom of speech does not protect yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre. Freedom of religion does not protect zealots who aspire to theocracy. The pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness does not apply to inanimate corporations. I’ve expressed concern about where our country seems to be heading these days, and I am not consoled by the emergence of the Palin paradigm. The brilliant minds that set the United States of America in motion did so believing that humans are created a little lower than the angels and are therefore responsible for the larger good. When we reach the point of idolizing stupidity and the idiots that insist upon it, we may as well concede to armed guards everywhere all the time, even in the houses of the holy.