Scopin’ for Jesus

We kind o’ thought Christ went agin war an’ pillage. – James Russell Lowell

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I caught wind of this a few days ago and wanted to mention it.

ABC News uncovered last week that a gun sight maker, Trijicon, has been producing their scopes with apparent bible verse references engraved on the sides of the products, right next to the serial number, as seen in this picture:

In at least two examples, the scopes reference John 8:12:

Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

and 2 Corinthians 4:6:

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

According to the ABC News report, Trijicon confirmed that it

adds the biblical codes to the sights sold to the U.S. military. Tom Munson, director of sales and marketing for Trijicon, which is based in Wixom, Michigan, said the inscriptions “‘have always been there” and said there was nothing wrong or illegal with adding them. Munson said the issue was being raised by a group that is “not Christian.”

And every other thinking person at this point, one can only hope. Rachel Maddow stated everything that is wrong with proselytizing such as this. She said:

Those rules exist (law against the U.S. military proselytizing for any religion) because the last thing in the world we want to do is hand al Queda and its recruiters and its sympathizers citable evidence for their eternal claim that our military is fighting a Christian, religious war against Muslims, which all Muslims therefore have a duty to join … against us.

Here’s the whole video:

And she ends:

Congratulations, you’ve just spawned a 1,000 anti-American propaganda videos. Hope you’re enjoying your war profits.

2 thoughts on “Scopin’ for Jesus

  1. This is sad. A scope maker adds Bible verse references to their products. The military buys those products. Now the manufacturer is under fire? Perhaps the military should have noticed and chosen a different product, but that is not the fault of the manufacturer. If the military started buying up and issuing “I love Jesus” t-shirts, would you blame the producer of those shirts? It’s seems pretty silly.

  2. Hey Joshua,
    Good to hear from you. To address your comments … The manufacturer, of course, can put whatever it wants on its products. That’s its prerogative. But the manufacturer knew it was selling to the U.S. Military. I suppose the military is as much at fault for not fully checking out the equipment first, but it seems boneheaded to me to want to put that message out there, especially since the charge from radicals is that we are fighting against Islam (false charges but charges nonetheless). A person in this story (http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/secret-bible-verses-guns-marines-concerned/story?id=9602030) equated the gun sight issue with us still having “In God We Trust” on dollar bills. But it’s not the same at all. Domestic money and weapons that we use in the Middle East isn’t even in the same ballpark. Plus, the “God” on dollars bills is the deist god of Thomas Paine and Jefferson, not Jesus, while the Bible verses obviously reference the latter. Anyway, it’s just bizarre all the way around.

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