On the Cult of Death

 The NRA goes on with its meeting today, and that is because worship in any religion must always go on -- no matter what.

It is a religion, baptized in the blood of 21 more just Tuesday.

It is a death cult, sharing the same characteristics of any other death cult in any time, place, or culture:

1. The human-made invention of idols whose worship promises to deliver a people from death. All cults of death are based upon the anxiety and fear of death and the ability to control it.

2. The socio-religio-economic-political complex which profits off of the cult and assures the election of its Temple priests. This is why there is so much power in gun industry -- because a supermajority in the Senate can never get elected without its money.

3. The myth that the cult is synonymous with the nation and its god(s). To be a good worshiper is to be a good citizen. To refuse to worship is to be accused of refusing to be a good patriot and atheist.

This is the power of death at work in America.

Yet, I sense this week also the power of life.

I sense the power of Resurrection - a word which the ancients had which meant "uprising".

May there be an uprising against the idols of this nation; and may the power of resurrection life rebaptize an America which is dead in its sins under the powers of the cult of death death.

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.