Many thanks to Jonathan for forwarding this little bit of AmeriChrist, Inc. strangeness:A military contractor that provides rifle scopes to the military has apparently been inscribing Bible verse citations on the side of the scope. The Trijicon ACOG gunsight is the product of a company with an evangelical Christian founder, which has been quietly integrating bible verses into it's scopes for years. A secular humanist military organization got grumpy about this, which I'm sure will result in a Stern Letter being sent to the company by a mid-level acquisitions specialist.
Reading through the verses, I found myself thinking...hmmm. Are these the most appropriate verses for a scope? Pretty much all of them have to do with "light" as a keyword, which is unsurprising. The ACOG is a light-collecting scope. The verses selected are like little magical Bible talismans, selected to get the divine assist in gathering in photons.
So we get, among other things, John 8:12 used. Because you know, the light of Jesus Christ is intended to aid target acquisition in low-light environments. Or 2 Corinthians 4:6. Because nothing beats the light of the glory of God for helping you put a 5.56 mm round through the skull of that potential hostile skulking around the perimeter at dusk.
I think, though, this whole "light as a Bible search keyword" thing is a bit limiting. Go for the gusto! There are so many more...meaty verses one could use, particularly in context. Like, say, DT32:42. Or 2KG9:24. Or PS7:13. That's some kick-butt Bible, Marine! Hoooah!
I suppose you do have to be careful, though. You wouldn't want to inadvertently mess with the heads of the troops by slapping LK6:38 on there. Or MT5:39. Or MK12:31. The Bible can be really dangerous to the morale and focus of our warfighters if you aren't careful about censoring certain passages. Particularly those passages that get to the subversively unpatriotic and radically unsupportive-of-our-troops core of what Jesus of Nazareth taught.
Better to keep away from all of those pesky passages that seem to imply that the business of efficiently dispatching human beings in low light environments might not quite mesh with what Jesus had in mind.
Posts
