This story is a bit old, but I only picked up on it recently. In January this year, it emerged that a Michigan company, Trijicon who provides sights for high powered rifles and guns in America, had been putting Bible verses onto the sights provided to the American military. It has a $660 million multi-year contract to provide up to 800,000 sights to the Marine Corps, and additional contracts to provide sights to the U.S. Army. Read the story here – including a video.
The picture I saw (included in this post), referenced John 8:12, where Jesus said: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” I also saw 2 Corinthians 4:6: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” The company believes this is part of an evangelistic mindset. Besides the standard, “Honesty, integrity, quality, teamwork, etc” of their corporate values, they also have a value of “Morality” which they define as: “We believe that America is great when its people are good. This goodness has been based on biblical standards throughout our history and we will strive to follow those morals.” They achieve this by manufacturing and selling sights for rifles with Bible verses on them??
Might there be other Biblical verses they could consider including on their products? Maybe Luke 6:31: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Or maybe John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.” What about Romans 14:19: “Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.” Or Psalms 11:5: “The soul of the Lord hates… those who love violence.”
The fact that these sights are used in a Muslim nation by a military that specifically does not act in the name of any religion just adds fuel to this fire. The sights are also fitted to guns supplied to soldiers of the militaries of those Muslim nations, supported by the USA. Two years ago, it emerged that some US soldiers were using a Quran as a target in firing practice. Now this story. No wonder the Muslim nations still hark back to Crusades! Shooting Muslims with Jesus rifles – that’s not even a metaphor for Crusade!
The Director of Sales and Marketing for Trijicon, Tom Munsen, said that the verses had “always been on their sights, and there was nothing wrong or illegal in adding them”. Really? Is he serious? This is a self avowed Christian company on a Christian mission. And they see “nothing wrong” in helping people to kill other people more effectively?
Within a week of this story breaking, Trijicon had agreed to remove the verses from the sights supplied to the US military.
I am almost speechless at this story. It is SO wrong and SO many levels that I don’t know where to begin. I’ll just leave you to decide how to respond…
You should be hearing this at your church: Christians need to be pacifists.