Pistol-packing pastors ready to defend their flock

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- An Action News investigation looked into the debate raging among members of local clergy, as to whether they should be allowed to carry guns while in the pulpit.

It is an issue gaining momentum, following a string of deadly church shootings across the country.

"He pulls a gun out of his pocket, and I pull my gun," the Reverend Thomas Cairns told Action News.

Cairns, now retired, said he was walking to the church he pastored in Fairmount when he came face-to-face with the barrel of a gun.

"He was pointing at me before I pointed at him, but I got a shot off, and down he went," he added.

Cairn said his religious calling often placed him on some of Philadelphia's roughest streets. He started packing, both in the pulpit and in private after a criminal robbed him at knifepoint.

"I have been held up at gunpoint three times since '88, once at knifepoint, and I have had a bunch of close calls where I have had to draw my gun, but didn't have to shoot anybody," he said.

Cairns, who now works for the police, says the only way to be ready the next time was to be ready all the time, even when he preached.

"I carried all the time. If I was out of the bed and I wasn't in the shower, I was armed," he said.

Following the July massacre of nine members of the AME church in Charleston, you can find pastors at congregations both big and small preaching that pastors have the right to pack in the pulpit.

Pastor Kevin Bernat told Action News, "If someone was there and had the ability to return fire, and stop the threat, I believe those people would be alive."

Bernat, who preaches at New Life Assembly, said he has been shooting since he was just 11, and has applied for his license to carry a concealed weapon to guard his Egg Harbor, New Jersey, congregation.

"I would do what I had to do to stop that threat, and I believe that God would honor that," he added.

At a small, one-room church in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, Pastor Jeffrey Kovach believes it is his responsibility to protect his flock.

Kovach said he purchased a gun about a year ago.

"The place we are the biggest target is in one location where there are all of these defenseless people, and that would be in my church," he said.

Both Bernat and Kovach are strong proponents of men of the cloth packing pistols to protect both themselves, and their followers. The backing for their beliefs, they said, can be found right in the Bible and what Jesus told his disciples.

"They had swords. In the New Testament, Jesus told them to purchase a sword, so they had the ability to defend themselves against flat-out evil," Bernat said.

But on the other side of the aisle, some faith leaders proclaim it isn't Christian for pastors to carry weapons.

Pastor Leslie Callahan of Saint Paul's Baptist Church told Action News, "I don't believe that God intends for preachers to shoot people."

Pastor Callahan is a Member of Heeding God's Call, a group organized to end gun violence. She said the message of Jesus was to defeat evil by doing well, not by wielding weapons.

"Jesus says 'Blessed are the peacemakers, because they will be called the children of God,'" she added.

Also, at the crux of the debate: Is mixing God and guns in a house of worship against the Word? While these pastors may be the last people you'd expect to pack a pistol, they have been lobbying for more lenient concealed gun laws in New Jersey to allow them to pack in the pulpit.

"People should not have to worry whether or not they are safe when they come a house of God to worship. But sadly that is something we have to think about," added Pastor Kovach.

New Jersey has some of the country's most stringent concealed carry laws, so neither Pastor Kovach nor Pastor Bernat have been granted their concealed carry license. Right now, neither of them can be legally armed in their churches.

Pennsylvania law awards concealed licenses to individuals who pass a background check, and meet the states minimum requirements.