In Guns We Trust: The Unholy Trinity of White Evangelicals, Politics, and Firearms

In this unsettling investigation into white evangelicals' fusion of the gospel and guns, veteran journalist William J. Kole exposes how some Christians are standing in the way of reasonable restrictions on firearms--and how it makes us all less safe.

On the evening that the bass player on his worship team casually showed him his handgun, the author's world shifted. In that moment, Kole--who was the AP's New England bureau chief when a gunman massacred twenty-six people at Sandy Hook Elementary--knew he had to figure out what was going on.

Why were white evangelicals more likely than other Americans to own a weapon? What made them treat the Second Amendment as if it were God-breathed? And how did his own faith, rooted in Jesus's call to turn the other cheek, get hijacked?

In the pages of In Guns We Trust, Kole looks at the unholy alliance between white evangelicals, guns, and politics. Writing in the tradition of Tim Alberta and Kristin Kobes du Mez, he takes us into sanctuaries where worshippers raise hands and pack heat; to a rural church that does outreach through target practice with assault rifles; and into the lucrative gun-making industry, in which evangelicals play an outsized role. He introduces us to global Christians who can't imagine owning firearms and dissidents in the US who are working for change--including activists beating guns into garden tools, and nuns who bought company stock so they could sue a gun manufacturer.

Our nation is awash in more guns than citizens. With meticulous research, humanizing interviews, and immersive narrative, Kole pulls back the curtain on the locked-and-loaded Christianity that got us here. Ignoring gun-toting believers, Kole argues, means the violence will continue. But when intentional conversation and faithful resistance bear fruit, peace may yet prevail.

William J. Kole is an editor for Axios and an award-winning veteran journalist who has reported from North America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. He has served as Vienna bureau chief for The Associated Press and also as New England bureau chief. A former lay missionary for the Assemblies of God and worship leader at evangelical churches in Europe and around New England, he served as board president of Dorcas USA, an international Christian relief and development agency. Kole is the author of The Big 100, which Jane Goodall called "stimulating and inspiring." He lives in Rhode Island.