Reverend Rodney Hudson, Baltimore pastor of both Ames Memorial Church and the Metropolitan United Methodist Church, knows a thing or two about being a victim of violence. Hudson has been mugged twice in his church parking lot and attacked once at the pulpit while giving a eulogy for a funeral service. During that incident, a son of the deceased attacked Hudson, motivating him to begin carrying his own personal protection.

Rev. Hudson has stepped up security measures in the last ten years at both churches. Unfortunately, each church can only afford one security guard. That leaves Hudson, a former US Army paratrooper, as a secondary line of defense. “If they get past him, I’m the second guard. The pastor almost has to be a security guard,” he told The Baltimore Sun.

Rev. Hudson now carries a .38 special during every service. And he’s not shy about who knows it. “I carry and I don’t care who knows it. It’s sad to say — we all believe in God as our protector, but the other harsh reality is that there are so many people who have absolutely no respect for God and the church nowadays,” said the Reverend. It’s a legitimate concern, especially in Baltimore where a pastor was nonfatally shot in an abandoned church while another man was killed outside Adams Chapel AME Church.

Another Baltimore pastor, Rev. Dr Harold A Carter Jr at New Shiloh Baptist Church, echoed Rev. Hudson’s concerns. He noted the issues caused by increased addiction and homelessness in the area but also looked at the issue as a spiritual problem. “Spiritual warfare is a major variable in the equation. We are engaged in a spiritual battle. But people under stress tend to take out their frustrations on religious or faith-based institutions. They stand for something, unlike neighborhoods, community centers, or malls. It becomes simpler and easier to turn one’s frustrations and anger against the church,” he said.

One commentor on The Sun story lamented the need pastors feel to take up arms. “The pastor of a downtown church telling The Baltimore Sun he packs a .38 special and doesn’t care who knows about it should be enough to scare the h–l out of the rest of us,” wrote user Stan Heuisler of Baltimore. “That a minister of one such church feels threatened enough to carry a pistol and the paster of the venerable New Shiloh Baptist Church backs him up on the need for security should just eat at all our hearts. Something has to be done.”