Across Pennsylvania, hunters are celebrating the end of the centuries-long ban on Sunday hunting. It took a lot of work for both houses of the state legislature to pass it with bipartisan support, and on July 9, Gov. Josh Shapiro signed the new law giving the Pennsylvania Game Commission authority over Sunday hunting. Neighboring states have not had the restriction, but non-resident hunters from New York and other bordering states are also glad this “blue law” is finally gone.

Blue laws in the United States go back to the Jamestown Colony in Virginia (1619) where Sunday church attendance was mandated. Leaders there and in other Christian settlements were enforcing the Old Testament’s fourth commandment, “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). They were consistent — cigarette sales and many other activities were also banned (although no one knows for sure why these statutes were called “blue laws”).

Pennsylvania’s ban on Sunday hunting owes its beginning to a strong religious culture under its founder William Penn, a Quaker, but the ban often went unenforced. Landowners finally asked the state legislature to stop the working class (six-day-a-week laborers whose only opportunity to hunt was on Sunday) from shooting everything from game animals to songbirds to feed their impoverished families. By the late 1800s, the legislature revived the blue law as a game law.

Until the last few decades, landowners wanting one day of peace, quiet, rest and worship were still some of the leading voices against Sunday hunting. Farmers, during their hard-earned time off, wanted freedom from guns banging in their woodlots and from the knuckles of hunters banging on their doors to ask permission.

As a serious Christian, I see a modern ban on Sunday hunting as inherently contradictory. Others might disagree. Some people argue for the ban by saying wildlife needs a day off from the chase, but if wildlife biologists thought that argument had merit, wouldn’t Sunday hunting be banned in more states? Do predators allow prey animals a day of rest? Don’t hawks and coyotes need a Sunday dinner, and aren’t prey animals on their menus?

I’ve heard thousands of sermons (and preached a few hundred), but not one against Sunday hunting. Nor have I ever heard a word from the pulpit against Sunday fishing, which has been Sunday-legal in Pennsylvania for over 60 years. And I’ve never heard a preacher object to churchgoers skipping worship to use their season tickets to attend a pro football game.

To be consistent, if a Christian thinks Sunday hunting should be banned, shouldn’t he favor a ban on Sunday fishing, too? I’ve mentioned football, but many other Sunday activities are also legal and acceptable. What about golf? Movies? Skiing? Buying lottery tickets and liquor?

Can a ban on Sunday hunting imply that hunting is a less moral form of recreation than fishing or golf? If so, that idea plays into the hands of activists who aim to end hunting.

I’m not arguing that all these things are right, but that Christians who take church attendance seriously should be asking other questions. Is Sabbath keeping only a matter of religious legalism? Does an obligatory, half-hearted hour in a church pew satisfy the commandment?

Some hunters say, “I worship in my tree stand.” While Christianity does value contemplative solitude, it also regards regular corporate worship with significant value. So, from a Christian point of view a tree stand is not a substitute for church.

Yes, the Bible says to keep the Sabbath holy, and I can wish everyone did that, but I can’t think of any reason why a civil, secular government in a religiously pluralist nation should single out a positive, wholesome form of recreation for prohibition–while permitting everything else.

If I were to oppose Sunday hunting, it would have to be on principle, and I haven’t found a consistent principle yet that would allow me to object to Sunday hunting while giving a nod to the many other Sunday activities almost no one objects to.

As a faithful church goer, I’m a Sunday worshiper. That doesn’t make me better than others, and Sabbath keeping is certainly more than checking a box on a religiously legalistic to-do list. The question for me, and for Christians in general, is how to live so that others take our faith as seriously as we do.

Those who want to ban Sunday hunting for religious reasons have a much larger job to do than they know. Citizens of the Kingdom of God are firmly planted in an earthly world with big battles to fight, some inward and some outward, and we too often fail to enlist the One who has sovereign power.

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When “The Everyday Hunter” isn’t hunting, he’s thinking about hunting, talking about hunting, dreaming about hunting, writing about hunting, or wishing he were hunting. If you want to tell Steve exactly where your favorite hunting spot is, contact him through his website, www.EverydayHunter.com. He writes for top outdoor magazines, and won the 2015, 2018 and 2023 national “Pinnacle Award” for outdoor writing.