Another tragedy has befallen New Life Church. This time the perpetrator is not a gay male prostitute. No, Matthew Murray is one of their own. The son of devout Christians and a former member of Youth with a Mission.
As is the norm for evangelicals, the story is being presented in the limited language of Christian-ese. "Ms. Assam, as you were advancing toward the gunman firing repeatedly, what was going through your mind?" "I was thinking how awesome and powerful God is, and how happy I am that I was his chosen instrument." Okaaay.
Let's try again. "Why would a young man raised by devoted Christian parents feel such hatred toward fellow believers?" Permit me to improvise here. Matthew Murray hated Christians because sin had gained a foothold in his life. Or because he didn't have Jesus in his heart. Maybe he didn't actually have a personal relationship with the Lord. Perhaps he was being assailed by Satan and his minions, caught in his own private Armageddon.
I have a thought. Maybe Matthew Murray despised Christians because he'd been isolated from his peers and home schooled (brainwashed) by them. Obviously he was experiencing some emotional turmoil, a common thing really, but instead of being heard, or being helped, he was expected to trust in the Lord because, after all, His ways are higher than our ways. As a young man, when his God-given inclination was to find his separate identity and partake in some earthly delights, he was expected to be a youth with a mission. Go to the ends of the earth and spread the good news of our Lord!
One spin I'm sure we won't hear coming out of Christian mouths in the coming days is the possibility that, like Hurricane Katrina and the AIDS epidemic, the shootings represented God's wrath being poured out on people who claim to know him, to speak for him; people who oppress and repress and judge in his name. There will be no one uttering what many of us in Colorado Springs are thinking. Perhaps Matthew Murray was God's chosen instrument.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
I'll keep my Old Life, thanks
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I find it ironic that evangelical Christians spend millions of the Lord’s dollars attempting to convert native peoples around the globe, yet are content to leave their American brothers and sisters on a path to eternal damnation.
In the Bible Paul, the original evangelist, says, “to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak.” Shouldn’t the Christian credo then be “to the intelligent I became as intelligent, that I might win the intelligent”?
Gun-toting evangelicals would do well to avoid publicly crowing about their “awesome and powerful” God in the presence of brain-packing unbelievers. Especially when the blood of young sisters-in-Christ stains His parking lot.
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