Why Is Everybody Always Picking On Us

After the terrible events in Colorado, where a young man with serious problems acted out by killing the people he felt caused those problems, and then himself, I really didn’t want to hear the leader of the church at the center of this say, that the problem was all of the people who attack Christians.

When people destroy a Wiccan symbol in Olean, New York and leave a Crèche near it untouched, you have to assume the culprits are Christian.

When people on a subway car attack Jews, because the Jews responded “Happy Hanukkah” to the other group’s “Merry Christmas,” you have to assume that the attackers are Christians.

When the House of Representatives is tied up with a resolution on Christians and Christmas, you are hard pressed to call it an attack on Christians.

What was the action of the only possibly non-Christian group in the tragedy in Colorado – they called the FBI: Online Group Alerted FBI To Colo. Shooter

(AP) Federal authorities were alerted to anti-Christian Web site postings apparently written by Matthew Murray only hours after he opened fire on a missionary center and just before his deadly rampage at a Colorado megachurch, the Web site’s administrator said.

Joe Istre, president of the Association of Former Pentecostals, which operates the site, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he and other forum participants had grown familiar with the frequent and disturbingly dark poetry and obsessions of one participant, whose nickname was nghtmrchld26.

But when that same author, believed to be Murray, left at least 11 posts on the day of the twin shootings warning that he wanted to kill Christians, a forum participant immediately contacted the FBI, Istre said.
…

Ultimately, Istre said he believes the ex-Pentecostal forum helped the man, and he doesn’t know what more the group could have done to prevent the bloodshed.

“My gut instinct is that he was coming on our forums and posting all this stuff to provoke a negative reaction to where he’d be rejected again, so he can have another trophy, to say, ‘I’ve been rejected by another organization, so here is my chance to strike back at the world.’ I think in our organization he discovered an acceptance he probably never ran into.”

Murray, 19, was dismissed from Youth With a Mission in 2002 for what the training center has described only as health reasons. Youth With a Mission maintains an office at New Life Church’s World Prayer Center.

An autopsy Tuesday determined that Murray killed himself with a bullet to the head after he was brought down by gunfire from a volunteer security guard at the church, authorities said.

I suspect the church knew it was targeted, because Murray was prolific in his hate mail. They didn’t have armed guards on an off chance. This group rejected Murray, he didn’t reject them. His “health problems” were probably early signs of his mental illness, but that probably wasn’t part of Ted Haggard’s ministry. [yes, this is Ted Haggard church five years ago].

Could this have been averted? I have no idea. Apparently no one tried very hard.