Piety Hill Musings

The ramblings of the Rector of St. John's Episcopal Church of Detroit. Piety Hill refers to the old name for our neighborhood. The neighborhood has changed a great deal in the over 160 years we have been on this corner (but not our traditional biblical theology) and it is now known for the neighboring theatres, the professional baseball and football stadiums and new hockey/basketball arena.

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Location: Detroit, Michigan, United States

Monday, July 28, 2008

Hated Liberal Churches, or a problem with Christianity?

The media is reporting two different motives.

The Knoxville paper says, according to neighbors who knew him....

The man accused of a mass church shooting this morning was described by his Powell neighbors as a helpful and kind man, but one who had issues with Christianity.
Jim D. Adkisson, 58, has been charged with first-degree murder in the shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, which killed one and injured eight others.
He is being held on $1 million bond.
"He had his own sense of belief about religion, that's the impression I got of him," said neighbor Karen Massey. "We were talking one day when my daughter graduated from Bible college, and I told him I was a Christian, then he almost turned angry.
"He seemed to get angry at that."
According to Massey, Adkisson talked frequently about his parents who "made him go to church all his life ... he was forced to do that."

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/jul/27/neighbors-accused-shooter-everyones-friend-hated-c/

This is very different than the motive in the Associated Press article...

An unemployed man accused of opening fire with a shotgun and killing two people at a Unitarian church apparently targeted the congregation out of hatred for its liberal social policies, police said Monday.
Knoxville Police Chief Sterling Owen IV said a letter had been been recovered from the SUV of Jim D. Adkisson, 58, by investigators seeking clues about the motive behind the attack. Authorities said he was an apparent stranger to the Tennessee church where gunfire punctuated a children's performance based on the musical "Annie." Two people were killed and seven wounded Sunday.
"It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that and his stated hatred of the liberal movement," Owen said at a news conference.


Either way - there is just one real motive. Demonic - he gave in to the tempations of the World, the Flesh, and the Devil (secularism and unfaith, personal decision to take life to solve a problem, and the source of all lies and deception to justify it in his mind).

Keep praying. Lord have mercy upon all involved.

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