Holy Tantrum

Mar 14, 2005

The man who fatally shot seven people during a quiet church service before turning the gun on himself was on the verge of losing his job and upset over a sermon he heard two weeks ago, investigators said Sunday.

Let me get this straight: this guy’s having a tough time personally, then a sermon ticks him off. He gets his gun, goes to church, and kills a bunch of people, then himself.

Sounds like Muslim fundamentalist.

But, no, it’s more like a Christian fundamentalist church. And the reverend apparently didn’t cajole the congregation to kill heathen. Instead, the preacher is a eschatologist who predicted the end is near, which eschatologists do for a living.

Earlier this year, the group’s leader, Roderick C. Meredith, wrote that events prophesied in the Bible are “beginning to occur with increasing frequency.”

“We are not talking about decades in the future. We are talking about Bible prophesies that will intensify within the next five to 15 years of your life,” he wrote in the church’s magazine, Tomorrow’s World.

I don’t know if the Bible says anything about lots of shooting rampages preceding the end of time, but if it does, Meredith might be onto something. Three (here) in one week. Four if you count last Friday’s double homicide in a wealthy St. Louis suburb.

UPDATE: Political Teen summarizes the week’s bloodbaths nicely