The emerging Satanist backstory in the Alabama church burnings elicits...silence.
The governor of Alabama is assuring his population that they can "breathe because there appears to be no religious motive" in the arson attacks on nine Baptist churches last month. Like alot of other people of faith, I'm a little disturbed with this one. Maybe it comes from having pastored a congregation myself years ago that had it's own building torched one night by an arsonist. With the arrest of three college students as the culprits, everybody wants to accept this as another barely explainable act of alienated youth. But what about the darker picture that has emerged about the "Satanist" background of the trio?
Details in some Birmingham News reports raise some questions:
Friends said [suspects Russell DeBusk] and Ben Moseley were Satanists, which DeBusk told friends was "not about worshipping the devil, but about the pursuit of knowledge," according to [DeBusk's college roommate, Jeremy] Burgess. …
Burgess said he and DeBusk discussed religion loosely, debating whether pets go to heaven and what heaven looks like. "He told me I was one of the more intelligent Christians he's talked to," Burgess said. "Coming from a Satanist, I didn't know quite how to interpret that."
Ian Cunningham, a sophomore who lived in the same dorm as DeBusk, recalled returning from the campus chapel recently to snide remarks about being saved from DeBusk and Moseley. "He would constantly mock me," Cunningham said of DeBusk.
Another News article looks at suspect Matthew Cloyd:
After he got a speeding ticket—85 mph in a 70 zone—his Web site musings grew cryptically violent. In a posting to Moseley last summer as the two planned a road trip, he wrote, "Let us defy the very morals of society instilled upon us by our parents, our relatives and of course Jesus."
Not much to consider, you say? Well, how much more evidence of religious hate was there to consider in the equally repulsive synagogue arsons in LA a few years ago, or in the three Jewish temple arsons that took place in my hometown of Sacramento last year? These crimes were immediately labeled as hate offenses, based on similar testimony and website confessions.
All I'm asking is, why can't the same protective outrage be extended to these nine Christian congregations who are meeting this week in rented Vets halls and wondering if the insurance will even begin to cover their reconstruction costs? Far from being well heeled and denominationally backed outfits like the LA synagogues, the nine Alabama churches were evenly split racially but uniformly poor. They deserve to at least have us ask some basic questions. Questions like:
Is there a link between teen Satanist groups in this country and crimes against churches? From my experience, ask any police officer tasked to handle teen/occult crime and you'll get an immediate yes answer. Where's 20/20 on this one? Still in Aruba, I guess.
What if these teens had burned nine porn theaters or abortion clinics, or for that matter, even one mosque? How different would the assumptions and media coverage be? Would any governor in his right mind get in front of the microphones in any of those cases and accept that "this was a joke that simply got out of hand"? (Nine times, mind you.)
I understand turning the other cheek. I applaud it. The pastors of these churches have been admirable in all of this. The college classmates of the three arsonists who have volunteered to help rebuild the churches on their free weekends are inspiring. They are a noble backstory in all this. But the absolute media silence in this hateful, premeditated reign of violence against fundamental Christians is itself a disturbing "joke that simply got out of hand".
I'm not laughing.
Joe Pursch is heard nightly on AM 710 KFIA from 5-7PM PST, streamed live on the Internet at www.kfia.com.
You can contact him at realtalk@kfia.com.
