On Wednesday evenings around the country, many churches hold mid-week services or children\u2019s programs, or bible studies. Sometimes, all three. A few weeks ago, a pastor was leading one of those Bible studies when a visitor came into the church and sat in on the group. He was welcomed to join in. He requested to sit next to the pastor, and so he did.<\/p>\n
An hour passed by with readings from the Bible and discussion, perhaps about what the text meant, perhaps about how to apply it personally. Even, perhaps, asking for the visitor\u2019s thoughts, though I would imagine that the group, not wishing to create an awkward situation, probably didn\u2019t push him to participate in an unfamiliar setting, content to let him listen in, and yet willing to let him speak should he want to.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know what was discussed, or what the passage was that was the topic of the evening, but the visitor later said that the people were very nice to him. So nice, he said, that he almost \u2026 almost \u2026 didn\u2019t do what he had come there to do. But in the end, he did, and when he was done, the pastor and 8 others had been shot dead.<\/p>\n
Dylann Roof had come there to start a race war; to start an uprising that would supposedly boil over into a full-blown conflict. <\/p>\n
At this point, we can only guess what he imagined the sequence of events would be leading to that war. Certainly he had seen the news reports about riots in the streets in other cities when a white man killed a black man, so it\u2019s conceivable that he thought his actions would create the same situation, only more violent, because unlike many of those other instances, these would be killings that were obviously pre-mediated, with no other explanation than hatred. He wouldn\u2019t have any self-defense case. He wouldn\u2019t be a cop who may, or may not, have thought his life was in danger. No, nothing would be murky about this. This would be a clear cut case of racially-motivated murder, possibly causing an even more violent reaction than those previously.<\/p>\n
But all his plans were taken apart piece by piece, because of who he targeted. He targeted those who believed that you should love your enemies, and pray for those that hurt you. He targeted those who believe that the merciful are blessed. He targeted those who are told to forgive as freely as they themselves have been forgiven.<\/p>\n
He targeted a Christian Bible study. And while he was committing those acts of hatred, of malice, of evil, he had no idea that he was also opening up the floodgates of the love that those he killed professed. Those that survived, and hundreds of others in Charleston, though undeniably hurting, expressed that love to him. A reporter covering the crowd that stood outside the arraignment had a difficult time keeping his composure in the face of such love<\/a>.<\/p>\n