Witnesses continue to come forward after this weekend’s shooting at a gay-inclusive Unitarian church in Tennessee.
The kids over at Out & About received an exclusive account from Carla Lewis, who was there when Jim Adkisson came in firing. This excerpt picks up right after Adkisson fired his first shot:
My mind tried to register the sound. I was thinking, “Did a speaker explode? Did I hear a prop gun? Did something go wrong?” and as soon as that thought left my mind I smelled the sulfur from the gunpowder and heard another BOOM and then BOOM. I left go of Jaime’s hand and stepped around the corner just as John Bohstedt tackled the shooter. Immediately two others were on top of him.
…
In the minutes leading up to when the police arrived Jaime and I saw children with escorts looking for their parents. We saw children and adults with blood on their clothes. We saw the worst side of human cruelty we had ever seen. We knew people had been shot but we didn’t know who.We eventually gathered with the rest of the church family on a hill behind the sanctuary. Most of the children were in safe hands at the Second Presbyterian Church next door. While we were congregated together I noticed our friend. She is a transgender youth. She told us that Greg, her foster father, had been hit. That really hit home.
Scary, scary shit…
Kiera
And what’s even scarier…
“He [60-year-old Greg McKendry, who jumped in front of the gunman’s bullet] did die doing good(which is nice), but, if his choice of churches is any indication, he died without knowing Christ. Death without Christ = eternal separation from God = Hell”
…is what the “right thinking christians” are saying about the guy that gave his life to protect the other people in the church.
Trenton
That’s what fundamentalists are bound to think, and it comes as no surprise. Fortunately, their judgement means zilch. He died a hero and to people with hearts unpolluted by such hateful dogma that is what he shall always be. Let their churches duke it out. It’s a waste of energy for non-believers to get roiled about it.
CHURCHILL-Y
And people who fail to realize that this crime was committed in a church that was specifically targeted because of what it preaches are no better than the fundamentalists/“right thinking christians†that they despise. I’m sure that Mr. Bohstedt and Mr. McKendry actions were not solely out of heroism but were also due to their faith and the teachings of their church.
Trenton
If you were referring to me with that post, C-hilly, wake up; I wasn’t talking about the crime. I was talking solely about the judgement passed by these others churches on the victims.
But while we’re on the subject of the teachings of the church…is it by those teachings that you come by your inveterate racism? Because I personally find racism and Christian doctrine to be irreconcilable. That you would be sympathetic to the UU despite your own bigotry shows such inconsistency that I cannot help but think that you don’t believe half of what you write on these boards. How good to know you are just a mere jester! An iota of my faith in humanity has been restored.