It’s official, the New Life Church Killer Matthew Murray died by a self-inflicted wound. Perhaps this will take the heat off volunteer church security guard and disgraced-cop Jeanne Assam who may have fired on Murray from a concealed position and kept firing on him as she advanced according to her police training. What does this latest distinction mean? This is what it suggests to me:
Troubled-teen Matthew Murray, according to his own website postings, may be America’s first suicide bomber, using smoke and assault rifle to penetrate and injure a temple of American militant fundamentalism.
This is American sectarian violence, perpetrated by a former adherent rebelling against the oppressive reach of American smiley-face religio-capitalism, church of prosperity Fundamentalism. The same corporate spiritualism that drives our war machine, the rotten heart of Pax Americana, the misplaced sense that American vacant-headed fundamentalist values must police the world, and dominate, or at least prosper from the bulk of its resources. Murray believed this kind of Christianity was at the core of the world’s problems, and church leaders like New Life founder Ted Haggard as much as brag about it.
Matthew Murray was the product of too-far-isolated fundie parents, who terrorized their children with fire and brimstone nightmares. His ostracism justifies public education, where home-schooling entrusted to zealots yields intelligent but incompatible offspring.
They are quick to add “these are not mercenaries that we hire.” Onward Christian soldier.