This now makes two major mass killings of Christians. The Charleston massacre is well labelled as racist, but I don't think we should dismiss the fact that those were Christians targeted. This one in Oregon looks at this point to be clearly a targeting of Christians. Christian martyrs - real ones - here in the good old US of A.
Cheyeanne Fitzgerald, a survivor of the attack, says that students were asked about their religion (the shooter was not a fan of any organized religion), but that no one was targeted because of their Christian faith or religion in general:
“I don’t think he was really targeting them. I honestly don’t think he was targeting anybody. He just wanted to do it for fun. ‘Cause he still shot every single one that he asked. So I don’t think he was actually targeting a specific religion.”
Survivor Rand McGowan says that the gunman did not target Christians, but asked them general questions about faith before telling those he killed “I’ll see you soon” or “I’ll meet you soon.”
“The shooter would call a person: ‘You, stand up. And then he would ask them if they were a Christian, knew God, or had religion. And it wasn’t like it was stated on TV. It wasn’t about that he was just trying to pinpoint Christians, no.”
She says the shooter, whose name is no longer worth mentioning, told victims it would not hurt. “And then he would shoot them.”
Once again, as Bo Gardiner points out in a piece on Patheos, Christians are rallying around the attack, almost desperate to believe that the murders were prompted by the shooter’s hatred of their faith, as though they almost hope that the shooting can serve as evidence they are being persecuted. In reality, many victims’ religions are unverified. The New York Times notes that victim Quinn Cooper would have called himself an agnostic. Lawrence Levine was probably Jewish, as it is noted that he learned a Sabbath song in Yiddish in his childhood, though Gardiner notes that he likely was nonpracticing. Kim Saltmarsh Dietz was Pagan. While some victims, like Sarena Moore and Jason Johnson were absolutely Christians, it is an insult to any and all non-Christian victims to attempt to make the shooting about a war on that particular faith.
