God, Guns & Video Tape
I just finished watching a video tape of the Jeanne Assam’s press conference. Assam is the security guard who shot and killed the gunman who killed four people at the New Life Church in Colorado. This was the same gunman who shot four people, killing two at a missonary training center 12 hours earlier.
Assam, a beautiful, rather petite, blonde-haired woman is not the image you imagine when somebody says a security guard shot and killed a gunman. A witness to the event, Larry Broubannis, was inteviewed on the Today and said he was hiding behind a pole and another armed security guard was nearby. The witness said the other guard seemed content to stay hidden so he asked the guard several times to hand over his gun so he could go after the shooter. Bourbannis said he stepped out from behind the column several times and shouted at the gunman to draw his fire. That’s when he saw Assam, with her weapon drawn emerge from behind another column and start shooting at the gunman, 24 year old, Mathew Murray. Here’s is how Bourgannis described the incident.
“They were engaged in a firefight. He was firing. She was firing,” Bourbannais said. “And she was completely exposed. I was in Vietnam for 14 months in combat, and it’s the bravest thing I’ve ever witnessed. She kept yelling, ‘Surrender,’ and returned fire the complete time.”
Bourbannais walked parallel to her toward Murray as Assam shot him.
“As he slumped down and his head tilted, I said to her, ‘That’s the calmest, bravest thing I‘ve ever seen. How did you do it?’ “ he said. “She said ‘I was praying and asking the Holy Spirit the entire time to guide me.’ ”
In her press conference Assam repeatedly made reference to God’s divine intervention. Her account is amazing. You can watch it here. http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/14817480/detail.html
Gun rights groups are already pointing to the shooting as evidence for the need to have well armed citizens.
After listening to Assam, I think this event should be considered as evidence that God still performs miracles and uses people to show that he is real.
nutslikebush Says: December 12th, 2007 at 3:53 am
I can think of cooler miracles that God could have performed at that moment, to be honest.
nutslikebush Says: December 12th, 2007 at 4:13 am
This just in: “The death of Matthew Murray has been ruled a suicide,” the El Paso County Coroner’s Office said in a statement.
The Lord does act in mysterious ways. Matthew was indeed a well armed citizen.
JACKSON Says: December 12th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
He was also a Liberal… Seriously! If you want proof read the crap he wrote on the internet. Yeah there could have been cooler miracles, but you just can’t satisfy everyone can you lord, tough job being God when your creations expect you to wipe their asses for them too…That kid was a product of the liberal society that libs created. Sorry nuts can’t let you get away with God poke, he is all I got right now.
nutslikebush Says: December 13th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Jackson,
As for miracles, the fact that there is something rather than nothing is enough to satisfy me. To need more than that is to be greedy.
nutslikebush Says: December 13th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Jackson,
You and ChinaHill are making me think that I am just dealing with the insane here. Do you actually think that 1) that he was created by liberal? and 2) that it is reasonable to consider a murder spree by a mentally ill teenager that ends in a suicide as the ultimate proof of God’s existence? Think about it dude. I wasn’t making fun of God, I was pointing out the insanity of Buck’s post. His post, in reality, has nothing whatsoever to do with God.
ChinaHill Says: December 14th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Dr. Nutslikebush,
I did not make a comment on this issue and I will not. However, would like to point out the glaring liberal trait of calling anyone and everyone who dares to disagree with what he or she believes insane. I do not agree with just about everything you write. The stuff is typical liberal garbage that does not stand up to logic nor is it reasonable in its simplest form.
Oh, but I must be insane! Notice that I have never once called you a name. I have suggested strongly that you are supporting terrorism by your continued lies to discredit a sitting president who is involved in a war against people who would cut your head off as quickly as they would mine. You are working for that to happen. The Prez and I along with most of the real Americans involved are working to save your head. But then, that is why I say you are illogical. What do I know! I am only an insane moron, right, liberal?
buck Says: December 14th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Assam’s press conference was a great testimony and what happened was indeed a miracle.
If you watch her press conference you hear hert talk about loving law enforcement but not being sure if it was the right career for her. She goes on to say that the three days prior to this shooting she had been praying and fasting, asking for the Lord’s guidence about her career.
It’s also been reported that she was also instrumental in encouraging the New Life Church to beef up it’s security in the wake of the shooting at missionairy training center only hours earlier, and they did.
AND THEN it just so happened that she was the security guard in the right place at the right time, and she had the calmness and courage to shoot the gunman, WHO THEN, after being wounded, took his on life.
Over 7000 people were at that church on that day. A crazed gunman intent on “killing as many Christians as I can” was ready to murder or die trying…
And there was this woman, Jeanne Assam, who saved countless lives.
Do you think God answered her prayers?
nutslikebush Says: December 15th, 2007 at 12:24 am
Do you think God answered the prayers of the people who were murdered? Why put God in shoot outs? How do you distinguish miracles from natural or human controlled events? Am I crazy for thinking that that tragedy was just lots of really bad stuff happening because of decisions that people made and just natural causes? If that seems crazy to you, then we have passed the point of no return here.
nutslikebush Says: December 15th, 2007 at 12:26 am
ChinaHill,
You have called me a name in every single post you have written here. You call people names and then say, “but notice, you liar, I have never called you a liar.”
nutslikebush Says: December 15th, 2007 at 5:17 am
It seems like an insult to God to think of God as a guy who lines up people like bowling balls, arranges for a deranged, tragic young man to show up heavily armed to mow down the innocent, and the ends it all by appointing an underpaid security guard to have to shoot this poor mentally ill child before he commits suicide and then to say the whole thing is just proof that God is doing his work here. What an immature conception of God - its sounds like what someone might say if they were trying to seem ridiculous. A silly caricature of God. I certainly don’t know what God is, how it all began, or what it means. But I know for sure that God must be more, and radically different, from the cartoon depiction that I read here.
The Other Side Says: December 15th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
this seems like an event that shouldn’t be polarizing. rather, it should be uplifting and inspirational. a brave women did a brave thing against a deranged individual. take from this what you want, that god played a part or not or whatever. but don’t blame anyone except the man with the gun intent on killing people.
ChinaHill Says: December 16th, 2007 at 5:16 am
Dr. Nutslikebush (this one slipped by me)
“You have called me a name in every single post you have written here. You call people names and then say, “but notice, you liar, I have never called you a liar.””
I certainly wouldn’t want to call you a liar . . . Please list the times that I have called you directly a liar. Make a list and show us all where I have stated that you are a liar. I admit calling you a liar about the “Bush unconstitutionality” paragraph but that was a rather blatant lie so do not include that in your list. Most, if not all, of the time I have carefully couched my statements with “I could be wrong,” or “but what do I know as a moron, insane person or dufus.”
I will, in the meantime, go back and double-check to make sure that I did not call you the liar which you are (this, of course, is a joke and should be taken as such :-)). As with everything I write, there is reasons to believe that I am wrong, unlike you liberals, of course.
Did I imply that liberals are liars? My, my, the answer should be a resounding YES. All liberals are liars. But wait, you told us that you were not a liberal so how can I be referring to you. Liberals simply must lie in order to maintain their political philosophy. They got no choice on the matter. Socialism has no place in America. If one thinks it does, well, that is where the lie comes in. Bill Clinton was a corrupt and immoral President. If one thinks he was not, well, again, the lie. But then again, being an insane moronic dufus, maybe I am wrong.
nutslikebush Says: December 16th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
The Other Side,
Your point is well taken.
Buck Evinger Says: December 16th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Nuts,
Do you think the people who got murdered prayed to be shot and killed? Come on, man. You’re being absurd! I don’t think that God orchestrates every single aspect of every single event on earth. God created man with free will. The ability to choose or not to choose to obey his word. He does, indeed, use his followers to carry out his divine will.
Bad things happen because, like you said, people make decisions and those decisions have consequences. Again, as you said, that is part of the natural order, but as a Christian I believe that Satan is real and is in this world to create havoc and mayhem and man’s sinful nature makes him all to often a willing partner. I also believe that I cannot always understand why things happen, but what the devil means for harm, God can use for good.
Certain things can only be explained through faith and can only be accepted by those who believe.
nutslikebush Says: December 17th, 2007 at 3:47 am
Buck,
No I don’t think that. I am not sure where you got the idea that I was saying that. Not what I meant at all. I agree that we can’t understand why things happen. When we imagine how God works we are worshiping our imaginations, another form of graven image worship. I was raised on preacher’s stories about how God works and then I realized those stories where arrogant and presumptuous. This is what I believe: I am that I am; I will be what I will be (Exodus 3:14). The most profound insight of Moses. That was the limit of Moses knowledge of the Creator and mine certainly goes no further.
JACKSON Says: December 18th, 2007 at 4:15 am
Nuts, sorry it took me so long to respond but I have been pretty busy, let me clarify my statement. What I ment by product of a liberal society is the fact because of liberals parents can not discipline their kids so (I don’t mean beat them in the head) 2 things happen the kids either get their way or parents ignore them, creating the Murray guy. Yes, he was disturbed but society was not always so, until the liberals took the discipline power from parents and gave it to the kids. Hear me on this one dude. And hey you were being sarcastic so I was just lobbing it back at you. I thought we had an understanding…
nutslikebush Says: December 19th, 2007 at 12:45 am
Jackson,
I think it would take a pretty extensive investigation of his background, his parents’ child rearing practices, and the nature of his psychiatric problems in order to determine whether we can blame his parents or liberal influences for his rampage. Schizophrenia and other severe mental illnesses can have a strong organic basis. The odds are, he has had a neurodegenerative disease slowly destroying his brain for many years. When you look at the brains of kids like him (and I often do in my work), they can be dramatically smaller than the brains of kids who do not suffer from mental illness.
nutslikebush Says: December 19th, 2007 at 12:50 am
Jackson,
I just read that Matthew and his family were members of the church where the tragedy occurred. I have a feeling there is a lot more to the backstory than we have heard about yet.
nutslikebush Says: December 19th, 2007 at 12:56 am
I just read this story when looking for background. Matthew was highly involved in the youth group in the church where the tragedy took place. He wanted to be a missionary. He was educated in a strict Christian
Somehow, a child of a prominent doctor, someone who was homeschooled in a Denver suburb, evolved from would-be Christian missionary to a killer trying to rain Columbine down on the Christian world.
Murray grew up in a loving home, a family spokesman said. But other interviews and what appear to be Murray’s online ramblings portray a disturbed individual who resented his sheltered upbringing, heard voices in his head, felt rejected and abused — and yet appeared to be searching for a place to belong.
Murray grew up in a deeply Christian home. His father, Ronald Murray, is a well-known neurologist. His mother, Loretta Murray, worked as a physical therapist before devoting herself to raising and homeschooling Matthew and his brother, Chris.
“Matthew Murray was surrounded by love and support,” Casey Nikoloric, a family friend and patient of Ronald Murray’s, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “His family is heartbroken, devastated and simply lost in grief.”
Most information about Murray has become known in recent days through ranting Internet posts that appear to be the shooter’s words. One posting obtained by the AP was to a site called Independent Spirits, a gathering place for those affected by a strict Christian homeschooling curriculum.
The author, going by the handle Chrstnghtmr, described going with his mother to a conference at New Life. The poster said he “got into a debate” with two prayer team staff members, who monitored him, then tracked down his mother and “told her … I ‘wasn’t walking with the lord and could be planning violence.’ ”
The September 2006 post includes biographical information that matches Murray’s background — including details consistent with his involvement in Youth With a Mission, which ran the training center he targeted in last weekend’s rampage.
New Life Church Pastor Brady Boyd said Wednesday that his staff had no record of an incident with Murray.
Chrstnghtmr wrote that at age 17, after an attempt at going “all out for Jesus,” he plunged into a “dark suicidal depression” because he somehow couldn’t live up to the rules. He wrote he felt he was “failing God.” Chrstnghtmr described his parents putting him on two antidepressants after he shared his feelings.
None of it helped, he wrote. “Everyone prayed, they laid hands on me, spoke in tongues over me, I sought out every kind of spiritual help I knew of in charismatic christianity,” the post said.
Murray eventually was enrolled in “disciple training school,” a sort of Missionary 101 program run by Youth With a Mission. But warning signs soon emerged at the residential program in Arvada, a Denver suburb.
A former mission staff member, Michael Werner, told the Rocky Mountain News that Murray was painfully shy and had trouble socializing. One night, Werner said, Murray was chattering to himself and explained he was “just talking to my voices.”
Murray was to take a mission trip to Bosnia, but mission officials said he was kicked out of the program for unspecified “health reasons.”
On the posting on Independent Spirits, Chrstnghtmr described returning home after being ejected from the mission, where he wrote it was “back to the good old restriction and that is when I started having serious doubts about christianity.”
After Murray rejected religion, he became fixated on people and groups that explore the dark side of spirituality.
Ultimately, Murray’s rage took him to the front steps of his former mission dormitory and New Life Church.
nutslikebush Says: December 19th, 2007 at 3:47 am
Jackson,
Here is an article from the Denver Post. Apparently Matthew’s family subjected him to very strict Christian homeschooling. Doesn’t seem like the liberal home that you imagined he was raised in.
—
The ultra-religious home-school curriculum that Matthew Murray ranted about in Web postings before he opened fire at two Christian centers forbids dating, rock music and “wrong clothes.” It advises young men and women to live at home until their parents release them and counsels parents to choose marriage partners for their offspring.
That kind of strict, rule-driven home schooling is not the norm and, if used without considering students’ individual needs, is not recommended by many educators, according to Kevin Swanson, executive director of the 15,000-family-strong Christian Home Educators of Colorado.
Murray, in messages he posted under the username nghtmrchld26, said he and another poster “were raised on homeschool and we both went through some insane stuff growing up in The Nightmare that outsiders just do not understand.”
The curriculum Murray decried in his postings was developed by evangelist Bill Gothard as part of the Institute in Basic Life Principles. The Bible-based curriculum is contained in “Wisdom Booklets” — 3,000 pages of instruction that “views academic subjects through the grid of Scripture,” according to the institute’s website.
Murray mentions Gothard by name in a later post: “Me, I remember the beatings and the fighting and yelling and insane rules and all the Bill Gothard (expletive) and then trancing out … (expletive) … I’m still tranced out.”
Murray, 24, and his younger brother, Christopher Murray, were both home schooled. Christopher graduated from high school in a 2005 ceremony with other home schooled members of the Christian Home Educators organization. Matthew Murray did not participate in a graduation ceremony.
Matthew Murray, who was living at home with his parents southeast of Denver at the time of the shootings, briefly attended Arapahoe Community College and enrolled in Colorado Christian University last year but quickly dropped out.
Many home-schooled students use school-based or individual-interest-based curriculums that might include religious teaching but also involve field trips and numerous socialization opportunities.
Home schoolers attend music, dance and sports training and join other home schoolers to go on field trips.
State law requires that they receive instruction in subjects such as reading, writing, math, science, literature and the U.S. Constitution at least four hours a day for 172 days or more per year. Parents must keep records of attendance and progress.
Several people reached at the Institute in Basic Life Principals, based in Illinois, would not say if Murray was enrolled in any of Gothard’s post-secondary programs.
Gothard’s teachings have been criticized by other conservative Christians who allege that he has deviated from true Bible teaching. He takes a stand against rock music — even Christian rock — and is suspicious of modern medicine, believing in spiritual roots of disease. He is against women working outside the home, and certain toys. Gothard warned followers in a 1986 letter that Cabbage Patch dolls can cause “strange, destructive behavior.”
Swanson does not blame Gothard’s teachings for Murray’s actions. But he said there are home-schooling lessons that can be taken from the Murray shootings.
“If we see some anger issues that can’t be dealt with though parental intervention,” he said. “We must learn to seek help.”
buck Says: December 19th, 2007 at 8:48 pm
Jackson,
I have to agree with nuts on this one.
While it is indeed true that liberal influence on discipline and modern society in general has undermined certain aspects of good old-fashioned parenting, the kinds of influences that would drive a farily well-to-do young man into a killing frenzy are much more complicated.
The probably is some kind of physiological contribution that could be partly to blame. Degenerative disease, as nuts, our resident brain researcher suggests, side effect of medications, who knows.
It is also possible that kind, loving, intelligent parents, with nothing but good intentions, could unknowingly neglect their young sons psychological needs.
Mental illness is so difficult to understand and can sometimes lead to tragic results such as the scenario at New Life. The only thing that I know for a fact is that a young man reach a level of hatred or delusion so intense, he wanted to kill until he could kill no more.