August 1, 2008
Tennessee Church Shooting: Interesting email from First Christian Church of Harriman, TN
First Christian Church of Harriman, Tennessee, is, as we probably all know by now, the likely church Unitarian-killer Jim David Adkisson attended as a child. (We don’t know it is, mind you; right now, everyone’s going on bits and pieces picked up from newspaper reports.)
In any case, I received an email overnight which had me confused at first, as there was no context to it. But after tracking the sender’s IP address through my server logs, I realized the post that triggered it was “Rabid Religious Righties Brand Church Shooter Atheist Attack Dog. As Usual, the Right is Wrong,” and the reference to the “newsletter” (PDF here) refers to a passage in which I quoted Dark Christianity, regarding Adkisson’s possible ties to the Dominionist movement (numerous links are embedded in the original post):
There *may* be dominionist links, even aside from the obvious — namely, with the damage caused by dominionist coercive groups. Per a report in the Knoxville News-Sentinel, the shooter may have been forced as a child to attend First Christian Church of Harriman, TN; First Christian Church is part of an association of “nondenominational Christian Churches” often linked to dominionism and does have a bibolatrous statement of faith. It also has connections with an explicitly dominionist anti-reproductive-health group that specialises in confrontational protest–including an exhortation to pastors to “put their lives and ministries on the line” (comparing persons who support the right to choose who would personally not have an abortion to Pontius Pilate); it explicitly promotes setting up dominionist steeplejacking of not just culture but the country, at one point, subtly hints that the US is considered a “pagan nation”, and there is also the distinct possibility that the anti-abortion group may be an Assemblies front or closely related due to known links with Assemblies frontgroup Mercy Ministries. The imagery in the church newsletter tends to be telling.
I’m still not sure what to make of it (I am always wary of being played the fool by anyone or any institution which I can safely assume is diametrically opposed to everything I believe, and everything I am), but I decided to take it at face value — and answer it that way:
Name: Becky —Message: My message was too long, it’s a shame, it explained alot. To sum it up, I am a paid employee that does the newsletter for the church, please tell me what was offensive in the graphics. The link to the abortion site was an oversite and was removed immediately. Your comment hit me hard & has taught me a lesson to be much more plain,generic & stay away from creativity in the pic’s I choose, I don’t care for blogging, I’m too long winded, haha!
My reply:
Hello, Becky,I assume you’re talking about First Christian Church of Harriman…
If so, you’ll have to ask Dark Christianity what is meant about the “imagery in the church newsletter”; the quoted passage comes from here:
http://community.livejournal.com/dark_christian/1067113.html
I can’t speak for Dark Christianity, but to my eye, the imagery is very “Dominionist-like”: Eagles flanking a cross that reads “God’s Will,” red, white and blue everywhere, “Heaven watchs [sic] and waits…” I understand it is a July (4th) newsletter, but it strikes me as a mixture of Christianity + U.S. patriotism (or, a complete blurring of the line between church and state).
Perhaps that sounds reactionary to you, but you need to understand that this blend of imagery is very typical of the Reconstructionist/Dominionist movement (i.e., those who want to turn the U.S. into a theocracy, and either banish non-believers, or literally destroy us), and we on the left (gay people, non-theists, and liberals in general) who study this movement and live in mortal fear of it (again, literally; it endangers our most basic freedoms as American citizens, and often our very lives) are extremely sensitive to such imagery.
It’s good to know you removed the abortion link. Regardless of one’s stance on the issue of choice, peace-loving congregations should be very careful of their associations with anti-choice organizations, as some are deeply rooted in the white-supremacist movement, and/or condone violence (including murder) against abortion providers.
This two-page overview from the Southern Poverty Law Center may be an eye-opener:
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=701
In the meantime, I wish you luck — I’m sure your church is reeling under the weight of unwanted publicity right now. On the other hand, if one were to search for something good to come out of tragedy, the TVUU shooting has served as a wake-up call, in many ways, for many people, hasn’t it?
Filed under: Christianity, Radical Religious Right
