“The Umpqua Community College shooter was obsessed with Satan and documented his devotion to darkness in a manifesto that was recovered from his computer, a source familiar with the investigation tells PEOPLE. In the reported manifesto, which allegedly had ‘666’ scrawled across it, the source says, 26-year-old gunman Chris Harper Mercer wrote in detail about his desire to ‘serve darkness.'” Well that explains . . .
Mercer’s “Are you Christian” interrogation of his victims, before deciding whether to shoot them in the head or the legs. It also tells us that the evangelical community is about to get a major proselytizing point. The same sort of thing happened – albeit inappropriately – after the Columbine spree killing.
In that mass shooting, it was initially reported that killer Eric Klebold asked an attractive student name Cassie Bernall if she believed in God before shooting her to death. According to eyewitness testimony, he did no such thing. But Bernall’s supposed statement of faith spread like wildfire thoughout the evangelical community, to the point where her parents’ book She Said Yes, The Unlikely Martyrdom Of Cassie Bernall (which repeated the claim) became a best-seller.
We can fully expect the students who professed their Christian faith to Mercer in Umpqua to become elevated to martyrdom status. Which, in this case, is not inappropriate.