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Our community’s worst fears confirmed
Posted By katie allison granju
KPD Chief Owen has just confirmed that it appears the suspect in yesterday’s fatal church attack was, in fact, targeting the good people of the TVUUC because of their religious and political beliefs.
No matter what YOUR religious or political beliefs happen to be, we must all stand together as Knoxvillians united during this terrible time, and as they declare in their liturgy each Sunday at every Unitarian Universalist church:
Let people living in all lands
Declare that fear and hate are done.
Rise above differences and stand
In love and understanding, one.
Let us work together as a community to turn this tragedy into an enhanced dialogue for peace and justice that crosses social and belief boundaries. We owe that to the brave victims of this brutal attack, as well as to the heroes - yes real HEROES - who tackled the shooter and saved dozens of others.
.
Jul 28th, 2008
Well. I was afraid of that. Thanks Rush. Thanks Southern Baptist Convention. Thanks Fox News. Thanks National Association of Evangelicals. Thanks GOP. Thanks Focus on the Family. I hope you will at least have enough decency to send flowers to the funerals and the hospitals. The thing I don’t understand is why so many people in our society support these hate mongers when they see the results of their rhetoric acted out.
What a simplistic response…
From the sounds of it, this man didn’t have a clue what “the liberal movement” is he was attacking and he had and has serious psycho-social issues.
As a conservative, I roundly condemn this completely senseless, totally unwarranted, and absolutely unneeded act of unprovoked violence on a place of public worship. It was not only uncalled for, it was an act of terror in the worst sense.
Words cannot express the feeling of revulsion that I, and many East Tennesseans have at this terrible tragedy.
Sorrow is an understatement, and the rebuking of such acts goes beyond political or religious belief.
I agree with Aulder guy but I will take it a step further. Specifically, The 24/7 hate spewed by conservative talk radio contributes to the problem.
Aulder Guy and Rebecca -
I generally try to stay as dispassionate as possible when posting on matters; however, your attempts to turn this tragedy into your own political football are repulsive and need to be condemned.
Do you really want to go down the road of trying to separate criminals by their political ideology? Do you seriously believe that this is going to produce statistics that, in any way, make your side of the political aisle come out ahead in that kind of fool’s game?
I’ll simply remind you that most murders, rapes and other violent crimes occur in liberal bastions such as Chicago, New York and Los Angeles - not in the “red states.” We can go further with this analysis if you’re really so insensitive and clueless as to continue down this road, but I’m going to hope that you take a second to rethink your position before you respond.
As far as spewing hate and invective, we can start talking about all the liberal outlets such as Air America, dailyKos, myDD and how many times they have not only advocated death, but described it in great detail, for not just their political rivals but members of our Armed Services who keep us safe. Let’s not even get into pretending that there is some kind of monopoly on either side of the political aisle for those who want to express their particular brand of dementia through violence. Is this really the road you wanted to go down? I can personally guarantee you that I can track down far more instances of advocating actual physical violence from the Left if you want this to degenerate into that sort of shouting match. Again, I’m hoping that you’ll both come to your senses and think better of your baser impulses before going there again.
Both of you should be ashamed of yourselves for “going there.” This guy obviously had some issues and did something which no reasonable person on either side of the political aisle would ever encourage or condone. I’m flabbergasted that you can’t take off your political blinders long enough to think that your political opponents would actually support this sort of heinous action.
It’s disgusting.
I think Aulder and Rebecca are building a strawman to try and light. Good luck with that. It’s not only a simplistic response, I’ll take it a step further, it’s a morally deficient one. It fails to hold the person who pulled the trigger responsible. It’s a typical liberal response and it’s an enabling one.
I watch Fox News (gasp), I listen to conservative talk shows (horrors), read Instapundit (shudder) and I don’t agree with some of the Unitarian’s stands but it doesn’t mean that I would shoot them or even that I hate them. Nor does it mean I need a dialogue for peace and justice. Why talk the talk when you can walk the walk?
Someone with hate in their heart killed those people. He committed an evil act. Yes, he hated liberals and gays but he seemed also to hate church and believes the Bible contradicts itself. If you’re looking for a person matching his description to have that dialogue with, other than him, you’re going to be looking for a while before you find one. Since he’s the only one who showed up in church shooting, I think you’ll find most of the rest of us not interested in having a dialogue in which you try to change our beliefs.
When a tragedy like this occurs, it hurts all of us. I didn’t know one person in that church but I wept for the loss. The loss for the families, church and community. The loss of all those childen’s innocence. It is devastating to the community as a whole. If you need to point a finger or have a dialogue with someone, try Jim D. Adkisson. He pulled the trigger.
Conservative talk radio targets simple-minded and easily led folks who feel like they are on the fringes of society. It fans the flames of their discontent while neatly ignoring that the gulf between the haves and have-nots is only increased by a conservative agenda.
Why are conservative posters so fearful to discuss politics in regards to the shooting when politics was what the gunman claimed was his motivation? Why is it “repulsive?” It seems like a logical segueway. I think it is “repulsive” for foaming at the mouth conservatives to embrace the liberal-is-a-dirty-word hatespeak then divorce themselves from Adkisson.
Only Adkisson pulled the trigger. Conservative media created the poison that sickened him.
Personal and Confidentail to Kerochee:
The tired old number about liberals being “morally deficient” is beat to death. Isn’t it time to retire the whole moral superiority thing? Especially since you and Adkisson probably have similar voting records…Just saying.
Jim,
Are you even capable of posting something that does not deal with “shame” or finger-wagging?
These comments speak for themselves.
Rush Limbaugh: “I tell people don’t kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus — living fossils — so we will never forget what these people stood for.”
Ann Coulter: “We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens’ creme brulee. … That’s just a joke, for you in the media.”
Lee Rogers: “…the day will come when unpleasant things are going to happen to a bunch of stupid liberals and it’s going to be very amusing to watch.”
RedState contributor “Thomas Crown”: “I repeat: Should the entire American Left fall over dead tomorrow, I would rejoice, and order pizza to celebrate. They are not my countrymen; they are animals who happen to walk upright and make noises that approximate speech. They are below human. I look forward to seeing each and every one in Hell.”
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: “I am absolutely convinced that God is far from finished with the story of the United States of America. … First of all, [there's] the matter of the little battle that must be fought, just as it was in the 19th century.” There were, and are, “two incompatible moral visions for this country. We had to settle it then. We’re going to have to settle it now. I hope not with blood, not with guns, but we’re going to have to settle it nonetheless. The good news is that I think our side is finally ready to settle it. Roll up its sleeves, take off its jacket, and get a little bloody. Spill a little blood. We’ll settle it. And we’ll win. And then there’s no holding us back.”
Bill O’Reilly: “Where does George Soros have all his money? Do you know? Do you know where George Soros, the big left-wing loon who’s financing all these smear [web]sites, do you know where his money is? Curaçao. Curaçao. They ought to hang this Soros guy.”
What Rebecca said.
Acts like this are very real acts of terrorism because they don’t target just the immediate victims. They literally put terror into the hearts of others who are part of the same community.
My reaction yesterday was shock and sorrow. Today I’ve moved to anger and defiance. I want to put a great big sign in my yard that says “Liberals live here.”
I’ve been thinking about joining TVUUC for some time. Next Sunday I’ll be there.
CNN is saying he killed because of politics.
NO one made this up or dragged polities into it, the killer said he did because he hates liberals and hated this loving church and what they stood for as liberals.
Democratic liberals DO NOT spew the level of hate as republicans do.
I agree. The roots of this act can be traced back to Rush Limbaugh and others who spew hatred about the liberals.
Rebecca, you wouldn’t have a clue about how I vote. I’m not a one issue voter. I have voted for dems and repubs and independents when I can find them. I vote for who I think has the best interests of their community and country at heart. I don’t believe any one group has a monopoly on that. It’s an individual thing. I also watch CNN, listen to NPR, read HuffPost and love my sister’s significant other. By listening to both sides, I have what is called an “informed opinion” Try it.
As for morally deficient, I consider anyone that won’t hold the person responsible for pulling the trigger exactly that. It’s excusing personal responsibility. It’s the whole “I’m a victim, you’re a victim, wouldn’t you like to be a victim, too”? You can blame Bush, global warming or a Russian conspiracy but it doesn’t make it so. No one even knows whether he even listen to Rush, Coulter or anyone else.
I find it interesting that you group me with Adkisson. Tells me more about you than you’d probably even understand. That’s a really fine way to make your point. You’re a twit, just saying.
Regardless of how one feels about Rush Limbaugh and his ilk–and I can’t stand them–”the roots of this act” can more likely be traced to the fact that this man is mentally ill and has been most of his life, and that this was the church his ex-wife attended. Look at the Knoxnews.com coverage. He held a gun to his wife’s head–his violent nature did not come from the Right Wing.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14842
http://brain-terminal.com/posts/2005/04/14/peace-loving-ny-liberals
http://radioequalizer.blogspot.com/2007/11/liberal-host-discloses-violence.html
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/1904
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Ayers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Liberation_Front
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Liberation_Front
Should I continue?
This is childish stupidity on stilts. There are extremists on both sides of the political aisle, but as Kerochee correctly pointed out: this murderer is responsible for his own actions.
Trying to use this senseless crime to make a political point is only to show the extent to which your personal politics have pushed you beyond the capacity for rational discourse, and no, simply shouting “BUSHITLER!!” at the top of your lungs in response to every subject doesn’t count as rational discourse.
Just because the guy claimed politics was the cause for his actions doesn’t make it so. If the guy claimed that a dog spoke to him and told him to do it, would you claim that dogs are responsible? The guy is clearly not right in the head, and trying to use his mental illness as some sort of justification for being so clearly tasteless and insensitive in the immediate aftermath of such a tragedy is transparently ludicrous.
none of your links are media entities. They are individuals and bloggers.
try again.
Jim, it is unfortunate that a certain segment of society seems to be always looking to cast the mantle of hate and intolerance upon anyone that has views that are other than theirs. As you and I experienced in the thread about feminism, no matter what we say, or how we say it, we are said to be “hateful.”
No kidding, I said that I disagree with the brand of feminism that encourages women to consider themselves victims and men to be violent aggressors and oppressors, but instead embrace classic feminism, which advocates respect, empowerment and equal rights for all. And you know what? This blog’s owner wrote an email in response, not to me, but to my fiance to tell him how hateful I am!
And above, we have several people dancing in the blood of these shooting victims as they shout about how awful conservatives are, how hateful and intolerant Christians are, as if that could possibly ever excuse the evil that man did!
But then, that is yet another failing of the “liberal” mindset, the refusal to insist on each person being responsible for themselves … it’s always someone else’s fault!
Kerochee Said:
“As for morally deficient, I consider anyone that won’t hold the person responsible for pulling the trigger exactly that. It’s excusing personal responsibility. It’s the whole “I’m a victim, you’re a victim, wouldn’t you like to be a victim, too”? You can blame Bush, global warming or a Russian conspiracy but it doesn’t make it so. No one even knows whether he even listen to Rush, Coulter or anyone else.”
I am going to say this just one time. Mr. Adkisson did pull the trigger, and he is responsible. I would also point out to you that it is against the law to incite a riot and to forge certain types of conspiracies. I am not claiming that what happened at the church was a riot or the result of a conspiracy. I am saying that the law extends fault to various kinds of incitement.
As noted in my original post that led off this thread, as a matter of principle, I hold the conservative establishment in this country and its adherents as accessories to murder in this crime because their increasingly hostile rhetoric over the past 25 years has been an INCITEMENT to the kind of behavior we saw at the church yesterday.
Someone has attacked a whole,diverse community of people, a UU church, stating the intent to “kill as many as possible” for reasoning that they held liberal beliefs. Thus it is a politcal act which resulted in the deaths and wounds we have in front of us as the community of Knoxville.. How will this community, Knoxville, now respond to this political action without it being taken as “political”? It is this community that is now the focus of the rest of the world. Knoxville is having its 15 minutes of fame. What will that story be?
LissaKay -
I can’t disagree with anything you said: I just wish they had taken the opportunity to, as Katie asked, “cross social and belief boundaries” instead of staying lost inside their obsessive hatred of all things not like them.
I’m also just sitting here with my jaw agape at the blog owner writing to “tell on you” to your fiance. Every time I think “this is as petty as it gets,” I find myself surprised yet again…
eric -
Your response is nonsensical. The links I posted point out not just the overheated rhetoric of a few commenters (which I’ll even assume, for the sake of argument, that you quoted accurately and completely in context ) which you found, but the actual organization and execution of violence against people and property by a wide range of Leftists. If you’re attempting to dismiss these examples because they weren’t sourced to a MSM article, then try reading the cited sources for the Wikipedia articles on the Leftist domestic terrorists or the articles linked from these posts. Either way, you can’t really be trying to tell me that you deny that Bill Ayers, the ALF and ELF exist and are domestic terrorists, are you?
But I will repeat myself here: unlike you, I understand that even the egregious examples of Leftists advocating and committing terrorist acts (that it took literally seconds of Googling to find, so let’s not pretend you didn’t know about them before I posted them) don’t excuse or explain things like this:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=cp_fc6h5g7n673&show_article=1
This “anti-war protester” is 100% responsible for his own actions and no one else. Or should we start a new thread about how enablers like yourself and the other commenters on this thread who make excuses for or provide the ideological fuel for politically-motivated murderers (provided they’re on your side of the aisle, of course) are really the ones responsible for what he did?
See how ridiculous your entire line of reasoning sounds when the shoe is on the other foot?
Aulder Guy -
Are you then claiming responsibility for what the anti-war protester in my example did? If so, then at least you’re wrong consistently.
If not, then the “principle” you’re standing on is nothing more than the weakest possible irrational self-justification for your hatred of those who disagree with you politically.
So which is it?
I smell fear through the computer screen. Our conservative posters are squirming. When they resort to calling someone a “twit” (Kerochee) just go ahead and admit that you have been bested.
Be men about it. Admit that your own political messiahs grew and nourished Adkisson and his ilk. Your squeals of moral superiority are nothing more than an impotent version of Adkisson’s shotgun blast. Much like Jim and K., he thinks he is better. He thinks he is entitled to judge.
Hey, Jim and Lissa Kay,
You own the blood spilled. Your words have made it so.
Anonymous,
The man who pulled the trigger “owns the blood,” to claim otherwise is just plain ignorant…
I disagree:
“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”
So what time will you be turning yourself in to the police for your part in “inciting” the war protester’s act of murder, or do your accusations only apply to people on the other side of the political aisle?
::listens to the crickets chirping::
That’s what I thought…enough said…
Rebecca -
What you’re smelling isn’t fear from “conservative posters,” it’s your own rank hypocrisy. (Might I suggest a stronger deodorant?) When faced with a murder by an anti-war protester, there is complete silence from your side of the aisle about your personal responsibility.
I’ve already said how I feel about it, but you can’t have it both ways. The phrase you’re looking for is “cognitive dissonance,” and it’s the cause of that splitting headache you’re experiencing right about now.
As far as Kerochee calling you a twit, it’s not a word I would have chosen, but if the shoe fits…
Rebecca, I dare say, it’s not fear you smell. Squirming? Heh. Not even close. Bested? By what or who? I would be amused by your arguments if not for the tragedy behind it.
If we follow your logic, Mark David Chapman, who assassinated John Lennon was obsessed with the very liberal and controversial “Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger, does this mean Salinger is responsible for Chapman’s actions? Other books in his apartment; The Skyjacker by David Hubbard, Welcome to Xanadu by Nathaniel Benchley, The Fox is Crazy Too by Eliot Asinof, Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, The Fan by Bob Randall and Taxi Driver. Do you believe all those authors should have been banned or at the very least persecuted?
What about all the people who read the Bible and Koran and kill people? Are the authors of those books responsible? Can we be affected by what we read? Sure but most people don’t shoot someone because they read a certain book or disagree with someone’s beliefs. Should we ban all controversial language and ideas? And who gets to decide what voices to silence?
I only called you a twit when you compared me to a murderer. I was being polite. That wasn’t the word I was thinking. And I’m a woman. I don’t fit your mold at all, do I?
You weren’t content to compare me with a murderer by voting record, you then compare my argument with his shotgun blast. Have much hate in your heart, dear? Can’t have an argument without resorting to horrible accusations? All this hate and vitriol from you because I think we should hold the man who pulled the trigger responsible and not focus on his reading list. Amazing. I’m astounded by your logic. Bested by you? ROFLMAO
I still stand by what I said—and I am not about to back off on it. Unlike the so-called “liberals,” you conservatives have a mass media empire that reaches into every little nook and cranny in the country. These liberal enemies of yours cannot even come close to matching it. Its like putting Mohammed Ali in the boxing ring against a 6-month old infant. The primary purpose of that media empire is to demonize people you perceive as your enemies, to hold them out before the nation as incrediblly dangerous miscreants who are a threat to the future of America, to pound the public day and night with the message that these people are vermin who really have no right to breathe the same air that you do. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. These people are a threat to your freedom. These people are a threat to your children. These people are a threat to your God. These people are a threat to common decency. These people are a threat to everything that you hold dear. It goes on incessantly—day and night—seemingly forever and ever. It has gone on for 25+ years now—getting worse with every passing year. I would submit this, and I would bet my last dollar on it. Pick any year in U.S. history prior to 1980, make it the present in time, and every man and woman in that church yesterday would be walking around alive and well. Hatred and invective from the right wing in America killed and wounded those people yesterday just as surely as any lead slug.
And if you do not think words matter. If you think that you can just keep on demonizing your enemies and that the message and methods have no consequences. If you really think that sticks and stones may break peoples bones but words will never hurt them—let me introduce you to a little-known man who made a cottage industry out of doing just that—read the biography—read it carefully—read it slowly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Streicher
Wow. Just wow. Yes indeed, CNN and MSNBC are simply bastions of conservative viewpoint and extreme right-wing propaganda.
Put down the koolaid, dude and back away slowly from the keyboard. You have fulfilled Godwin’s Law now, your “work” here is done.
Aulder Guy -
Since you completely dodged the question about the anti-war protester and plowed right ahead with your ranting about how much you hate conservatives, we can safely assume that your “principle” is nothing of the sort: it’s just pure hatred of those who disagree with you.
We have now come full circle in this discussion back to my original comment: you took a tragedy and rather than show any human decency, you played politics with it for no reason other than that you can’t control the hatred simmering inside you for those who have beliefs different than yours.
The fact that you cited a Nazi in your post is so drippingly rich with irony that I can’t help but laugh at your historical ignorance. Did it escape you that “Nazi” is short for “national SOCIALIST party”? The Nazi regime is the pen-ultimate example of what can happen when government controls everything and you have nothing but hatred for those who believe differently than you do: the natural end result of the liberal policies you advocate so vociferously and your own attitude toward conservatives. But hey, I hear their national health care plan was something else, right?
Conservatism is all about the power of the individual and the freedom to live your life free from government interference: the exact opposite of what Nazism (and liberalism) was all about.
And since we’re sharing Wikipedia entries, let me leave you with the ultimate example of Liberal hatred propaganda leading the gullible and hate-filled masses to murdering literally millions of people around the globe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx
You want to go back to 1980, I’ll give you another 60-odd years on top of that and still spot you 70 million people…
(This is the problem when you either don’t know your history or are looking at it with your ideological blinders on: you end up making huge blunders that make exactly the opposite point you were trying to make.)
yep, Jim is scared.
IstockAnalyst.com has picked up the WBIR story via UPI linking the Knoxville shooter to Savage, Hannity, and O’Reilly.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of haters. Hope the shares of the media companies of the right wing noise machine plummet.
eric -
Like Aulder Guy, you completely dodged the question about the anti-war protester. You also were too much of a coward to answer for Bill Ayers, ALF, and the ELF. So you’re no different than he is: just an empty shell of a person so consumed by your own hatred that you’ve lost the ability to understand the bounds of human decency in the face of tragedy.
It’s sad, but at least you’ve made it clear to everyone that hatred is only real “principle” you have…
Yep. I think old Jimbo is coming unglued as the dissolving waters of reality swish across him.
Of course, communists in general, Karl Marx, Stalin, and other such idiots on the other end of the political spectrum have done terrible things as well. I would also hold that those who openly supported such idiots as these in their violent tendencies are just as culpable of incitement to violence as those on the right. However, I refuse to buy into the ridiculous notion that someone who contributes a small portion of the tax till to someone in need is a communist and a murderer and that they automatically support these historical nuts. If that were the case, you would have to put the Jewish preisthood in the Old Testament in jail. However, I do find—almost without exception in my own experience—that those on the right wing in this country who oppose giving a piece of tax-bought bread to a starving stranger DO BUY hook, line, and sinker into the extreme ideology of the right wing in this country. I don’t buy into the extreme ideology of the far left in this country, and I would say that most of the people who visit here do not. The problem I have is that a thing we once called “being generous, neighborly, and Christian” here Tennessee 50 years ago is now defined by people like Jim as “communism.” What kind of a warped mind does it take to jump over the abyss of sensibility to arrive at a conclusion like that.
I am sticking with my original point about the extremism and murderous undercurrent of the radical right in this country as “ACTED OUT” this past Sunday.
When I enter my voting booth this fall, I am going to remember the people of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church by pulling my lever for a candidate who will oppose these right wing idiots. I intend to vote for Barack Obama. However, as most of you know here, John McCain is a man of good sensibility and honor who also opposes the religious right and the extreme right wing in this country—although he is having to hide it a bit. He too would be a good choice to kick these buttholes back into the lunatic asylum where they belong. Ron Paul would probably be a good choice too. I guess this is just my way of saying that you do not have to be a Democrat or an independent to oppose the likes of James Dobson, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, and the radical radio-talk DJs in this country.
yep, Jimbo doesn’t have an answer for the right wing, “mainstream” media empire that calls on listeners to kill liberals. He wants to try to distract you by pointing out fringe bloggers on the left, as if there were any comparison.
try again, Jimmy. you’re scared to death that Fox and others might be held to account for their violent, advertiser supported rhetoric.
So, Aulder Guy:
Who exactly gets to speak? And what are they permitted to say?
no one is infringing speech.
However, folks have to realize that violent rhetoric like Rush Limbaugh or Lee Rogers does have consequences. Can you yell “fire” in a crowded theater? Can you yell “bomb” on an airplane? Communities over centuries have adopted standards of acceptable behavior.
Telling people “Don’t kill all the liberals, leave enough…” (R. Limbaugh) is not acceptable. And whether a commentator advocates killing the liberals, or the Jews, or the blacks, or the Christians, or the Scot Irish, or the gays, or the evangelicals, it is wrong and unacceptable.
And if anyone thinks it is, and wants to hide behind the first amendment and not call foul, then they are no patriot and may indeed be an enemy of the state.
Sobi. You are right. In my passion and hurt, I briefly forgot that we have a right to say any loving or hateful thing that we want to under the First Amendment. Thank you for reminding me.
I think my point is really this, and it bears some thought by all who visit here. The First Amendment DOES guarantee our right of free speech—even hateful or harmful speech to a large extent, barring the famous “fire in the theater” example.
However, there is one thing that the First Amendment does not guarantee to any MAN OR WOMAN. IT DOES NOT GUARANTEE AN AUDIENCE TO WHATEVER SOMEONE HAS TO SAY. Think about that.
I find it odd that there wasn’t outrage when the shooter’s motives were assumed (by people who used to be ignorant of who the Unitarian Universalists are) to be anti-Christian.
Of course, that simpleminded story was just assumed because who would shoot up a church on Sunday aside from some anti-Christian extremist?
The local press dropped the ball on that one, and we who knew just what the Unitarian Universalist church was knew that they dropped the ball.
But, again, for a while after the shooting until sometime early Monday when some of the contents of the letter were released, the comfortable story of the evil man who hates mom, apple pie, and Chrisitians was very satisfying to most of the public.
Sad.
Chris. I think you dropped the ball, and ignorant people everywhere will assume whatever they wish.
I think most educated people know that the Unitarians are not traditional, orthodox Christians. As a relative of mine who attends a Unitarian church once told me (and this is an exact quote): “We have the most wonderful church!!! We don’t believe in anything!!!!” The truth of they matter (or closer to it)is that they are a strange amalgam of spiritual searchers, secular humanists, people brought up in some more conventional church who did not like that church and needed something different, an occasional Buddhist, and maybe some believers in Christ who have a truly universalist bent. With regard to the last item, I recall an excahnge one night between Larry King and Billy Graham:
Larry: Do you think just some people will be saved or everyone?
Billy: Well, the Bible indicates that only some people will be saved. However, it also says that God is full of mercy. That being the case, he might decide to save everyone in the end. I would certainly like to think so.
So, I don’t think you can totally riule out the possibility that there were some Christians in there last Sunday. Nonetheless, I think Jim Adkisson knew who he was shooting up. He knew that they were not orthodox Christians. Most people know that Unitarians are pretty liberal folks—some would say “open-minded” might be a better characterization.