Jeff Sharlet: A few years ago, a colleague and I reported a story about an attack on a church in Henderson, North Carolina. In that case, the shooter used blanks; everyone got a fright, but no one was hurt. The members of this little church did absolutely nothing to merit such terror. But when we started spending time at the church, we began to see how a mentally disabled person could be easily… confused. This was a non-denominational pentecostal church with a persistent focus on apocalypse; indeed, the only artwork in the church were two identical paintings of a modern city being “raptured,” with great violence. Church members viewed their attacker as demonically possessed. I thought about that little church as I read about the Living Church of God in Brookfield, Wisconsin, where seven congregants were killed on Saturday by one of its own members, who then took his own life. The killer, described as an exceptionally gentle man, was no doubt in some kind of psychotic state. The church’s beliefs have nothing to do with this awful event. To suggest otherwise would be the ugliest of secular slurs on religious belief.

Or would it? The New York Times reports on the killing by cribbing a few statements of belief off of the Living Church of God’s website, with no explanation. Readers are left to infer that Living Church members believe that they are the true Israelites. And without any background knowledge, only the cleverest reader would guess that the “Apostolic” restoration referred to means that members believe God is restoring the offices of prophets and apostles. It would have been worth noting that many adherents of Apostolic restoration believe that one can train for one of these positions; and that full-blown prophets abound in every congregation, if they’ll just let themselves listen to and speak the voice of God they’re hearing in their heads.

The Chicago Tribune does the Times one better, half-heartedly consulting a few experts who assure the paper that the Living Church of God, while built around the belief that we live in an apocalyptic era in which every historical event has meaning, are really just “low key,” “mainstream” people. That assessment is probably correct — but it’s worth wondering what the consequences are likely to be when the “mainstream” is a river of apocalyptic fear charted by men and women who believe themselves to be prophets and apostles, listening to a voice of God that can supersede scripture.

The Los Angeles Times foregrounds the church’s apocalyptic theology in its lede, but also notes, up front, that the church preaches nonviolence. Not in the normal churchy way, but in the full, conscientious objector sense. But the Living Church of God, reports the LA Times, may be a long way from its home theology. It’s the result of a schism that followed a schism, each in response to the denomination moving closer to that mythical “mainstream” of evangelical Christianity. The Living Church is either adhering to the original vision, or spinning off into righteous heresy (heresy, that is, within the terms of the church’s beliefs).

Of course, the ideas of the man to whom the Living Church of God claims to maintain special loyalty are themselves heretical by traditional “mainstream” standards. Here’s an excerpt:

And now we are fast approaching the final grand smash explosion that is going to stagger the mind of man beyond the bounds of sanity. Forces are at work today on plans, programs, conspiracies, movements that soon will erupt into a world explosion of violence and chaos such as never happened before, and never will again. Men today are tampering with forces of nature they lack the prudence, knowledge, ability and wisdom to control. 

Such is now the mainstream for much of American Christendom. Likewise the Living Church of God’s emphasis on the reality of Satan, as suggested in these booklets offered by its website. The Living Church of God sees the world as filled with actual demons and demon-filled people. Is it then so strange to imagine that a member might come to believe that he himself is demon-filled — or, perhaps, a prophet who hears the voice of God others ignore?

We’ve yet to see any media ask the survivors who’re talking the obvious question: Was the killer, Terry Ratzmann, possessed by demons? The answer will reveal a great deal, for those who believe and those who do not.

At the church in Henderson, North Carolina, mentioned above, congregants knew just what to do about their attacker. The shooter was in jail, but that was of almost no concern to him. What the shooter needed, they knew, was an exorcism. And so they performed one, long distance, augmented by multiple gifts of the spirit. When it was over, they felt much better. Safe, even — they knew they’d cast the demons out and done a great service for that “poor person who brought a firearm into the house of the Lord.”

My colleague and I called the jail the next day. The shooter — a hermaphrodite who gave many names — continued to believe she was on a mission from God.