Hatred and stupidity is a damnably dangerous combination. It’s not that either one of them on its own lacks for potential damage or disaster but putting them together takes the risk factor right off the charts. We had another fine example this weekend over at Kansas City in the Overland Park area.

All of the alleged facts in the following allegations are allegedly based on published sources. The opinion parts are my own insertions.

A seventy-three-year-old former head of a Ku Klux Klan unit, after many decades of hating people for one superfluous reason or another, apparently decided it was time for more than speeches and cross-burnings. So, he grabs the guns which should have been pried from his cold dead fingers long ago and heads over to the Jewish Community Center and shoots a grandfather and his grandson. If you’re in the parking lot at a Jewish Community Center, you must be Jewish, right? Surely you wouldn’t just be a couple of Gentiles showing up for a Scout meeting.

That being just a start and it being such a lovely day and all, he then headed over to Village Shalom senior living center and shot a female victim there. What better way than to celebrate Palm Sunday than by going out and shooting a few Jews, right? I mean, just because Jesus taught us to love our enemies and do good for those who abuse us, we can’t let that get in the way of a little religious fervor, right? Never mind that these people weren’t enemies in the first place and had never abused the shooter or anyone else that we know of, demented religiosity can’t be bothered by trivia like that.

As it turns out, and this is where stupidity strips off its raincoat and runs around the stadium completely naked, none of the victims were Jewish. That’s right, folks, our shining white supremacist shot three Christians. Never mind that Christians have a long and proud tradition of killing each other, that’s beside the point here; this guy was supposed to be killing Jews.

When hatred and stupidity infiltrate a religion, or more accurately, use religion to infiltrate our minds and hearts, we turn into monsters. Regardless of who or what we hate. It is no wonder that Scripture warns us to take caution in judging others and to be especially careful about feeling superior to others. Even others as stupid and hateful as Frazier Glenn Cross or F. Glenn Miller or whatever his name is…

H. Arnett
4/15/14