What terrorists?

Here's an interesting response to the Eric Rudolph arrest, from the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Don't rush to conclusions

No sooner had Rudolph been nabbed Saturday in Murphy, N.C. than he was being identified in the media as a "Christian terrorist" -- a shocking buzz phrase that is all but meaningless, although at least it may be giving Christians an inkling of how Muslims feel when news accounts refer to "Islamic terrorists."

Rudolph allegedly has ties to the radical Christian Identity movement and its violent Army of God offshoot. We don't know if Christian Identity truly reflects Rudolph's beliefs or merely became a convenient vehicle for him. But the easy generalization is to paint all conservative fringe religious groups as violent -- even though the pastor of a church Rudolph attended as a youth insists his sect teaches non-violence.

Either this editorialist is naive beyond belief (a common trait of mid-level editorial writers, actually) or purposely disingenuous. The Identity pastor to whom he refers (Dan Gayman) of course will claim he teaches non-violence, even though his frequently apocalyptic pronouncements border on outright incitements. Moreover, the ideology he preaches incites racial hatred; from it, a teenager like Rudolph naturally fell in with other Identity believers -- the Hayden Lake sort, who actually dominate the movement -- because Gayman himself associates with them. (See the ADL's rundown on Gayman, obliquely overlooked by both the Enquirer editorialist and the Washington Post reporter from whom he obviously cribbed his notes; observe, e.g., that he duplicates the Post's factual error about the Army of God being an Identity offshoot.) Ultimately Rudolph's chief mentor was another Identity preacher, Nord Davis, who in fact does preach a doctrine of violence and "lone wolf" terrorism.

These facts are readily available. But just as it's easy to lump mainstream Christians in with extremists, it's also easy to dismiss the ramifications of the associations with oversimplified whining. The latter only evades the responsibility on the part of serious Christians (I consider myself one) to stand up and make the distinction between Identity and mainstream Christianity clear. And rather than take on this responsibility, the editorial runs the other direction:

Rudolph's arrest also revived some ugly regional stereotypes. The thinking goes that he couldn't have eluded capture for so long without plenty of aid and comfort from the community in rural western North Carolina -- which has yet to be proven -- and that people in that religiously conservative region tend to agree with the bomber's twisted thinking.

But the signs and bumper stickers in support of Rudolph were meant more to mock authorities' inability to catch him, not endorse the violence he is accused of, residents told the Associated Press.

Regardless of its intent, those signs in fact minimized the harm that Rudolph wreaked by rendering his victims nonentities. One of those victims was a policeman, remember. Moreover, the editorialist at this point is bending over backwards to exonerate Rudolph's supporters of anything untoward.

As Travis Gettys, who brought this to my attention, observes trenchantly, this editorial amounts to "an apology for those who allegedly gave support to Eric Rudolph. For an editorial staff who decry any legitimate criticism of 'the authorities' -- particularly police -- they seem to take a different attitude toward these authorities tracking down an accused cop killer. I guess, to them, it's different if the cop was killed while providing security at an abortion clinic."

[Thanks to Travis for the link.]