Posted on 07/27/2008 8:43:01 AM PDT by 2nd amendment mama
11:29 am
Steve Drevik says the suspect isn't believed to have any connection to the church.
11:19 am
Steve Drevik, a member of the TVUU Church spoke to media outside the church building, where media are assembled.
He says the suspect is now in custody.
Drevik says the shooting happened during a regular service, as children of the church were performing music from Annie for parishioners.
A man with long blond hair, who appeared to be in his 40s, walked into the sanctuary and opened fiire with a shotgun, shooting indiscriminately.
At least six or seven people were hit by the gunfire. They have been transported to UT Medical Center. Two are believed to be in serious condition.
No children are believed to have been hit by the gunfire.
Some of the children were taken next door to Second Presbyterian Church for shelter.
Numerous KPD officers are on the scene.
11:00 am
Multiple people have suffered gunshot wounds in what witnesses describe as a mass shooting inside a church in West Knoxville Sunday morning.
The shootings happened at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church on Kingston Pike.
A witness who spoke to 10 News said police had arrived and one person was being detained at the scene.
A children's production of "Annie" was taking place as part of the normal Sunday service at the time of the shooting, the witness, who is a member of the church, said. The gunman walked into a packed sanctuary and opened fire.
The number of people shot and the extent of their injuries has not been confirmed, but the witness said he saw at least five people shot.
Church members heard a loud boom during the church service, which began around 10:15 a.m., the witness said. Several other loud booms followed, and the witness said the gunman seemed to be shooting randomly across a row of people. Two congregants tackled the gunman, he said.
Many people fled to the Second Presbyterian Church after the shooting, and that church was placed on lockdown, according to a 10 News crew at the scene. People have since been allowed to return to the Unitarian church building, where police are questioning witnesses.
Stay with WBIR for the very latest on this rapidly developing story.
The gunman's motive is not yet known. The church, like many other Unitarian Universalist churches, promotes progressive social work, such as desegregation and fighting for the rights of women and gays. The Knoxville congregation has provided sanctuary for political refugees, fed the homeless and founded a chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, according to its Web site.
what an awful, awful thing to say. Ridiculous.
Not in Knoxville!
As a UU church, it probably is a "gun-free" church -- even if the local community would be tolerant of guns.
Really? What was so aweful and ridiculous about it?
2004. San Francisco. Two Christian Missionaries, a young hetro Christian couple about to be married - shot on the beach in their sleep for their Christian beliefs by Left Wing Terrorists. Repeat loudly and often.
Those were where the first shots of the next civil war were fired, and Waco, and Ruby Ridge, etc. Liberal fascists have a long history of targeting those who aren’t “one of them”.
Awful maybe, but definitely true.
“New”..? Founded in 1774.
OK, so Joseph Goebbels shields Adolph Hitler from an assassin's bullet, does that mean he's going to heaven?
I was good friends with some Unitarians when I was a teenager. There are fine people everywhere. I think that for most people, what you could call "ideology" is only about 15-20% of their personality.
Where did I get that number? Out of thin air.
Nevertheless, people are people first and always: they are never just walking ideologies.
Just shielding someone from attack doesn’t gain you entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven.
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One has to ask....how the hell do you know?
Wow! I had not heard about that - shows you how our media keeps this sort of stuff out of the public’s eye. EVERYONE heard about Harvey Milk. Do you have a link?
The Mainstream Media is spinning this story as a “hate crime” against this church because of their liberal, pro-homosexual beliefs.....
How are they “spinning” as such? In this case it is. He chose that church as his target because of their beliefs.
Like I said, I’m not qualified to judge that. But God is. I leave what is God’s to God.
Agree. But do the Unitarians typically support the RKBA, the Death Penalty, and the right to self-defense?
Generally, my perception is that they're more often the fuzzy leftist sort, and prone to be against such things.
That might be just a Left Coast anomally, as I've no familiarity with the UU's at any "official" level, but that's my perception.
I guess I tend to believe that when Jesus says “only through me”, His mercy and benevolence extends that to those who act as Jesus would, regardless of their particular protestation of faith.
In my view, a Unitarian whose last act is to shield a child from a bullet is a likelier candidate for heaven than a devout protestant who lives ignobly, yet is a true believer on his comfortable deathbed.
not comparable. We’re talking about shielding children here.
And the God I believe in doesn’t save selfish Christians with deathbed confessions, while damning Mahatma Gandhi simply for being a Hindu.
Those who fear God and act morally are deserving of God’s love. Those who trust in the artifice of Man and in earthly possessions are not.
No one is "deserving of God's love". We are all deserving of his judgment.
Yet doesn’t God continue to love us, no matter how we sin? It is the sin that pains Him because it separates us from Him. He is always waiting for the Prodigal to repent and come home - and the Prodigal didn’t have to pass a test or trial or anything else to prove himself.
God always love us. It is our sin that separates us from Him - not His will or rejection.
1 John 4:19 - "We love him, because he first loved us." (KJV)
God is actively working in the prodigal to bring him home, not just waiting for him to return. It is the work of the Holy Spirit that causes us to desire Him, even before we come to Him in faith. Without the work of the Holy Spirit our desire is to ourselves and our own methods of justification. Once the Holy Spirit convinces us of our need for Him then we can come to Him freely through the blood of Christ.
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