“The darkest hour in our city’s history”

Please read these names slowly: Bernice and Sylvan Simon, brothers Cecil and David Rosenthal, Rose Mallinger, Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Jerry Rabinowitz, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax, and Irving Younger.

Their lives were taken from them Saturday morning as they gathered to worship at a Pittsburgh synagogue. Some 2,500 people gathered yesterday at a memorial service for them, responding to what the mayor called “the darkest hour in our city’s history.” Robert Bowers, the man accused of killing them in a shooting rampage, is due in court today.

Three hate crimes in one week

This was the third hate crime in America last week.

Last Wednesday, Gregory Bush allegedly tried to enter a predominantly black church in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, just outside of Louisville. The doors were locked, so he went to a nearby Kroger store, where he allegedly killed two people, both African-American.

The first victim was Maurice Stallard, age sixty-nine, who was with his twelve-year-old grandson buying a poster board for a school project. The second was Vickie Jones, age sixty-seven, who was killed in the parking lot as Bush left. Bush has a history of mental illness and made racist threats in the past.

On Friday, a fifty-six-year-old Florida man named Cesar Sayoc was arrested after federal authorities said he mailed a total of fourteen packages containing pipe bombs. He was known for condemning Democratic Party leaders on social media.

The next day, eleven people were killed and six others injured (including four police officers) when a man shouting anti-Semitic slurs opened fire inside the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. According to a federal law enforcement official, the alleged gunman had frequently posted his hatred for Jews on social media.

What motivates such seemingly senseless violence? How should we respond biblically?

“The most terrifying thing”

A neighbor said of Robert Bowers, “The most terrifying thing is just how…