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Atlanta Spa Shooter Repudiated by his SBC Church


Howl

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The man who murdered  8 people in Atlanta yesterday is the son of a youth pastor.  Chrissy Stroop's take on how fundamentalist Christian racism, misogyny and purity culture can lead to horrible results like this. 

 

For those of you who are not Tweeps, unroll of C. Stroop's twitter thread HERE

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 In short, this case has specifically evangelical toxic masculinity and purity culture written all over it.   The attitudes described above are pervasive in evangelical subculture, and misogynistic violence like the murders that took place yesterday is a logical result.

Also,  that guy's  neck beard and sidewalls scream Christian neo fascist. 

Edited by hoipolloi
Correction & adding info
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And Rachel Denhollander weighs in: 

For those who are not on Twitter, read an unroll of Rachel's thread HERE

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Where’s that thread about Doug Wilson’s awful sex robot book? The first thing I thought of when I heard the shooter was trying to “eliminate temptation” was that horrid book and the “hero” throwing the sex robot in the dumpster. 
 

I guess it works for real women, too. 

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  • Coconut Flan changed the title to Atlanta Spa Shooter Is Son of Youth Pastor

I don't get it. How is being a murderer an improvement over being tempted?

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Sounds like the Green River Killer, who was both a frequent customer of sex workers and believed that he was justified in murdering them because he felt they were immoral. 

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From Religious Dispatches: DON’T DISCOUNT EVANGELICALISM AS A FACTOR IN RACIST MURDER OF ASIAN SPA WORKERS IN GEORGIA

More from Chrissy Stroop on how men and young men in fundamentalist purity culture  may come to believe they have sexual addictions when they really just have a normal sex drive, summarizes research on this issue, and much more. There's also a photo of a happy fresh-faced kid in 2018 who in 2021 would shoot 8 people in cold blood. The contrast of this photo with his mug shot is shocking. Stunning, really.  I'm more convinced that he's a neo-Nazi or neo-fascist. 

I just came across an article that with this nonsensical  title:  

Suspected White Supremacist Robert Aaron Long’s Deadly Shooting Spree Motivated By Sex, Not Race, Officials Suggest 

Hint: It's a hate crime. 

 

 

Edited by Howl
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1 hour ago, NachosFlandersStyle said:

Sounds like the Green River Killer, who was both a frequent customer of sex workers and believed that he was justified in murdering them because he felt they were immoral. 

And Robert Hansen the Alaskan murderer. If he went on a date with a woman, he didn’t kill her. He never thought about killing his wife. If he picked up a prostitute and she asked to be paid, he didn’t feel bad about killing them because he thought he was better than them. 

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Biblically, if you’re tempted, you should remove your eyes to avoid sin, not murder people. Just putting that out there. 

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Dang, a lot of people are on top of this and also why I put this in the Fundy Snark forum rather than True Crime. 

Kristin Rawls deep dives on the far right: 

Also Rawls: 

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I think it's important to understand the links between this type of ideology and racist hate crimes, including this one. I believe there are strong links between the fascist Right in the US and the Christian Right, and that Reconstructionism is [a] major way that happens.

 

Edited by Howl
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3 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

I don't get it. How is being a murderer an improvement over being tempted?

When all sins are regarded as equal what's the difference? 

Obviously I'm speaking from their narrow theological perspective there, because from any other perspective the difference is immense.

Edited by Ozlsn
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A bit more and I'll leave it for the time being:  

So...a lot of folks who are ex-evangelical are pointing out that media not understanding what's going on with the dynamics and nomenclature of fundamentalist teachings on purity culture, "sex addiction" and sin are getting it completely wrong.  

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This thread is important context if you're unfamiliar with Evangelical purity cultural violence as it impacts boys.

and 

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But I haven't seen a single commentator yet discuss how Asian women are framed as conversion targets to be redeemed, often by framing them as sex workers.

Full text of this twitter thread by Lev Mirov unrolled HERE

 

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Accurate tweet today about the Atlanta shooter:  

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He's the wrong religion to be a terrorist and the wrong colour to be a criminal.

 

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You know. As one does. Who among us has not struggled with an addiction to chocolate and not wanted to open fire on every chocolate shop in town? What alcoholic has not decided to fix his addiction by shooting up liquor stores? Oh, right. None.

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Robert Aaron Long, 21, of Woodstock, Georgia, stands accused of a string of Asian massage parlor shootings that left eight people dead. Long, a devout Southern Baptist who frequented massage parlors, felt guilty over his “sin” and decided to atone for his sins by murdering eight people.

Long attended Crabapple First Baptist Church, a Fundamentalist Southern Baptist congregation in Alpharetta, Georgia. The church has made its website and social media accounts private. Last Sunday, First Baptist’s pastor, Jerry Dockery, had this to say in his sermon:

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We’ve had, what, 45 presidents in our brief history as a nation? How many other kings around the world? How many other rulers have sat upon thrones, claiming to be in charge? The King is coming again.

When Christ returns, he will wage war against those who have rejected his name.

There is one word devoted to their demise. Swept away! Banished! Judged. They have no power before God. Satan himself is bound and released and then bound again and banished. That great dragon deceiver — just that quickly — God throws him into an eternal torment. And then we read where everyone — everyone that rejects Christ — will join Satan, the Beast and the false prophet in hell.

 

This sermon has since been deleted. I wonder why?

https://brucegerencser.net/2021/03/why-evangelical-christian-robert-aaron-long-murdered-eight-people-in-georgia/

I'm not going to rehash what's been over the news (at least in the US) and so much speculation,such as him being a white supremacist, has not been verified, but I really want to learn more about how Long's evangelical faith contributed to his, as the county sheriff put it, having a really bad day. The church he was involved in has made its website private and removed all its social media accounts, which is a shame because I'd love to see transcripts of the pastor's sermons, particularly over the last several months.

At least we have Sheriff's office spokesman Jay Baker, no slouch in the racism department himself,  to assure us that this was not a hate crime. I guess in his mind if you work in a massage parlor you kind of have it coming. 

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"He was pretty much fed up and kind of at the end of his rope, and yesterday was a really bad day for him, and this is what he did," Baker said of 21-year-old suspect Robert Aaron Long.

https://www.newsweek.com/captain-jay-baker-faces-calls-fired-atlanta-suspect-remark-1577025

ETA another link that's also not behind a paywall: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/17/jay-baker-bad-day-t-shirt-atlanta-spa-shooting

Edited by Black Aliss
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16 hours ago, NonSOTDRT Teacher said:

This happened in my hometown. I’m shaken. 

I live about 6 miles away from his member church. I feel you. This rocked me.

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The church he went to is trying to disappear off the internetz now. 

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The Southern Baptist church attended by the alleged Atlanta mass shooter has responded to the tragedy by attempting to disappear from the internet.  

After news broke Tuesday that Robert Aaron Long, 21, stood accused of killing eight people, including six Asian women, at massage parlors in the Atlanta area, the Crabapple First Baptist Church’s online presence went dark. Its website went private, and its Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts were shuttered. 

 

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  • hoipolloi changed the title to Atlanta Spa Shooter Is Son of Youth Pastor

OT - my apologies to all.

I intended to merge a new topic with this older one but completely screwed up in the process. Sigh. 

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4 hours ago, Black Aliss said:

You know. As one does. Who among us has not struggled with an addiction to chocolate and not wanted to open fire on every chocolate shop in town? What alcoholic has not decided to fix his addiction by shooting up liquor stores? Oh, right. None.

https://brucegerencser.net/2021/03/why-evangelical-christian-robert-aaron-long-murdered-eight-people-in-georgia/

I'm not going to rehash what's been over the news (at least in the US) and so much speculation,such as him being a white supremacist, has not been verified, but I really want to learn more about how Long's evangelical faith contributed to his, as the county sheriff put it, having a really bad day. The church he was involved in has made its website private and removed all its social media accounts, which is a shame because I'd love to see transcripts of the pastor's sermons, particularly over the last several months.

At least we have Sheriff's office spokesman Jay Baker, no slouch in the racism department himself,  to assure us that this was not a hate crime. I guess in his mind if you work in a massage parlor you kind of have it coming. 

https://www.newsweek.com/captain-jay-baker-faces-calls-fired-atlanta-suspect-remark-1577025

ETA another link that's also not behind a paywall: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/17/jay-baker-bad-day-t-shirt-atlanta-spa-shooting

I am So Damn Sick of the "at the end of their rope" and "having a bad day" bullshit. Billions of people manage to get through without committing murder, let alone mass murder. It is only ever used for white men - a mother who murders her children was never "having a bad day". The Orlando nightclub shooter wasn't "having a bad day" despite being quite probably as religiously influenced as this one. 

And even if he was having a bad day that does not give him the bloody right to take it out on anyone else!!

Breathe.

Ok, I initially came here to link to "To be an Asian woman in America", an opinion piece by Jennifer Ho.

Spoiler

To be an Asian woman in America means you can't just be what you are: a fully enfranchised human being. It means you are a blank screen on which others project their stories, especially, too often, their sexualized fantasies -- because US culture has long presented Asian women as sexualized objects for White male enjoyment.

It's a good read.

And yes, I would be interested to know what the sermons were.

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5 hours ago, Black Aliss said:

and so much speculation,such as him being a white supremacist, has not been verified, but I really want to learn more about how Long's evangelical faith contributed to his,

At the beginning of the thread I posted links to articles and twitter threads by ex-Evangelicals who cover purity culture, misogyny and Asian women as a mission field.  Can't help if you mean specifically what he'd head in his home church, but for people who have been through the Evangelical wringer, it's not hard to know what teachings are typical and widespread.

No, it's not confirmed that he's a white Supremacist or Christian neo fascist/White nationalist or whatever you want to call it, but I can't think of anything else that would lead to this transformation in just a few years.  

Screenshot 2021-03-18 at 5.06.27 PM.png

Screenshot 2021-03-18 at 5.02.47 PM.png

Edited by Howl
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Mug shot.  The sidewalls, long hair on top and ratty beard just scream neo-Nazi to me. Something isn't right. 

Screenshot 2021-03-18 at 4.43.56 PM.png

Edited by Howl
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15 minutes ago, Howl said:

Mug shot.  The sidewalls, long hair on top and ratty beard just scream neo-Nazi to me. Something isn't right. 

Neckbeards also seem to be a hallmark of white (Christian) nationalists.

5 hours ago, Black Aliss said:

At least we have Sheriff's office spokesman Jay Baker, no slouch in the racism department himself,  to assure us that this was not a hate crime. I guess in his mind if you work in a massage parlor you kind of have it coming. 

In the "apology" (= sorry if you're offended) statement the Sheriff's Office put out today, they referred to Baker's "personal ties to the Asian community." You have to wonder just what those "ties" are. ?

Edited by hoipolloi
Updating to reflect both quotations
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36 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

In the "apology" (= sorry if you're offended) statement the Sheriff's Office put out today, they referred to Baker's "personal ties to the Asian community." You have to wonder just what those "ties" are. ?

He likes Chinese food and he frequents the Asian massage spas. In uniform. Demanding free services or he'll shut them down.

4 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

OT - my apologies to all.

I intended to merge a new topic with this older one but completely screwed up in the process. Sigh. 

Thanks for the merge. I searched a couple of times for a thread on this topic and came up blank, which is why I started the other one.

1 hour ago, Ozlsn said:

And yes, I would be interested to know what the sermons were.

While Crabtree Baptist parishoners were loudly grieving and proclaiming their shock at this turn of events a few people on the internet were downloading sermons before their website and facebook pages went dark. So far they are exactly what you'd expect. Bro Gary of DBD could have preached any one of them. Trump good. Covid not so bad. Premarital sex bad. Harlots bad. All Democrats very . Not being able to attend church in person very,  very bad. I have not seen confirmation that his father was the youth pastor but we know the shooter was very pious because he carried his bible in his hands between classes. Probably to keep the Jezebels in the hallways from tempting him.

So pretty much what you'd expect. And now people close to him think something happened to change him?!? GMAFB.

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15 minutes ago, Black Aliss said:

He likes Chinese food and he frequents the Asian massage spas. In uniform. Demanding free services or he'll shut them down.

EXACTLY what I thought when I read that.

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I was appalled at the police chief’s statement! The shooter “had a bad day”?!!! The shooter is a mass murderer! If he’d been any other skin tone the same police chief would be calling for the death penalty and calling him a domestic terrorist and call the murders hate crimes!!

Edited by Giraffe
Adding words & spelling
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  • hoipolloi changed the title to Atlanta Spa Shooter Repudiated by his SBC Church

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