Witness to Oregon Shooter Says Victims’ Religious Beliefs Were Irrelevant

In a New York Times account of what happened at Umpqua Community College last week, we may have the most definitive evidence yet that it was not, as many have claimed, an anti-Christian rampage by the shooter.

At one point, Mr. Harper-Mercer began asking students about their religion, though their responses did not seem to determine whether he shot them, [Tracy] Heu said. She recalled that he had asked two people if they were Christians; she thought that they said “yes” and that he killed them.

“He started pointing out, ‘Hey, you with the glasses, you with the yellow tank top, stand up,’” Ms. Heu said. “And when he did all that, he started asking, ‘What is your religion, do you believe in — are you a Christian?’”

“And that person would say, ‘Yeah,’” she continued. “He said: ‘Good. I’m going to send you to God. You’re going to see God.’ And then he’d just start shooting them.”

“I don’t think Christianity or religion had to do anything with him killing people,” Ms. Heu added. “If it really did have something to do with it, when he came in, first he would have asked every single body to say what their religion was before he started shooting them.”

That confirms what we’ve been saying for a week now. While Christians died in the tragedy, so did non-Christians. This tragedy affects all of us, not just Christians who think they’re uniquely persecuted. I’m not point this out as if it’s some sort of game. I just hate seeing revisionist history based on a select reading of the facts.

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