Christian Hate Crimes: Honoring the Fallen

A memorial service was held today in Colorado for two young missionaries who were killed this past Sunday. A young man opened fire inside a Youth With a Mission (YWAM) training center dormitory in Arvada, Colorado killing two.

When I was in Asia I was privileged to meet some of the young people affiliated with this organization. They are an inspiration. With a deep love for God, and an equally deep desire to share that love with the world, they demonstrated a great commitment to share the Gospel (Good News) about Jesus.

The Denver Post carried an article on the two "YWAMers" who lost their lives early Sunday morning during a shooting in Arvada. I am reprinting it here so that more people will have the opportunity to read about who these young people were, to see what they believed in and what they gave their lives for.
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Young missionaries: caring and forgiving. One victim had turned away from gangs; one was called "an angel". Philip Crouse first came to church an angry young man — a member of a skinhead gang. He left it with peace in his heart, say those who knew him. "He had a heart of an evangelist," said Tim Maus, the senior pastor at Peters Creek Christian Church in Alaska. Maus said Crouse would have held no bitterness toward his assailant, the man who opened fire in a training-center dormitory for young Christian missionaries early Sunday. "He had found the power of a giving life," Maus said.

The bullets killed Crouse, 24, and Tiffany Johnson, 26, who grew up in Chisholm, Minnesota. They had been studying with Youth With a Mission. "Tiffany was an angel," said Andrew Strobridge, who also was studying at the Arvada dormitory to become a missionary. "Always smiling, always caring." He recalled how she cared for him when he was sick, helping nurse him to health. Johnson had traveled to the Middle East and Africa as part of YWaM, said Cheryl Morrison, wife of George Morrison, a pastor at Faith Bible Church, on whose property the YWAM dormitory was housed.

After Johnson finished her training with Youth With a Mission, she became a staffer there, organizing housing and guest stays. "She was an amazing young girl who had a heart for what God called her to do," Morrison said. Crouse came to church about six years ago, recalled Maus. The product of a broken family, Crouse had become an angry skinhead, the pastor said. He was under the care of a psychiatrist, who prescribed drugs to battle depression and other ailments. After turning his life over to Christ, Crouse no longer needed the psychiatric care and drugs, the pastor said.

Zach Chandler, the youth pastor of the church, said Crouse was on his way to becoming a missionary in Kazakhstan. "He said he was willing to give his life to do the work over there," Chandler said. "If that meant staying over there for the rest of his life, he would. If that meant dying over there, he would." Crouse taught himself Russian and German and would visit Russian cafes and German clubs in Anchorage to give his testimony, Chandler said. He also took rides on buses, just so he could share the Gospel with other riders, Chandler said.

Chandler said that if Crouse had been a survivor, he would have been the one leading prayers for the killer. "If Phil had ever seen this guy, I'm sure he ministered to him at some point," Chandler said. "If Phil was one of the surviving ones, he would have visited this guy in jail. That's the kind of guy Phil was."
(Staff writer Alison Sherry contributed to this report by Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com)

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The gunman, 24-year-old Matthew Muray, left Avarado and headed to New Life Church in Colorado Springs (which housed a YWAM office) where he opened fire in the parking lot, fatally shooting two church goers and wounding four others. When he tried to enter the crowded church, he was gunned down by a security guard.

Officials said revenge was one apparent motive for the attacks. Police said Murray had sent hate mail to the Youth With a Mission center in Arvada Denver suburb in the last few weeks after being removed from the program years ago. Murray attended the YWAM school in Arvada briefly in 2002 according to the group, but didn't complete the 12-week DTS training because of health issues.

It appears that Murray posted an anti-Christian diatribe on a web site for people who have left evangelical religious groups. His most recent post was Sunday morning in the hours between his attacks in Arvada and Colorado Springs.

"You Christians brought this on yourselves," he wrote. "All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you ... as I can especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world."

Hate Crimes are not random acts of violence. They are intended not only to inflict harm on the immediate victims, but intimidate an entire group of people; in this case, Christians. I can't help wondering, "What if Matthew had lived in my hometown?" What if he had lived in your hometown?

Around the world Christians are persecuted: beaten, imprisoned, killed; for no other reason than because of their belief that Jesus is God's Son and the world's Savior. The Voice of the Martyrs reports that more Christians have died for their faith in the past 100 years than the previous 1900 years combined!

These two young people are heroes in my book. Jesus, after his resurrection from the dead, told his disciples that they "would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth"--to their own neighbors, their region, across racial and cultural lines, reaching to peoples all around the world. The New Testament was written mostly in the Greek language. It is interesting that the word "witness" is the same word for "martyr". Jesus knew that his followers would be willing to give their lives for the Gospel, and that their sacrifice would be a powerful witness to the truth of their claims.

Phil and Tiffany were killed because they were Christ-followers. Matthew wanted to kill Christians, and sadly he did. We grieve with the families of all who were involved in the tragic events in Colorado this past Sunday. We take comfort in the knowledge that the story of their lives, and even their deaths, may point others to the power of God's love to change lives. Well done, good and faithful servants.