The Daily Mail, one of the largest and most popular digital media outlets today, claimed in an earlier headline that the Austin bomber was a “devout Christian” but failed to offer any evidence to support the claim. Even in their own article, there was no explanation as to how they arrived at their conclusion.
In a later version of the story, they highlighted the fact that he was homeschooled, despite the fact that he was 23-years-old and out of school for nearly half a decade:
It’s difficult to discern why, exactly, the Daily Mail deemed it necessary to place “homeschooled” in the bright lights of the headline, given at this point it seems utterly irrelevant to the crimes being reported.
Some outlets have cited 6-year-old blog posts in an apparent attempt to connect the dots, given the topics were on gay marriage and abortion. However, the posts from 2012 do not mention God, faith, Jesus or even church.
As MRC noted, this isn’t the first time the media has gone out of their way to “link a mass murderer to Christianity simply by assumption:
Last year, Newsweek labeled the Las Vegas shooter a “Christian by birth, if not belief” simply because the killer was a middle-aged white male.
The deaths in Texas are all tragic and a motive is not yet known, and may never be known. What is clear, however, is whether or not this young man ever called himself a Christian – his actions certainly are reprehensible and are the exact opposite of what God teaches us in the Bible.
Continued prayers for the victims’ families, and hopefully the Daily Mail will reconsider their headline and modify it to something more appropriate and relevant to the facts at hand.