On First Sunday After Shooting Attacks, Two Different Atlanta Faith Communities React
Korean faith leaders from Metro Atlanta organized a vigil outside Gold Spa, one of the businesses targeted by a gunman last Tuesday.
Emil Moffatt/WABE
Vigils were held over the weekend to commemorate the eight people — including six women of Asian descent — who were killed in a series of shootings in the Atlanta area last Tuesday, allegedly carried out by a white gunman.
The victims were also remembered at a service held in the suspected gunman’s own church.
Members of Crabapple First Baptist Church sat socially distanced Sunday in a spacious sanctuary in Milton, Ga., wearing masks and singing. The largely-white congregation prayed for the families of both victims and the suspect in last week’s shooting.
As they prayed, one of their own members was sitting in jail, facing eight counts of murder in connection with the shootings.
Associate Pastor Luke Folsom acknowledged it was hard to fathom that the suspect came from their midst.
“We don’t have answers, we don’t know why this happened,” Folsom told the congregation. “Lord, we feel alone and broken, but God, we know that you are there.”
The accused gunman, who is 21 years old, told police that he was addicted to sex and carried out the shootings to, in his words, eliminate temptation.
In a statement last week, the church rejected that justification. It said the suspect’s actions are “antithetical to everything that we believe and teach as a church” and that “he alone is responsible for his evil actions and desires.”
After the sermon, members voted to kick the suspect out of the church, saying that they can “no longer affirm that he is truly a regenerate believer in Jesus Christ.”
‘An Awakening Moment’
About thirty miles away, several Asian-American church congregations gathered for a vigil outside of Gold Spa in Atlanta, one of the three businesses the gunman targeted. In front of the building, flower bouquets and hand-written tributes honor the victims.
Byeong Cheol Han is a senior pastor at Atlanta’s Korean Central Presbyterian Church. He says a person’s inability to control his sexual desires does not justify harming another person — let alone taking their life.
“As a human being, we’ve all have been tempted every day. But we should not kill people to eliminate temptation,” said Han.
He says the focus should be on the violence and anti-Asian rhetoric that have been on the rise across the country since the start of the pandemic.
“I want this incident to be an awakening moment. Not only for Asian-Americans but also for all Americans to end this kind of discrimination,” said Han.
Pastor Han’s gathering was one of many vigils and protests across the country over the weekend for the victims of last week’s shootings.
Hundreds of people flocked to a rally at the Georgia State Capitol in downtown Atlanta on Saturday.
“What happened in the past week was really a tipping point,” said Cathy Regun, who attended the rally. “Where a white guy killed eight people. So I think we really need to stand up together and show our voice.”
The speakers at the rally included newly elected U.S. Senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff.
Many called for the suspect to be charged under Georgia’s new hate crime law in addition to murder. Prosecutors say they haven’t ruled it out.
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