Christianity Today

61-year-old trucker finds sniper suspects.
Several news articles and commentaries have focused on the religion of one of the two suspects arrested in the East Coast sniper killings, but some have focused on that of the man who found John Allen Muhammad.

On October 17, dozens of truck drivers from around the country gathered at a rural Kentucky truck stop. There, they prayed that the sniper would be caught. What they didn't know was that one of them would do it.

Ron Lantz, a 61-year-old trucker from Ludlow, Ky., heard the radio description of the car that police were looking last Wednesday and recognized the vehicle when stopping for the night. He called 911.

"I'm no hero. I just want people to think what I did is what I should have done," said Lantz, the men's ministry director at the Central Church of the Nazarene in Fort Wright, Ky. "It could have been any one of us."

Lantz has said he will give any reward money to the families of victims.

"Religion becomes a rationalization for killing."
Meanwhile, more details of Muhammad's life have given additional insight into his religious history and the part it may have played in the sniper shootings. The Boston Globe reports, "The piecemeal approach [he] took to religion suggests that his fractured personality, more than his spiritual beliefs, led to the terrifying violence that killed at least 10 people."

On Saturday, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan held a press conference in which he acknowledged that Muhammad, formerly John Allen Williams, was a member of the Nation of Islam. However, he did not provide security at the Million Man March as previously reported by the media. Muhammad reportedly joined the Nation of Islam in 1997 but lost contact with the group in 1999.

Some neighbors ...

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