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1. Were Baptist church attacks really "just a joke"?
You've probably already heard that police arrested three college students for the arsons of nine Baptist churches in Alabama. And you've probably heard that they did it just "as a joke" without any religious or racial motives. You may have heard Alabama Gov. Bob Riley say, "We don't think there is any kind of organized conspiracy against religion or against the Baptists. … The faith-based community can rest a little easier."

That's very good news. But is it really true? Details in some Birmingham News reports raise some questions:

Friends said [suspects Russell DeBusk] and Ben Moseley were Satanists, which DeBusk told friends was "not about worshipping the devil, but about the pursuit of knowledge," according to [DeBusk's college roommate, Jeremy] Burgess. …

Burgess said he and DeBusk discussed religion loosely, debating whether pets go to heaven and what heaven looks like. "He told me I was one of the more intelligent Christians he's talked to," Burgess said. "Coming from a Satanist, I didn't know quite how to interpret that."

Ian Cunningham, a sophomore who lived in the same dorm as DeBusk, recalled returning from the campus chapel recently to snide remarks about being saved from DeBusk and Moseley. "He would constantly mock me," Cunningham said of DeBusk.

Another News article looks at suspect Matthew Cloyd:

After he got a speeding ticket—85 mph in a 70 zone—his Web site musings grew cryptically violent. In a posting to Moseley last summer as the two planned a road trip, he wrote, "Let us defy the very morals of society instilled upon us by our parents, our relatives and of course Jesus."

The only other paper, it seems, to have picked up on this theme is USA Today:

Burgess said DeBusk told him last summer that he had found a new religious interest.

"He wasn't raised as a Christian, and he had never found any kind of religion to settle down with," Burgess said. "He thought he'd found something that worked for him. It's not worshipping the devil. It's nothing ritualistic. It's about the pursuit of knowledge. He explained to me that there can be Satanic Christians. It gave him the peacefulness and serenity of Buddhism. It was a real peaceful thing."

Burgess said DeBusk invited him on a "demon-hunting" trip last summer.

"Nothing happened," Burgess said. "Some friends of ours and the two of us were in the middle of the woods, playing guitar. They had some beer. There were no rituals, no weird séance.

"There was nothing that would lead me to believe he would burn down a church," Burgess said. "Russ was always very respectful of my religion. We discussed it openly, the way many people discuss politics."

There is no smoking match here to indicate that religion was the motive behind the arsons, but it's pretty surprising how accepting almost all media outlets seem to be about the claim that religion wasn't the motive. Some paranoid activists will certainly try to use this as evidence of a "War on Christians." The story doesn't yet warrant anything like that. But Weblog wonders: What if these had been students at a Baptist college who had targeted theaters? Might religion be a bigger part of media coverage then? Or what if abortion clinics had been burned while other medical facilities had been untouched? Might reporters be asking more questions? Would we be so accepting of assurances that "this was just a joke that got out of hand"?

2. Church of England's divestment called off
Remember that story last month about the Church of England's decision to divest "from companies profiting from the illegal occupation" of Palestinian territory? It didn't get much play here (where the divestment story is more about the Presbyterian Church USA), but it was big news in the U.K. and Israel. Anyway: Never mind. The church's Ethical Investment Advisory Group unanimously rejected the Synod's vote, saying it "could find no compelling evidence that Caterpillar is or has been complicit in human rights abuses."

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March (Web-only) 2006, Vol. 50