Religious values redeem a crisis
Jun 16, 2014, 2:05 PM | Updated: 2:08 pm
When a heavily-armed non-student began shooting at Seattle Pacific University, he planned to kill as many people as possible, but heroic actions by a 22-year-old engineering student limited the grisly toll to one dead. Jon Meis interrupted the shooter when he was reloading his shotgun, subduing him with only pepper spray and athleticism and, with other students, holding him till police arrived. In an eloquent statement Meis said: “When I came face to face with the attacker, God gave me the eyes to see that he was not a faceless monster, but a very sad and troubled young man… I truly desire that he will find the grace of God and the forgiveness of our community.” A professor at a nearby secular university suggested that his campus, lacking SPU’s religious values, would have been unlikely to display comparably courageous activism.