The kinship that was relevant was that of being fellows in the body of Christ

Just now writing about the Emmanuel AME shooting.

Mainly because I could see right away that it was going to be way too easy to get any kind of "larger national significance" wrong, if indeed there was any.

Roof was one of those statistical inevitabilities floating around this universe, a confluence of loner behavior, rapacious drug imbibing, bigotry and raw evil seeking the perfect opportunity to make his darkly narcissistic statement.

He's in custody now, and he deserves the worst punishment the law can administer.

Even should he get it, as is just, he's still been offered a choice, because the necessary justice of an orderly society is not the end of the matter.

This wasn't about gun policy or the Confederate flag.  It says nothing about general race relations one way of another.

But the aftermath tells us one thing very clearly: In such circumstances, Christians not only find collective solace in praying with brothers and sisters in faith, but also find the strength to forgive that which, without grace, is too dark for mercy:

South Carolina law allows for victim impact statements at a bail hearing, not merely before sentencing, and the extraordinary statements by DSR’s victims (he shall not be named again in this column) showed Americans a side of the black community that the mainstream media would like to pretend doesn’t exist, and even now is uncomfortable about showing.

Instead of what we have come to expect from such hearings—e.g., victims focusing on their pain and telling the perpetrator what an evil person he is and that they hope he never gets out—the families of the dead expressed the love of Jesus and a message of forgiveness to the racist monster who murdered their loved ones.

Those directly affected left extraneous considerations out of it and offered this wretched devil the possibility of love - even though it took Calvary-level pain for them to do so.

That's the only lesson of this episode.