does it take much guessing to figure out if religion is involved in some way?
The nice thing about blogging is finding stories I wouldn’t otherwise be reading. The articles themselves aren’t always that nice, sadly, like this piece from St. Louis. Christopher Coleman is a born again evangelical and had been employed by a televangelist named Joyce Meyer. He had an affair with his wife’s best friend but Meyer’s (quite quirky) views against divorce meant that he would have lost his job as her personal security had he tried to get out of his marriage in that way. So, Coleman allegedly murdered his wife and sons instead.
Journalist Bill McClellan has been at the trial watching the proceedings and the families. The defendant’s Reverend father and other family members have been strangely chipper about it.
After all, the crimes are gruesome, unimaginable. The defendant’s wife, Sheri, and their two young sons, 9 and 11, were garroted in their beds. It would seem difficult enough to maintain good cheer when your son is accused of such a crime, but on two separate occasions, a defense attorney has suggested that there are other potential suspects — and he mentioned one of the defendant’s brothers.
Hardly seems like anything to smile about, having two sons as possible suspects here.
Maybe the strangest religious connection came via Tara Lintz, the Other Woman. She came to court wearing a promise ring that the defendant had given her. And a cross.
Bear in mind that the promise ring celebrates an adulterous relationship with the husband of her best friend. Furthermore, it was a relationship that the state alleges led to the murder of three people. You wear that with a cross?
I thought about that during a break and remembered that Jesus counted prostitutes among his friends. So why shouldn’t Lintz wear a cross?
Love might make you do the wacky, but most people would draw the line at murder, surely. Especially when it appears to be premeditated.
McClellan offers up more examples out of the trial that indicate this family is pretty damn weird, yet the congregation at Reverend Coleman’s church has been growing “by leaps and bounds.”
No family is perfect, but I’d say the Coleman family has more than its share of problems, and I am not sure I’d want the patriarch of that family as a spiritual guide.
Perhaps he’s a fine pastor. I like to think that’s why his congregation has grown. I wish them well.
For that matter, I hope there was an alien spacecraft trailing the comet Hale-Bopp. I like to think that things worked out for those people, too.
Things are not going to work out well for Christopher Coleman, probably. McClellan ends the piece by noting that the other brother who could have done the murders was out of state at the time so the State likely has the right one on trial. Time will tell for what results from it.
One Minion's Opinion 