Like the rest of the country, we were stunned and saddened to hear about the shooting of Pastor Tim Remington in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. The beloved church leader, who was known throughout the community for his outreach to the addicted and incarcerated, was gunned down at church a day after opening a Ted Cruz rally with prayer. Although police have no idea if the two events are connected, the circumstances are certainly suspicious. Despite taking over six shots to the head, lung, hip, and shoulder, Pastor Remington's survival is the stuff of miracles, doctors say. With bullets stopping short of the brain and spinal cord, the father of four is expected to make a full recovery.
While his family and congregation celebrate the good prognosis, disturbing questions still linger. Coeur d'Alene had already grown increasingly hostile toward Christians, as we know from Donald and Evelyn Knapp, a husband-and-wife pastor team that ran a wedding chapel called The Hitching Post. After declining to marry a same-sex couple, Idaho city officials had warned that the decision could send them straight to jail and/or bury them in debilitating fines. Obviously, the environment toward Christians and pastors preaching the Gospel has made a turn for the worst in the small northern town. How can it not when you have the government ordering believers to participate in things that violate their faith? Whatever the shooter's motivations, until the policies change, tensions like these will not. In the meantime, we continue to pray for the Remingtons, Tim's full and complete healing, and for the man responsible to be brought to justice.
