BreakPoint: “Emanuel”
The Untold Story of the
Charleston Shooting
by: John Stonestreet & David
Carlson
Category: , Christian
Worldview
June 12, 2019
In June 2015, Dylann Roof, a 21-year old white
supremacist from North Carolina, drove to Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal
Church in Charleston, South Carolina and committed one of the most shocking
mass murders in American history.
After entering the church, Roof asked to
see the Rev. Clementa Pinckney, the church’s pastor, and then joined a Bible
study with members of the congregation. They welcomed him. But Roof pulled out
a pistol and started shooting.
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Nine victims of the
Charleston church shooting. Top row: Cynthia Hurd, Rev. Clementa Pinckney, Rev.
Sharonda Coleman-Singleton Middle row: Daniel Simmons, Rev. Depayne Middleton
Doctor, Tywanza Sanders Bottom row: Myra Thompson, Ethel Lee Lance, Susie
Jackson
Via Facebook and Getty Images
[PHOTO SOURCE: http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/charleston-church-shooting/charleston-church-shooting-tributes-paid-kind-hearted-victims-n377551]
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He killed nine of our Christian brothers and sisters in
cold blood, leaving another alive to tell everyone what had
happened.
He was hunted down and captured, and
eventually was convicted of numerous state and federal charges. Roof currently
awaits death by lethal injection.
What many found as shocking as the
killings themselves was the reaction to Roof by many of the victims’ families.
At this year’s Wilberforce Weekend,
Christian film maker Brian Ivie told us how he had heard about the Emanuel AME
shooting while on his honeymoon in Mexico. One morning, while he was out on the
balcony, Brian heard his wife, Amanda, sobbing inside. “Nine
people just got shot in their Bible study,” she said, “in Charleston,
South Carolina.” And then she went on to describe the massacre.
Brian was stunned. “Then she looked at me again,” he relates, and said, “You don’t understand. They’re forgiving him. The family
members are forgiving the murderer in court.”
On her laptop, Amanda had watched,
stunned like so many of us, Nadine Collier, the daughter of Ethel Lance, tell
Roof: “I will never be able to hold her again, but I
forgive you and have mercy on your soul. You hurt me. You hurt a lot of people,
but God forgives you, and I forgive you.”
Then Anthony Thompson, husband of Myra
Thompson, told Roof, “I forgive you, and my family
forgives you. But we would like you to take this opportunity to repent. Change
your ways.”
Brian Ivie told his new bride, “I hope
whoever tells that story one day does not skip [the forgiveness]. Because I
think God just showed up.” As it turns out, Ivie’s prayer was answered, because
he is the one who has been tasked with telling this amazing story of tragedy,
suffering, forgiveness, and hope, in his new documentary called, “Emanuel: The
Untold Story of the Victims and Survivors of the Charleston Church Shooting.”
It will be in theaters next week, June
17 and 19 only.
You need to see this film. Brian, whom
you might remember from his first film, “The Dropbox,” has done something
special here. Yes, the cinematography is beautiful, and the music is excellent.
But more than that, Brian Ivie has managed to tell the story by getting out of
its way: the racial history of Charleston, the sacredness of a Bible study
violated, the criticism that family members received for offering forgiveness,
the overall cultural tension already present when this evil act was
perpetrated, and how, in the end, forgiveness has the final word.
What sets this documentary about Emanuel
Church apart, as Ivie told the Charleston Post and Courier, is “the theological
understanding of where forgiveness comes from. And that is the cross of
Christ.”
I urge you to gather friends and family,
believers and unbelievers alike, and go see this film “Emanuel.” Again, it’s
playing only on June 17 and 19 in theaters all across America. And by the way,
Steph Curry (yes, that Steph Curry, the basketball player) and Viola Davis
(yes, that Viola Davis, the actress) are the executive producers of the film.
They believe in this film and so do I. Find out where it is airing at
EmanuelMovie.com.
And you can also hear Brian Ivie’s
terrific presentation from the Wilberforce Weekend where he tells the story of
the film. It was appropriately titled “Can Christianity Answer Tragedy” and is
on the BreakPoint
Podcast right now. You can find it at BreakPoint.org or wherever you
download podcasts.
Download the audio MP3 of this
commentary here.
INTERNET SOURCE: http://www.breakpoint.org/2019/06/breakpoint-emanuel/
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