Pastor: Violence will not have last word

Associated Press

ROSEBURG, Ore.

A pastor whose daughter survived last week’s deadly rampage in a college classroom told his congregation on Sunday that “violence will not have the last word” in this southern Oregon timber town.

More than 100 people gathered to hear pastor Randy Scroggins speak at New Beginnings Church of God, including his daughter, 18-year-old Lacey, who cried while sitting in the front row with her mother.

Scroggins said he’s been asked whether he can forgive Christopher Sean Harper-Mercer, who killed nine when he opened fire Thursday at Umpqua Community College.

“Can I be honest? I don’t know. That’s the worst part of my job. I don’t know” said Scroggins, his voice cracking with emotion. “I don’t focus on the man. I focus on the evil that was in the man.”

Harper-Mercer killed himself after a shootout with police.

At services across Roseburg on Sunday, pastors talked about the tragedy as the community tries to heal.

A couple of hundred people crowded into Garden Valley Church, where pastor Craig Schlesinger said living the faith means countering the rampage “with acts of kindness.”

Schlesinger also spoke about trying to make sense of survivor reports that the gunman asked who was Christian and then shot them.

“As those brave men and women were willing to stand and take a bullet for their faith ... so let us bravely stand this day and live our faith in Roseburg,” he said, wiping away tears.

There have been conflicting accounts of Harper-Mercer’s words inside the classroom, and what he may have meant by them. Some witness accounts have said that after killing people who said they were Christian he continued to execute others, doing so randomly.

Scroggins told those gathered at his church that his daughter survived because she was lying on the floor and partially covered by the body of a fellow student. The gunman thought his daughter was dead.

Scroggins said the community has “come together with strength and courage and compassion. As if to say, “we will not be defined by violence. ...Violence will not have the last word in Roseburg.”

Religious faith is an important part of many people’s lives in this rural part of Oregon, called by some “the Bible Belt of Oregon.” In Roseburg alone, there are dozens of churches, and Christian billboards and crosses dot area highways and roads.

Pastors have been at the forefront of helping victims’ families cope with a grief that can seem unbearable.

When pastor Jon Nutter got a text message Thursday about the shooting and realized how many had been killed or injured, he immediately formed a prayer circle at Starbucks where he was sitting.