Nearly two weeks ago now, a man entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church (TVUUC) in Knoxville, Tennessee. That day, children of the church were to present songs from the musical "Annie." In his guitar case, purchased especially for the occasion, the shooter carried a shotgun. His own personal bad fortune and the apparently careful reading he gave to such eminent authors as Michael Savage, Bill O'Reilly, and Sean Hannity, all of whom agree that liberals are the Great Satan, led him to believe that he should kill as many liberals as possible.
TVUUC sometimes seems a place of unfounded optimism. It is not a specifically Christian church, but it certainly follows Jesus' principles while it also accepts that many religions point toward what is immanent or divine. It can seem jejune. But on that day, two Unitarian Universalists became martyrs for their deeply felt principles, and others were wounded. Members of the congregation tackled and brought down the shooter, Jim David Adkisson, 59.
I went to the Sunday service the following week at TVUUC, having been a member for several years there and needing to be there again. The following is my take on the astonishing service that they held.
It wasn't easy to get into Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist church today, one week after the murders and maimings that took place there last week, not because of the police or cameras, but because of the hordes of people that showed up--like me--to support the grieving people of the church. The crowd overflowed the parish hall into the neighboring Teen Center.
The tone of the service was difficult to describe. Certainly not joyful, because joy doesn't dwell in houses of sorrow, but yet not sorrowful. I would say it was over all, defiant. The UUs, in defiant rejection of the shooter's impression that pacifists and liberals are weaklings, stood up and gave a standing ovation to the member of the congregation -- an older man now -- who tackled the shooter and wrestled him to the floor. Ovation after ovation followed for the members of the church who worked to manage the crisis at the time and in the ensuing week. For the man who gave his life, standing in front of the shooter so that others would not be hurt. For the woman who also died. For the ones who still lie in the hospital.
Then, it was recalled how Knoxville UUs had suffered in the past for their beliefs, with windows shattered in the old sanctuary after the UUs started the first interracial day camp in Knoxville in the 1960s.
The present minister, Chris Buice, handed out "bravery awards" to the children sitting just in front of him for their bravery in returning to the scene of the mayhem last week. The previous minister, Lynn Strauss, led the congregation in a meditation on how the church sanctuary had been planned, built, and furnished by the hands of the congregation. In the homily, Buice laid a minister's stole, a strip of cloth showing the Celtic cross' motif of violence combined with the symbol of hope, the rising sun, across the ministerial pulpit and "gave" it to the congregation, to "a good church," as it had been given to him by the daughter of a Presbyterian minister, "a good man." He thundered, "Today, we are all Presbyterians. We are all Jews. We are all Muslims. We are all liberals. We are all conservatives!" If there is one hallmark of Unitarian Universalism, it is the thoughtful response to problems of great complexity. Buice's statements cut to the quick of divisiveness, hatred, and bigotry. The congregation roared back in approbation.
The ministers past and present then moved to the back of the church, where the shooter had come in and begun to fulfill his self-appointed mission to kill liberals until he was killed by the police (he reckoned, in error, that people who work for peace are too weak for war, so he never anticipated that he would be brought down almost instantly by brave members of the church who did not hesitate). Standing in the same spot, the ministers reclaimed the space for peace, for justice, for love, and for strength.
At the end, the church stood up, defiantly, to sing "The Sun'll Come Up, Tomorrow," a song from the musical "Annie," which had been on the program the week before.
The tone of the service was one of bravery, of defiance, of the conscious choice of thinking people to choose peace, and of the importance of community. The shooter may have taken two lives, but he left without taking the spirit of the church, which, as was printed on hundreds of t-shirts sitting out in the fellowship hall for distribution, is "love."
I was reminded by the UUs that it takes the strongest kind of people to love by choice, instead of hating by default or in desperation.
It was pretty magnificent, all in all.