(RNS) — In the Buick sedan Vance Boelter left on a rural road outside Minneapolis, law enforcement found a letter addressed to the FBI identifying himself as “the shooter at large in Minnesota.”
Police have also found a Ford SUV belonging to Boelter, filled with weapons, notebooks full of website names and other resources suggesting he stalked his victims, and a list of some 70 politicians that authorities say he also targeted.
But nowhere have they found an explanation for why Boelter allegedly killed state lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband and wounded two others, according to federal charges brought by the Department of Justice Monday (June 16).
While some, including Utah Sen. Mike Lee, have tried to tie the killings to radical left elements (“This is what happens When Marxists don’t get their way,” Lee posted on social media), others have portrayed Boelter as a Christian nationalist.
There are hints in the 57-year-old Boelter’s resume to suggest he might have been motivated by radical opposition to abortion and a distorted belief in violence as an extension of spiritual warfare. An ordained minister who has preached at an evangelical Christian church in Congo, Boelter inveighed against abortion and claimed that “the enemy” caused people to switch genders.
Matthew Taylor, author of “The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy,” said he had listened to some of Boelter’s sermons from overseas and said he did not hear any calls for violence but did hear influences of the New Apostolic Reformation, a movement of independent charismatic apostles and prophets that seeks to have Christians dominate all elements of society, including the government.
Taylor said opposition to abortion — which is common in NAR and other charismatic Christian circles — has spiritual overtones, with abortion often depicted as a kind of child sacrifice.
“I think it is significant that he has apparently spent most of his life in and around communities and channels through which pretty radical ideas are flowing,” he said.
The search for a motive has put a spotlight on Christ for the Nations Institute, an influential Dallas-based Bible college for nondenominational charismatic Christi …