(RNS) — In a manifesto reportedly sent to family members moments before he attempted to storm past security at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner Saturday evening (April 25), Cole Tomas Allen wrote, “Thank you to my family, both personal and church, for your love over these last 31 years.”
Though Allen, who was charged Monday with attempting to assassinate the president, didn’t specify which church he was thanking, context about his parents’ church, publicly available information about his involvement in a Christian student ministry and the religious language in his manifesto provide a glimpse into the religious background of the would-be assassin. Despite Allen’s mention of his church, he has been described by President Donald Trump as anti-Christian.
“When you read his manifesto, he hates Christians. That’s one thing for sure,” Trump said in a phone interview with Fox News.
The 31-year-old from Torrance, California, was an amateur video game developer and part-time teacher with a Master of Science degree from California State University, per his LinkedIn profile. From 2013-2017, his profile indicates, Allen was a mechanical engineering student at Caltech in Pasadena, where he was involved with Caltech Christian Fellowship, which describes itself as non-denominational. The group emphasizes confessing Jesus as “personal Lord and Savior” and salvation by grace through faith, and links to both evangelical and mainline Protestant churches on their website.
“He was definitely a strong believer in evangelical Christianity at the time that I knew him,” Elizabeth Terlinden, who was also a member of Cal …