Behind Matthew Murray's Church Executions: More Blood on Judeo-Christian Hands

Matthew Murray may be the first known assassin to aim his weapons at Judeo-Christians because they were Judeo-Christians. He was an insecure, deeply disturbed young man in need of counseling, if not treatment, of this there seems little doubt from Matthew Murray’s own writings. But there is much more. What kind of help did he need, and who could have saved these five lives, four innocent strangers and Murray? There is much to be learned about Judeo-Christianity from Matthew’s recorded diary left on blogs. The now infamous 24 year-old was a suburban Denver, live-at-home son of a neurosurgeon…yes the killer was the son of a brain surgeon, and a charismatic Judeo-Christian activist mother.

Murray’s well-documented blog posts reflect a frustrated and incomplete knowledge of Christian-Zionism and some of its roots in Israel and neo-conservatism. He wrote mostly about wrongs he felt against himself, both by his parents and Judeo-Christian organizations they supported. Matthew did not write about those who die daily because of Judeo-Christianity’s support of war and its own form of bizarre Israel-first racism. His words are directed at his mother, the hypocrisy of the religious leaders she foisted upon him, and the related mission organizations that rejected his desire to serve.

We are fortunate that Matthew’s thoughts are uniquely available. For several years he posted his most personal feelings on blogs, a matter of indisputable record. These writings suggested that his protective mother treated him like a 13 year old, and schooling him at home for 12 years in Bill Gothard’s rarely used home school program that he hated.

Murray said he could forgive his mother, but he deeply resented Judeo-Christian institutions that influenced her. He saw both institutions he ended up attacking as part of a false religion that he referred to simplistically as “charismatic.” He blamed the hypocrisy and inconsistencies on those who influence his family, most frequently Bill Gothard and the disgraced leader of New Life Church, Ted Haggard, and Youth With A Mission (YWAM).

Murray’s attacked two separate institutions where he and his parents were intimately familiar and where he had been rejected in ways he specifically described in his blogs. Matthew’s crime siege began at a student dormitory of the mission organization called YWAM located on the huge campus of Israeli-patriot, mega-church, Faith Bible Chapel in Arvada, Colorado. Matthew writes he had been a member of WHAM for some time but he had been rejected from its foreign mission program for “medical reasons” without further explanation. There, in the dormitory lobby, he shot to death a 26 year-old female resident from Minnesota and a man, apparently at random. Then he traveled 100 miles to Colorado Springs to kill again at huge and well know NewLifeChurch, which was also involved with WHAM, and where, according to his writings, both he and his mother were well know to some staff members.

This writer finds it no coincidence that these same two mega-churches, Faith of Arvada and New Life are the only two churches in Colorado to be feature in a total of three Pharisee Watch articles over as many years. We refer serious readers to these, and we regret that Matthew apparently did not read them, which might have saved all these lives. *1,2,3

ProjectStrait Gate also selected Faith Bible Chapel for its first ever Colorado Vigil for Peace with Justice on May 20, 2007, at its Night To Honor Israel Sunday. *3

ProjectStrait Gate is premised on the belief that to stop serial wars we must first expose the war enabling apostasy of churches like and including the two Matthew selected for his terrible acts of vengeance. This writer has attributes the deaths of many innocent humans all over the Arab world to the acts of the leaders of Faith Community Church of Arvada, CO; and Living Word Church of Colorado Springs, Colorado. It is likely the blood Matthew Murray and those he senselessly assassinated is also on their hands.

In no way does this writer infer that we approve of killing innocent or even guilty church members for enabling war. In fact these five deaths probably would not have happened had someone told Matthew Murray about Project Strait Gate’s program to change churches like this by openly opposing them in a peaceful and Christ honoring way. We oppose their teachings not with guns, and not privately so we can be ignored, but openly in the presence of there congregations, some of who can be educated.

Attempts to paint Matthew as insane or a satanic monster collapse when you read the painfully sad, but often intelligent and perceptive accounts he posted on the Internet in the months prior to his killing spree. These show his active revolt against “charismatic Christianity, which we call Judeo-Christianity, and which we describe as an apostate sub-cult opposed for some of the same reasons Matthew described. We Hold These Truths have simply found a better way to respond. Matthew chose to turn away from Jesus and toward violence. He simply did not know how to change what he considered wrong; instead it changed him.

It seems Judeo-Christianity was force fed to Matthew, as it has been spoon fed to tens of millions, but Matthew says he got it 24 hours a day. He saw himself as judged by his mother and those in Christian organizations that he correctly saw in their hypocrisy. Here is a quote from ten reasons he believes his mother’s church condemned him to “hell”: *6

“Why am I going to hell? First, I’m not perfect. Two, I’m an introvert. Three, I’m not popular enough to be a missionary with YWAM or any other church group. Four, I don’t pay tithes at all. Five, I don’t speak in tongues. Six, I don’t worship Bill Gothard. Seven, I’m bisexual. Eight, I don’t worship George W. Bush, Israel, and the Republican Party…”

Without a good understanding of why Judeo-Christian churches worship George W. Bush, Israel, and the Republican party, those like Matthew can only revolt from the neo-conservatism of Judeo-Christianity, and many mistakenly abandoning anything associated with Jesus Christ in the process, as they come to blame Christ for the corruption of Judeo-Christianity. The moral tone of Murray’s blog posts chronicle his turning to anti-Christianity, in whatever form he could find it.

Seven months before this writer heard of Matthew Murray, fifteen We Hold These Truths’ volunteers, about half of them teenagers and college students, challenged that same Zionist-oriented Faith Bible Chapel in Arvada Colorado with a Vigil for Peace with Justice outside its doors. Our 30 square ft. black on yellow sign read: APOSTATE CHURCH, CHRIST FOLLOWERS MUST NOT KILL. We accuse the church of enabling the killing of its adopted Arab enemies in Israel, Iran and Iraq, and Afghanistan, not to mention some 3500 Americans. There we protested the church’s hypocrisy in claiming to be “pro-life” while backing warmaking in Islamic countries.

Faith Bible Chapel has a long history of activist Christian Zionist, and was the subject of a Pharisee Watch special article in 2004 about its sponsorship and display of a blown up Israeli “Bus 19” at this very campus. On Sunday, May 20, 2007, when we set up our Vigil there, Faith’s perimeter was adorned with many Israeli flags side by side with American flags. Inside the church the rhetoric of guest speaker John Hagee, of Christians United For Israel, called for more war to protect Israel, even suggesting nuclear war in God’s name on Iran. The morality of killing Arabs seems not to be a problem for former businessman George Morrison, the pastor and founder of this Judeo-Christian Church, so long as the killing is done in the name of Israel.

Matthew Murray needed to known that this race-related hatred is not Christ following, but is church apostasy. Jesus would not condemn him to “hell” for being revolted against evil in the church. Fortunately for the record, Matthew Murray was a writer with some skill at expressing himself, and he left behind a two-year history of his personal thoughts posted on various web blogs posted under the descriptive name “nghtmrchld26”. We suggest anyone serious about Christian-Zionism should read his words in their sad and embittered entirety. If you read them, we caution you about deliberately shameful language to be found in some, especially his later tirades against his mother, certain Christian celebrities, and even Jesus Christ.

It is easy to see from his blog posts Matthew was, until recently, devout in seeking Jesus Christ’s will for his life, and he was capable of communicating his inner thoughts and problems. Matthew’s blogs indicate he was tormented by the man-made theology he was raised to believe. Matthew was also disappointed and disgusted by the hypocrisy he saw in the lives of some who taught the theology, including discredited Ted Haggard, who he called “Ted Faggard”

Matthew’s killing spree ended after a two-hour drive south to the ChristianZionistNewLifeChurch in Colorado Springs. New Life was, until recently, led by Rev. Ted Haggard, the former President of the National Association of Evangelicals, a man so important in politics that he was interviewed on major networks in 2006, first by Tom Brokaw and then by Barbara Walters, to whom he boasted about receiving Presidential briefings from George W. Bush. He left earlier this year after the disclosures of Haggard’s double life.

There in the vestibule of NewLifeChurch, Matthew shot and killed two people he probably did not know and then was shot, first by a security guard and then, we are told, by his own hand. Church leaders at both churches were quick to announce they did not consider Matthew’s acts to be “God’s judgment”, though charismatic leaders are often quick to label catastrophic events as God’s punishment. At the family memorial in Denver, his brother, Chris Murray, a student at OralRobertsUniversity, was quoted as saying:

“The killings were the devil’s work…Even though Satan attacked my brother, I truly feel God is going to save a whole generation of people through this.”

In other words, evil spirits were to blame, typical of Judeo-Christian treatment of problems.

Matthew had detected this hypocrisy; it is sad that his family did him this discredit. Matthew tells it this way:

“At age 17, I decided to “go all out for Jesus” and do my best to practice Christianity and live it out. I went to the bible to read for myself how one gets “saved.” I found several different versions of getting saved from the gospels. In John it was mainly “have faith” but in Mt, Mk, and Lk, it was as found in Mt 25, that you would have eternal life by doing good works (which of course is considered heresy). So I went to the books from the man that “had all the answers,” Bill Gothard’s Basic and Advanced seminar textbooks.“

Matthew’s blogs describe Bill Gothard’s education program as full of impossible rules. Poor Matthew, he believed in Jesus, just like the book said he should to “be saved,” but when he discovered Jesus’ account of how to follow Christ in Mt: 25, his mentors told him to forget it:

“To have eternal life by doing good works, of course, is considered heresy.”

Matthew did not know how Judeo-Christian “bible scholars” have reinterpreted Mt: 25 in the Scofield Reference Bible and other study bibles, so Judeo-Christians will not take these important verses seriously:

“In as much as you have done it unto the least of my brothers you have done it unto me.”

It is impossible to follow this and in the same breath support war on Islam, so Matthew 25 is simply left out of Judeo-Christian Bible vocabularies. *4

Matthew Murray continues speaking of Bill Gothard’s program,

“What I found were all these other rules I realized I could never live up to, yet, the man seemed to have a biblical basis for everything. In February 2001 at age 17 I plunged into a dark suicidal depression all because I thought I had lost my “salvation” and somehow couldn’t live up to the rules. Every single hour of every single day, up until October 2001 I thought about ways of suicide and hating myself for not being worthy enough and failing God.”

And later in his blogs: “Seeing how there are all these different churches and interpretations of the bible and what Jesus said, many different views on what a sin actually is and isn’t, different views on what God approves of, and all kinds of different views on how to get “saved” and how to stay “saved,” I realized that Christianity was mostly a big lie.”

And later Matthew wrote: “The damage has been done…Now, it is Christianity that will be mocked, laughed at, ridiculed, judged, and condemned by many………For me, I feel I can forgive my parents and family, however, I do not forgive their beliefs/doctrines and I will not tolerate further abuse. I believe that the truth needs to be exposed. People need to see through erroneous and destructive doctrines and teachings…”

How can We Hold These Truths say it better than Matthew did?

We end our quotes from Mathew Murray’s blogs, but there are many more. He seemed to realize in his short life that he had been exposed not to Christ-following, but to the hypocrisy of Judeo-Christianity, though he could not name it. It is no surprise to me to learn Matthew was rejected from the YWAM mission program, for much as he wanted to be a missionary, he was not a Judeo-Christian. He noticed its scriptural inconsistencies and rejected its apostasy. Naturally YWAM would reject him, Judeo-Christianity allows no questioning from within.e He

What 17 year old Matthew needed was a big yellow and black sign he could hold up in front of the church that reads, APOSTATECHURCH, CHRIST FOLLOWERS MUST NOT KILL. He needed to be told where and how Judeo-Christianity is unscriptural, and how it has been corrupted. Matthew needed a mission, which is what Mt: 25 tried to teach him, but not for YWAM. There was plenty for him to do without a gun.

We Hold These Truths began as a politically oriented pro-life and anti-war organization, and now it has been transformed by the needs of many like Matthew Murray, some within our own families. We are a flashing warning beacon. Our stated mission, found on our website as Who We Are, is to “Rescue Followers of Christ from the Apostasy called Christian-Zionism.”

We reach out to the “lost sheep” inside our churches that do not know they are lost. They will remain lost if they listen only to their apostate religious leaders. Our purpose is to point the ancient way to the “Strait Gate”(Matthew 7:13). Christian-Zionism, by whatever name, is not that path and is purely a political movement. We would turn Christ followers into Peacemakers and away from the evil of warring on behalf of Israel. We humbly believe God must see Christian-Zionism as the vilest apostasy in the 2000-year history of Christianity. Its sly forerunner goes by the name of Judeo-Christianity.

I do not know where Matthew Murray was on May 20, 2007, when that small group, several his own age, stood in quiet protest in front of Faith Bible Chapel. Had any one of our 15 or so volunteers had but a half-hour to talk to Matthew, this story might have ended differently. Most of us can explain our own escape from Judeo-Christianity. We know its history; we know its errors; we know its awful results. It’s likely that Matthew could have found a healthier outlet for his hatred of the cultish religion that today is best known for enabling wars and death.

The state of Israel is the “Judeo” in “Judeo-Christian. This is the Israel that Matthew Murray was suppose to revere if he wanted to be a missionary holds 5200 Palestinian children in prison cells today, some as young as eight years old. Each day it arrests two more children. Some are girls, kept detained, where no one except their jailers can see what is done to them. There are no limits to the terror and abuse that security guards are allowed to inflict upon them, much of the rape and brutality is encouraged, as former guards have told. Only a small part of Israel’s brutality to children has ever been filmed, but it is know. Children have been driven to suicide in these prisons, and some even after they are released.*5

We close with a poem by one of our Vigil volunteers. We directed it to the leaders of Faith Bible Chapel, Christians United For Israel, and Living Word Church of Colorado Springs, YWAM Ministries, and to all who knew Matthew Murray.

Poem: Depart From Me Lawless One
PM Sharp Oct 03, 2007

Christian-Zionist warmonger says, “But Lord, Lord,
we did all this in your name.”
The Lord replies, “Really. Depart from me,
lawless one. I never knew you.”
Make sure that isn’t you…
little Christian Zionist WARMONGER!!
WAKE UP from your speculative,
eschatological dreams NOW!!!
Or is what you’re having,
just a plain old scatological vision?
Wake up before it’s too late!
Stop using prophetic Scripture
to facilitate
your unchristian hate.
Or surely it will come back upon your own pate.