By Jeff Brumley
In 2014, Kevin Glenn published a book detailing the loss of civility in American culture and proposing some ways to revive it.
Now it looks like Glenn is going to have a chance to put Hand over Fist: An Invitation to Christ-centered Civility, to the test — thanks to the Sunday bombing of his church in Las Cruces, N.M.
“I’ve already been asked what message I have for the bombers,” said Glenn, who became the pastor at Calvary Baptist Church the very morning it was struck with an improvised explosive device. Also attacked, just moments later, was a Catholic parish located a few miles away.
But Glenn said the message he has isn’t for the perpetrators but for members of the community and the targeted churches who may be harboring feelings of revenge for the attacker or attackers, who have yet to be apprehended.
They should remember that while the bombings were acts of evil, they also were committed by someone acting out of severe misery and pain. Maintaining that perspective will help victims see those responsible as people for whom Christ also died, he said.
“Civility can keep us from demonizing them and dehumanizing them,” Glenn said.
‘Only a coward’
If Glenn is taking Sunday’s church attacks with civility in mind, authorities are not.
The Associated Press reported that New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez on Monday blasted the “coward” who placed the improvised explosive devices — one in a wall-mounted mailbox at Calvary Baptist, the other in a trash can just outside Holy Cross Catholic Church, where morning mass was underway when the explosion occurred around 8:40 a.m.
The device at Calvary exploded about 10 minutes before the start of its 8:30 a.m. traditional worship service. Glenn said an abbreviated version of the service was held in a shady area of the property. It concluded just before authorities declared the entire property a crime scene.
No injuries were reported in either blast. But news outlets in New Mexico, including the Albuquerque Journal, reported that authorities believe the two devices were meant to cause harm.
Gov. Martinez on Sunday flew to Las Cruces, where she led a press conference along with investigators from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Homeland Security, FBI and state and local law enforcement agencies.
“Only a coward would place an explosive in a place of peace and worship,” Martinez said in the Journal story. “Whoever did this will feel the full pressure of the law.”
‘I will never forget that’
Glenn, who stood behind Martinez while she made those comments, said it’s been a whirlwind two days since he arrived in Las Cruces Saturday evening from Columbia, Mo., where he had been pastor of Memorial Baptist Church.
“We drove here in one car and my other car was on a moving truck,” he said. “Nothing is unpacked or unloaded or anything.”
And Glenn wasn’t scheduled to preach any of the three services at Calvary Sunday morning, though he was planning to make it to the later services.
He wasn’t at the church when the explosion occurred.
“I had a cup of coffee in my hand and I was watching the news and I saw my church on the news,” he said. “I will never forget that.”
He left immediately for church, where he found that lay people and lay leaders had taken all the steps necessary, including cooperating with police, to secure the building and ensure everyone’s safety.
One of his first official acts as pastor of the Southern Baptist church was to participate in a briefing and news conference about the bombings.
“I was taken aback when I got a call … that Gov. Martinez wanted to meet with me,” he said. “That definitely got my attention.”
‘It’s incredible’
Monday was just as “crazy” a day for Glenn, he said, as speculation and rumors began swirling through Las Cruces about why someone would bomb churches.
Nor can anyone figure out why Baptists and Catholics were targeted.
“All of us are stumped on that one because there haven’t been any sort of outright controversial statements from either one of the churches,” he said.
But what has become quickly evident, Glenn said, is that the explosions have unified Christians in the city.
“The Christian community in Las Cruces is just galvanized right now — it’s incredible,” he said.
“There is more dialogue taking place between Protestants and Catholics” which “is giving a lot of hope to what could be if we maintain and keep the main thing the main thing,” Glenn said.
‘We need not fear’
One of the main things at Calvary Baptist will be taking measures to keep churchgoers and staff safe, Glenn said.
He has experience in that kind of thing. A few years ago in Columbia, Memorial Baptist’s sign was vandalized, specifically by someone who spray painted over Glenn’s name.
After the sign was repaired, the vandalism occurred again and a note was added threatening Glenn’s life.
“As a result of that experience we went through as a church, the measures we took to have the campus be more aware, I know exactly what we need to do” at Calvary after the bombing, Glenn said.
And one of those things is to preach — which Glenn said he will do on Sunday for the first time at Calvary.
“It’s going to be a message on the confidence we have in the Lord and what it means to be vigilant,” he said.
The sermon also will emphasize that believers who undergo an attack like the Las Cruces churches should react with a spiritual calm.
It will demonstrate “how to live faithfully and why not to be paranoid, and that we need not fear,” Glenn said. “It will be specifically in response to what happened yesterday.”