Kyle Rittenhouse killed people in the middle of the street (on camera and in front of witnesses) and then, smoking rifle at his side, casually strolled past law enforcement. He didn’t run away. He didn’t hide. He showed no fear. He assumed there was something about his person that would allow him to approach law enforcement with a visible semi-automatic weapon that had just taken lives—and live to tell about it. More than a few witnesses pointed out that he had just shot several people. Yet he was able to leave the scene and the state.
I have safe spaces. I don’t mean in the common parlance, mainly of a place I can go to to not hear opposing or triggering thoughts or ideas. But rather I have places or websites I can go to that I know the people behind the site often share common cause with me. So my normal guards against propaganda or social engineering aren’t as on alert as they normally would be. On August 28, 2020, a friend on Twitter sent me an article by Rev. K. Edward Copeland, pastor of New Zion Church, entitled Why I Hate August (you can read it here) on The Gospel Coalition (TGC). I remember this article particularly well because I was at the hospital getting some tests done as part of my Covid recovery when I first read it. I had just preached the weekend before and remembered hearing vaguely about some white kid shooting black BLM protestors in Wisconsin (fake news) but this article was the first time I got some details about the shooting. Now, a year later, every single thing reported in this article was wrong.
A Narrative
When armed mass shooters (Kyle Rittenhouse, Dylan Roof, etc.) are apprehended without incident, and unarmed black people are killed out of fear that they might be armed, we have a more insidious problem than “a few bad apples.” This thing is cultural, pervasive, and abominable.
I don’t want to revisit every detail of the Kyle Rittenhouse case, especially because it is still ongoing. However, let me address the specific points Rev. Copeland brought up in his article 3 days after the incident before diving into the rest.
“Casually strolled past law enforcement…”
None of this is true. After the shootings, Rittenhouse approached officers to turn himself in with his hands raised. He didn’t “stroll past…smoking rifle at his side.” In fact, the officers drew their guns on Kyle, maced him, and told him to leave the area (see here).
“He didn’t run away. He didn’t hide. He showed no fear…”
None of this is true. Kyle attempted to run, hide, and even offered medical support to the man he’d just shot (see here for the graphic breakdown - content warning though.)
“More than a few witnesses pointed out that he had just shot several people. Yet he was able to leave the scene and the state.”
None of this is true. No one pointed out to the cops what had happened (see the above article) to cops Kyle approached and Kyle turned himself in an hour later to a police department “out of state” because all other police stations were on high alert to address the riots and weren’t letting people in.
“When armed mass shooters (Kyle Rittenhouse, Dylan Roof, etc.) are apprehended without incident, and unarmed black people are killed out of fear that they might be armed, we have a more insidious problem than “a few bad apples.””
This is a common example of the Law of the Instrument (see more here). Rev. Copeland saw this story and immediately projected a racial component onto it where it is not natural or has any logical association with this case (a hammer in search of a nail). The police throughout Kenosha, from my knowledge, did not shoot one looter/rioter/protestor, even though many of them were armed and a good chunk of them black. Rev. Copeland seems to have had a narrative in mind, libeled and boar false witness against Kyle Rittenhouse, and fit this situation into a larger racial justice issue (one I’m sympathetic to) regardless of the facts of the case. And as of this writing, neither Rev. Copeland nor TGC has addressed the libel present on their page.
Institutional Distrust
TGC has been a great resource for gospel-centered teachings and gospel-centered cultural analysis. In many ways, they still are. I also understand that every website, every journal, and every article can make mistakes. They are, after all, run by fallen humans. But what happened here? What made TGC write an article 3 days after the shooting labeling a 17-year-old a “mass shooter”?
I do not think I can honestly answer those questions beyond speculation. However, what I can opine on is the institutional distrust these types of articles have created. And this example I think can apply to the larger institutional distrust we’re experiencing in the West as a whole. Facts do not seem to matter anymore. Waiting for the truth does not either. For Christians, Proverbs 18:17 seems to be not as important as signaling one’s alignment with social outrage. Asking to wait for the facts to come out hurts our witness, due process and waiting to hear both sides is a structure of white supremacy, and finally, it shows we do not care because an unarmed man who was murdered (all of these things have actually been said to me in discussions).
I Believed Misinformation and That’s a Problem
I did not look into much detail about the Rittenhouse case before reading this article and believed the assessment of the event provided in it. I believed the article at face value because TGC is “my team”. They’re gospel-centered people, sharing honest gospel-centered views, and perhaps at the time of the writing Rev. Copeland earnestly believed what he said. But, now with the undisputed facts showing otherwise, it’s on TGC and Rev. Copeland to fix the misinformation. And for my side, I have to really examine why I myself did not follow Proverbs 18:17. And sadly, I was not the only one.