Cmdr. Chris Havens, the Police Department spokesman, said the suspects boasted about belonging to a leaderless group of 10 or 15 who share a belief that society has become too focused on self-improvement and self-gratification and has lost focus on the glorification of God.

"They admit to being Christian and being brought up Christian, but they believe there should be one denomination and one church, not multiple denominations," Havens said.

"They did not say they had a name for their group, other than they were a radical Christian activist group. That was the way they explained their group," he said.

The suspects said the group has three levels of involvement: Bible study, consensual fighting and destructive acts. Because one of their beliefs is free thought, however, participation in all three levels is not mandatory, they told police.

The three admitted to being in a core group of seven that created the explosive weapon as a test to draw attention to the demise of society and to see whether the device would work, Havens said.

"They believe that the past generations have accumulated trash and are responsible for making younger generations clean up their mess," he said. "They're trying to make a statement and get society's attention regarding that."

That's why two of the men said they were involved in an earlier fire in a recycling bin at CentrePoint Church on Alsbury Road, Singleton said. That fire burned the materials in the bin but did not damage the church, he said. ... Authorities are trying to learn the identities of the others in the core group, he said. "We put them in the category of a domestic terrorist group," Havens said.

Interestingly, the church that was the target of the terror group, is a conservative evangelical church that backs an antiabortion crisis pregnancy center, and has used colorful marketing devices as purchasing a billboard that stated: "I hate Victory Family Church -- Satan."  

This attack is, in my view, the inevitable outcome of the aggressive promotion of a climate of religious supremacy and opposition to religious pluralism.  While the targets of domestic terrorism in what has been euphemistically called the culture war, have first been abortion providers and gays and lesbians, what's next are those deemed insufficiently pure, or otherwise religiously incorrect -- by someone else.

The leaders of the religious right, in all of its manifestations, have abandoned the respect for religious difference that is a critical underpinning of constitutional democracy.  Indeed, defenders of pluralism and the doctrine of separation of church and state that preserves it, are described as "secularist" which is understood to mean anti-Christian, even Satanic by millions of those steeped in the culture of the religious right. (Unfortunately, we have also seen this frame echoed by supposedly progressive Democrats like, among others, Jim Wallis. But I digress.) We see this in the culture as well as in politics and the law, and in radical revisonist versions of American history and interpretations of the Constitution.

On its face, one could view the nameless Christian terrorist group as an aberration; the excesses of headstrong young men. But I think that would be a mistaken interpretation, dependent on ignoring the political and religious context of our time. That said, it is early and we don't yet have all the facts; but I will go out on a limb and suggest that this is more likely a symptom of a wider social trend that could esily be marked by more violence over time.  The ongoing stridence and militancy of religious right leaders, speaking to vast swaths of the population raised in such manichean, anti-pluralist worldviews, are likely to provide catalysts for more violence.  

I don't believe that it has to turn out that way. We could view these men as canaries in the coal mine of a culture bent on religious warfare, and take steps necessary to head this off.  

Hat tip to Buzzflash, where I first heard about this story, this afternoon.