A  25 year old woman was shot and killed outside Cathedral Christian Centre  in Glendale today. (warning: church site uses flash/sound)  It appears from early reports she was trading her children with her estranged husband when he killed her. The church has a pre-school and private primary school with nearly 300 students. The church is Church of God/Holiness affiliated.

He fled the scene with the two children, a 4 was dropped off at a hospital with a bullet wound to her knee, a three year old boy was dropped off at a home that may have been known to the shooter. The boy is safe, his father is on the the run. The killing occurred around 9 am this morning.

A sad note to the Sunday shootings in Colorado. More is emerging about Matthew Murrary’s life. He was home schooled using a program most Christians reject and one that is considered unorthodox. I am not blaming homeschooling, most children raised in abusive homes do not grow up to kill. Murray had also been enrolled in a YWAM program for children called Kings Kids.
The Gothard program is extremist,  heavily rules based, authoritarian and is considered legalistic and abusive by mainstream Christianity and most evangelicals. Gothard’s program is not used by the majority of homeschoolers in the US.

The curriculum Murray decried in his postings was developed by evangelist Bill Gothard as part of The Institute in Basic Life Principles. The Bible-based curriculum is contained in “Wisdom Booklets” — 3,000 pages of instruction that “views academic subjects through the grid of Scripture,” according to the institute’s website.

Murray mentions Gothard by name in a later post. “Me, I remember the beatings and the fighting and yelling and insane rules and all the Bill Gothard (expletive) and then trancing out . (expletive) . I’m still tranced out.”

The Bill Gothard Institute in Basic Life Principles Discussion board
Bill Gothard - wiki
A list of resources regarding Gothards teaching at The Apologetics Index