It shouldn't be a surprise that Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., has taken an unspeakable crime and made it the occasion for an astonishing Christian witness.
In an unforgettable scene at the bond hearing last week for Dylann Roof, whose own uncle mused about flipping the switch for his execution after he gunned down nine people at an Emanuel Bible study, tearful family members of the victims told Roof that they forgive him and that he should repent.
They were voices of love responding to hate, of unbelievable mercy and forbearance in the face of cruelty and murderous provocation, of an almost miraculous faith.