A young Lutheran pastor didn’t expect the rage at the article he wrote about Sunday’s church massacre. But the knives were out for him on Tuesday.

Hans Fiene, a pastor in the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, published an article for The Federalist entitled “When the Saints of First Baptist Church Were Murdered, God Was Answering Their Prayers.” It’s a provocative title, to be sure, but in it Fiene expressed basic Christian beliefs about God and evil, especially in response to the knee-jerk social media crowd who ridiculed Christians for praying for. . . other Christians.

Focusing on the words “deliver us from evil” in the Lord’s Prayer, Fiene said this:

When we pray these words, we are certainly praying that God would deliver us from evil temporally—that is, in this earthly life. Through these words, we are asking God to send his holy angels to guard us from those who would seek to destroy us with knives and bombs and bullets. . . .But we are also praying that God would deliver us from evil eternally. Through these same words, we are asking God to deliver us out of this evil world and into his heavenly glory, where no violence, persecution, cruelty, or hatred will ever afflict us again.

That’s pretty basic stuff for Christians. And, as a lifelong Missouri Synod Lutheran myself, I recognized the tenets I learned in parochial school and catechesis.

Pastor Fiene no doubt wanted to promote reflection upon what it means to be a Christian living amidst evil. Instead he got a shitstorm from the Left.

A writer at the “nonreligious” page at Patheos wrote an article called, “Praising God for Mass Murder.” In it he wrote:

It’s all nonsense. They pretend to believe it because it makes them feel better and it inoculates them from the scourge of ever questioning their beliefs.

Slate went even further and linked Fiene’s article with those of other Christian conservatives such as Erick Erickson, David French, and Matt Walsh. Slate’s title claimed, “The Texas Shooting Victims Were Praying to Be Killed.” No, they weren’t, and none of those writers said so, either.

But Raw Story threw out the biggest hunk of red meat with an article called, “God was ‘answering prayers’ of Texas victims by letting them get shot.”

The comments reflected unabated scorn and death wishes for Fiene:

So Hans would have no problem if a gunman put a bullet through his head so he could be delivered from evil and enter an eternity of righteousness and peace.

Hey Hans, your god knows there is a bullet with your name on it, it’s just a matter of time and I’m sure it’s fine with you.

And these:

Well I will pray Hans Fiene gets his face shot off!

I’m all for God taking every religious person immediately. The world would be a better place.

And, because Hans Fiene is a pastor with a German name in a German heritage Lutheran church body, someone blew the Nazi dog whistle:

There is absolutely no doubt that the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) – the ‘mainline’ strand of Lutherdom – would never condone such a remark by this right-wing Lutheran pastor. indeed, this right-wing Lutheran pastor happens to be a member of LCMS (Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod). . . Whereas the membership of the LCMS is predominantly German-American, the membership of the ELCA is primarily Scandinavian-American and Finnish-American. . .

And they went on and on. As my husband said, the intellectual wattage demonstrated in that comments thread couldn’t power a 40-watt bulb.

Hans Fiene himself said, in a podcast on the controversy released on Tuesday, that this sentiment is part of ‘outrage addiction,’ which ‘makes us all stupider.’ These people are ‘chasing a dopamine release.’ Fiene also adds that ‘outrage addiction’ exists on the right, as well. Neither camp is exempt.

However, the media are quick to twist themselves into pretzels to defend one religion, and that’s Islam. They’re quick to point out how “extremists distort” Allahu Akbar. And they really want to let us know what that phrase, shouted by the terrorist in the killing spree in New York City on Halloween, really means.

You might also recall how CNN tried to claim that the terrorist was yelling, “God is Great in Arabic” when he mowed down his victims with a truck. Not Allahu Akbar.

But let’s not even try to understand a Lutheran pastor’s perspective on the Lord’s Prayer. Because. . . Christian!

Now no one can say why God allowed such evil to descend upon that little Baptist church in Texas. And while I’m still living this temporal life, before God calls me from the evil here to eternal life with Him, I can’t say, either. But perhaps Pastor Frank Pomeroy, who lost his daughter in the Texas massacre, said it best:

“I don’t understand, but I know my God does.”

“Whatever life brings to you, lean on the Lord rather than your own understanding.”

I wonder how the fire-breathing anti-Christians would react to his deep faith in God?