A lay minister is a member of the congregation who involves himself in the activities of the church, assisting the minister in numerous ways as needed—counseling, visiting the sick, teaching Bible classes, helping with the upkeep of the church property. As Mr. Dunphy was a skilled roofer and carpenter, he is said to have provided such services for the church intermittently.
A lay minister does not normally receive a salary.
Reverend Dennis Kuhn, of the Muskegee Falls church, has cooperated fully with local and state law enforcement and Broome County prosecutors in their investigation into the shooting deaths allegedly committed by Mr. Dunphy at the Broome County Women’s Center on November 2, 1999. Reverend Kuhn has acknowledged that he is a member of the American Coalition of Life Activists and the Pro-Life Action League, which are anti-abortion organizations, but he is not a member of the Army of God and Operation Rescue.
Reverend Kuhn has issued a statement to the media:
“It was with grave concern and absolute shock that I learned that Luther Dunphy, a longtime member of our congregation, is the (alleged) shooter in the deaths of two individuals associated with the Broome County Women’s Center. Neither I nor anyone else in our congregation of whom I am aware had any knowledge of Luther Dunphy’s active involvement in Operation Rescue. Neither I nor anyone else in our congregation of whom I am aware had any knowledge of Luther Dunphy’s (alleged) intention to ‘assassinate’ the abortion providers. Though our church is staunchly pro-life—and opposed to abortion in any way, shape, or form, as a legally sanctioned slaughter of the innocents in the United States of the present time—we do not, and we have not ever, condoned violence against the practitioners of abortion and those associated with them. We do not condone violations of state and federal law and we do not excuse those who commit such violations despite our sympathy for their moral convictions.
“It is a profound step from believing that abortion is state-sanctified murder to believing that an individual has the right to ‘assassinate’ an abortion murderer. The St. Paul Missionary Church of Jesus is adamantly opposed to such an act and is in no way associated with the practitioner of such an act.
“Though I remain in contact with Luther Dunphy, currently incarcerated at Chillicothe Correctional Facility, Chillicothe, Ohio, I am not in a position to provide any sort of information about him, or to convey remarks made by him, to any third party or to the media. It is true, I am involved in the Luther Dunphy Defense Fund, which welcomes donations to aid in Luther’s appeal to the Ohio State Supreme Court—checks, money orders, cash. As little as a few dollars, as much as several hundred—or thousand . . . All are welcome, and greatly appreciated in the name of Jesus.”
A SOLDIER OF CHRIST
Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.
Through the long night these words sounded in my ears. Several times I started from sleep, believing that I had heard these words of Genesis in our bedroom, in our bed in a hoarse and grave voice not recognizable to me. And that Edna Mae who slept her fitful sweating sedated sleep beside me would be wakened too, having heard.
For at last it was the early morning of November 2 which by certain signs of God had been decreed to be the day of execution.
“Lord, I will do Your bidding. If this is Your wish.”
Whoever sheds the blood of man . . . The abortionist-murderer has shed the blood not of men but of unborn babies. His just punishment will be that another will shed his blood in a public place, that all the world will gaze upon him fallen and defeated.
I had no doubt this was God’s wish. But it was a slow matter for me to accept that this was God’s wish for Luther Dunphy to enact.
In the ministry school in Toledo, in the library I had read, or tried to read, A Book of Martyrs by the Englishman John Foxe. It was a very old book of the 1500s (so long ago a time, I could not imagine what sorts of people lived then) that had been “updated” for the modern reader. The book was not easy reading, even so. These depictions of the torture-deaths and martyrdoms of Protestant Christians in opposition to the “Roman papacy” were difficult for me to read for more than a few minutes at a time. I was left feeling weak and anxious not knowing why at that time.
Yet now, it was clear that God had been guiding me then. Like one who is blindfolded, led by another’s hand in utter trust and faithfulness.
I would feel a thrill of pride, I thought, that one day the distinguished Professor Wohlman would project a photograph of Luther Dunphy up on a screen, and speak admiringly of me to a large audience as a martyr in the cause.
I had not the slightest doubt that I would be arrested, and tried for murder, if I was successful in my mission. As others before me had done, most recently Terence Mitchell who’d been tried and found guilty, sentenced to prison in northern Wisconsin without the possibility of parole.