True Believer: The Unsolved Murder of Elizabeth Mackintosh

I was a student at Covenant theological seminary when this happened. Ironically, my father was a detective on the major Case squad for St. Louis County and was involved in the investigation until his retirement in 1992. Interesting to go back and revisit this experience all these years later.

Ruth is a pretty bad journalist in real life so it translates to this podcast. Lazy ethical journalism.

I was a student at Covenant Seminary from 2014 - 2017, and heard about the murder through a co-worker while I was there. However, I never knew the details and so this podcast was really helpful to learn more. The hosts seemed to be pretty honest and fair with their reporting, even correcting themselves at times, which I appreciated. However in their commentaries I often felt they were a bit unfair in their judgments toward the Seminary and the hosts often seemed to have a personal axe to grind against the PCA. I wouldn’t defend everything the PCA has done, though like Kyle said in the podcast, I think the murder case and the PCA issues are two separate discussions. All in all, it’s very convenient to be able to judge people and institutions 30 years after the event from the comfort of your arm chair, according to 2024 cultural standards, and not have to grapple with the horror, trauma and extremely difficult decisions that had to be made. One thing that bothered me is that they seemed to insinuate the Seminary didn’t care to remember Elizabeth or talk about her murder possibly because she was a “woman”; and attributing this due to Covenant’s being a “conservative” Seminary, and portraying the Seminary in some sort of chauvinistic light. This was just a stupid insinuation to me, and definitely seemed influenced more by the podcast hosts’ personal axe to grind against the PCA. A much more likely explanation for the Seminary not wanting to talk about it is 1) this was probably such a traumatic event for everyone at the time and continually talking about it would have felt like digging into an open wound 2) The event probably struck fear in lots of students and potential students at the time, and the case still not being solved would have created even more insecurity among people 3) Since the case is still open and some suspects and suspect families are still alive, I can imagine people wanting to be very careful about things they say, so as not to potentially slander or bring harm to an innocent person. I’m not saying whether or not the Seminary handled all these issues the best way, though I think it’s a better explanation for their silence, as opposed to saying it’s because “Elizabeth was a woman.” While I can’t personally speak for the Seminary 30 years ago, I can say that during my time at Covenant I met some of the wisest, most godly and gracious people I’ve ever known. Jerram Barrs, for example, is one of the most authentic and gracious persons you’ll ever meet - I learned so much from him. It is definitely a grace-filled, Gospel centered Seminary with lots of great professors and faculty. There are certainly problems in the PCA and every church for that matter, and sometimes these sin problems are diabolical, pure evil - as in the case of this murder case. And these diabolical sins that get covered up in the church need to be exposed to the light as quickly as possible. And so series like this can definitely help in this. However I think the commentary could be more fair / more realistic - I think even the hosts admitted that this doesn’t show the full picture of the PCA, both good and bad. I would personally say that for every bad apple Christian or pastor in the church that people love to talk about, I could name 10 amazing Christians and pastors that nobody ever talks about. And for every abuse scandal inside the church I could tell you 20 more abuse scandals outside the church in governments or other institutions. The only difference is that the church has such a high standard of transparency and integrity that Jesus calls us to, that its hypocrisy is more easily criticized (and our hypocrisy should be exposed! Because this is what Jesus did). In other religious or non-religious cultures, however, where such high standards of integrity and morality don’t exist, it’s harder to criticize. In the Islamic culture where I live, for example, sin and evil is usually always covered up and denied - sometimes for hundreds of years. Often times you can get in big trouble with the govt for speaking out! Only within cultures influenced by Christianity, however, have I seen on a large scale, people and institutions exposing sin, admitting wrong and turning from it; and I think that’s due to the high level of morality and integrity Jesus calls his followers to. Thus, I would say our privilege to criticize Christian institutions is ultimately thanks to Christianity, which calls people to such a high level of morality and integrity. All that to say, not trying to minimize the sin and abuse within the church - we need to expose and correct it! But I think you also need to be realistic about the nature of evil in the world as well as inside yourself; and also not be so naive as to think it only happens inside the church - it’s everywhere. We’re all capable of doing the worst given the circumstances, and only Jesus can save us from ourselves.

God held nothing back in his inspired word that would protect the reputations of his family and his followers. He was truthful because their reputations were NEVER the point. Why is the Church so guarded? Is it Gods glory we seek or our own? Who is worth sacrificing in name of our own glory? Elizabeth Mackintosh? The wives and children of angry and violent men?