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Church Where Shooting Occurred Fosters Paranoia, Professor Says
A man who went on a rampage last Saturday, killing seven members of a suburban Milwaukee congregation meeting in a hotel before committing suicide, belonged to an unusual, cult-like denomination that fosters a sense of “apocalyptic paranoia” with a heightened sense that the end of the world is near, says a Baptist professor of theology.

Police said 44-year-old computer programmer Terry Ratzmann fired 22 bullets into the gathering of the Living Church of God before turning the gun on himself.

Investigators aren’t sure what prompted the attack, but some media reports quoted people who knew Ratzmann as saying he had been upset after recently hearing a taped speech by founding evangelist Roderick C. Meredith that told people to prepare for the end times and major economic upheavals.

Meredith started the church in the mid-1990s. It is one of more than 200 splinter offshoots of the Worldwide Church of God, started by the late famed radio evangelist Herbert W. Armstrong, whose empire included Plain Truth magazine and “The World Tomorrow!” radio broadcasts....