This is a must watch documentary. Its about a formal career united States Marine Corps officer who want from hating a religion (Islam)to planning to blow up local masjid to becoming a devoted Muslim.
His name was Richard "Mac" McKinney, and he was there not to worship but to destroy, CNN reported. He was a former US Marine who had developed a hatred toward Islam during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. His fury deepened when he returned home to Muncie to see how Muslims had settled into what he called his city, and even sent their children to sit next to his daughter at her elementary school.
Unable to contain his anger, he went to the Islamic center that day in 2009 on what he saw as his final mission. He was going to plant a bomb at the mosque in hopes of killing or wounding hundreds of Muslims. He was on a scouting mission to pick a location to hide his bomb and to gather intelligence that would validate his assumption that Islam was a murderous ideology
"I told people that Islam was a cancer; and I was the surgeon to cure it," he says.
But when McKinney entered the mosque, he encountered a form of resistance that he had not planned for. Something happened that day that would change him in a way he never expected.
The people whose lives he intended to take would end up saving his life.
McKinney and the mosque's members built 'an impossible bridge' to one another What happened to McKinney at the mosque is so dramatic that it sounds like something from a movie. And in fact, it is.
McKinney's transformation is the subject of a riveting documentary short called "Stranger at the Gate." The film, which won a special jury prize at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival, recounts how McKinney abandoned his plot and ended up converting to Islam and embracing a surprising role at the mosque.
His name was Richard "Mac" McKinney, and he was there not to worship but to destroy, CNN reported. He was a former US Marine who had developed a hatred toward Islam during combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. His fury deepened when he returned home to Muncie to see how Muslims had settled into what he called his city, and even sent their children to sit next to his daughter at her elementary school.
Unable to contain his anger, he went to the Islamic center that day in 2009 on what he saw as his final mission. He was going to plant a bomb at the mosque in hopes of killing or wounding hundreds of Muslims. He was on a scouting mission to pick a location to hide his bomb and to gather intelligence that would validate his assumption that Islam was a murderous ideology
"I told people that Islam was a cancer; and I was the surgeon to cure it," he says.
But when McKinney entered the mosque, he encountered a form of resistance that he had not planned for. Something happened that day that would change him in a way he never expected.
The people whose lives he intended to take would end up saving his life.
McKinney and the mosque's members built 'an impossible bridge' to one another What happened to McKinney at the mosque is so dramatic that it sounds like something from a movie. And in fact, it is.
McKinney's transformation is the subject of a riveting documentary short called "Stranger at the Gate." The film, which won a special jury prize at the 2022 Tribeca Film Festival, recounts how McKinney abandoned his plot and ended up converting to Islam and embracing a surprising role at the mosque.