The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for biographies .(October 2022) |
Roy Ratcliff | |
---|---|
Personal | |
Born | Roy G. Ratcliff [1] 1947 (age 75–76) Matador, Texas, U.S. |
Religion | Christianity |
Spouse | Susan |
Children | 2 |
Roy G. Ratcliff (born 1947) is an American Christian minister and author. He is best known for ministering to serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin.
Ratcliff grew up primarily in California. After graduating from high school in Wichita, Kansas, he graduated from Oklahoma Christian University in 1970. He and his wife Susan have two grown children. He currently resides in Cottage Grove, Wisconsin. [2]
Ratcliff first visited Dahmer in prison in April 1994 and baptized him as a Christian [3] on May 10 in a whirlpool originally meant to treat injured prisoners. After this, Ratcliff visited Dahmer on a weekly basis, providing him with spiritual counseling and leading him in Bible study sessions. Six months later, Dahmer was murdered by a fellow prisoner Christopher Scarver.
Ratcliff conducted his funeral service on December 2, 1994, and eulogized him:
Jeff confessed to me his great remorse for his crimes. He wished he could do something for the families of his victims to make it right, but there was nothing he could do. He turned to God because there was no one else to turn to, but he showed great courage in his daring to ask the question, ‘Is heaven for me too?’ I think many people are resentful of him for asking that question. But he dared to ask, and he dared to believe the answer.
Ratcliff later wrote a book about his experiences titled Dark Journey, Deep Grace: Jeffrey Dahmer's Story of Faith (2006). [4]
Since ministering to Dahmer, Ratcliff has discipled prisoners in a number of Wisconsin prisons.
Baptism is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost invariably with the use of water. It may be performed by sprinkling or pouring water on the head, or by immersing in water either partially or completely, traditionally three times, once for each person of the Trinity. The synoptic gospels recount that John the Baptist baptised Jesus. Baptism is considered a sacrament in most churches, and as an ordinance in others. Baptism according to the Trinitarian formula, which is done in most mainstream Christian denominations, is seen as being a basis for Christian ecumenism, the concept of unity amongst Christians. Baptism is also called christening, although some reserve the word "christening" for the baptism of infants. In certain Christian denominations, such as the Catholic Churches, Eastern Orthodox Churches, Oriental Orthodox Churches, Assyrian Church of the East, and Lutheran Churches, baptism is the door to church membership, with candidates taking baptismal vows. It has also given its name to the Baptist churches and denominations.
Born again, or to experience the new birth, is a phrase, particularly in evangelicalism, that refers to a "spiritual rebirth", or a regeneration of the human spirit. In contrast to one's physical birth, being "born again" is distinctly and separately caused by the operation of the Holy Spirit, and it is not caused by baptism in water. It is a core doctrine of the denominations of the Anabaptist, Moravian, Methodist, Baptist, Plymouth Brethren and Pentecostal Churches along with all other evangelical Christian denominations. All of these Churches strongly believe Jesus's words in the Gospels: "You must be born again before you can see, or enter, the Kingdom of Heaven" stated in John 3:6-7 in the bible. Their doctrines also mandate that to be both "born again" and "saved", one must have a personal and intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.
Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer, also known as the Milwaukee Cannibal or the Milwaukee Monster, was an American serial killer and sex offender who killed and dismembered seventeen males between 1978 and 1991. Many of his later murders involved necrophilia, cannibalism, and the permanent preservation of body parts—typically all or part of the skeleton.
Infant baptism is the practice of baptising infants or young children. Infant baptism is also called christening by some faith traditions.
Christopher J. Scarver Sr. is an American convicted triple-murderer who is best known for the racially motivated murders of his fellow inmates Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer, as well as Jesse Anderson, a murderer, at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Wisconsin in 1994. Scarver used a 20-inch (51 cm) metal bar which he had removed from a piece of exercise equipment in the prison weight room to beat and fatally wound Dahmer and Anderson. Scarver was sentenced to two further life sentences for the murders of Dahmer and Anderson, after being sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Steve Lohman in 1990.
Hybristophilia is a paraphilia involving sexual interest in and attraction to those who commit crimes. The term is derived from the Greek word hubrizein (ὑβρίζειν), meaning "to commit an outrage against someone", and philo, meaning "having a strong affinity/preference for".
The means of grace in Christian theology are those things through which God gives grace. Just what this grace entails is interpreted in various ways: generally speaking, some see it as God blessing humankind so as to sustain and empower the Christian life; others see it as forgiveness, life, and salvation.
Copycat is a 1995 American psychological thriller film directed by Jon Amiel and starring Sigourney Weaver, Holly Hunter, and Dermot Mulroney. The score was composed by Christopher Young.
The Secret Life: Jeffrey Dahmer is a 1993 American low budget biographical crime drama film directed by David R. Bowen. It stars Carl Crew as Jeffrey Dahmer, an American serial killer, necrophile, and cannibal.
The Sinner's prayer is an evangelical Christian term referring to any prayer of repentance, prayed by individuals who feel sin in their lives and have the desire to form or renew a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. It is a popular prayer in evangelical circles. It is not intended as liturgical like a creed or a confiteor said or chanted within the Catholic Mass, but rather, is intended to be an act of initial conversion to Christianity; at the same time, it is roughly analogous to the Catholic Act of Contrition, though the theology behind each is markedly different, due to the intrinsically different views of salvation between Catholicism and Protestantism. While some Christians see reciting the Sinner's prayer as the moment defining one's salvation, others see it as a beginning step of one's lifelong faith journey.
Dahmer is a 2002 American drama film written and directed by David Jacobson, and co-written by David Birke. A limited theatrical release, it is based on the crimes of Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer, who killed seventeen men and boys in Bath, Ohio and Milwaukee, Wisconsin between 1978 and 1991. It stars Jeremy Renner as Dahmer, and co-stars Artel Great, Matt Newton, Dion Basco and Bruce Davison.
Jesse Michael Anderson was an American convicted murderer. He was murdered alongside the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, by fellow inmate and convicted murderer Christopher Scarver at the Columbia Correctional Institution in 1994.
The Columbia Correctional Institution (CCI) is an adult male maximum-security correctional facility operated by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections Division of Adult Institutions in Portage, Columbia County, Wisconsin. The operating capacity is 541. The average daily population for fiscal year 2018 was 830. Larry Fuchs, the warden, has been in that position since April 2020.
Baptismal regeneration is the name given to doctrines held by the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Lutheran, Anglican churches, and other Protestant denominations which maintain that salvation is intimately linked to the act of baptism, without necessarily holding that salvation is impossible apart from it. Etymologically, the term means "being born again" "through baptism" (baptismal). Etymology concerns the origins and root meanings of words, but these "continually change their meaning, ... sometimes moving out of any recognisable contact with their origin ... It is nowadays generally agreed that current usage determines meaning." While for Reformed theologian Louis Berkhof, "regeneration" and "new birth" are synonymous, Herbert Lockyer treats the two terms as different in meaning in one publication, but in another states that baptism signifies regeneration.
The Last Victim: A True-Life Journey into the Mind of the Serial Killer (1999) is a non-fiction work by author Jason Moss, co-authored with counseling professor Jeffrey Kottler, in which he details his fascination and subsequent correspondence with several notorious American serial killers.
My Friend Dahmer is a 2012 graphic novel and memoir by artist John "Derf" Backderf about his teenage friendship with Jeffrey Dahmer, who later became a serial killer. The book evolved from a 24-page, self-published version by Backderf in 2002.
The Jeffrey Dahmer Files is an independent documentary film about serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer during the summer of his arrest. The film was directed by Chris James Thompson and stars Andrew Swant as Dahmer in fictionalized re-enactment segments which are interwoven with interviews of the medical examiner assigned to the case, the lead detective, and Dahmer's next door neighbor.
Hart D. Fisher is an American horror crime author, comic book writer and publisher best known for creating a comic book about Jeffrey Dahmer and for founding Boneyard Press.
My Friend Dahmer is a 2017 American biographical psychological drama film written and directed by Marc Meyers about American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. The film is based on the 2012 graphic novel of the same name by cartoonist John "Derf" Backderf, who had been friends with Dahmer in high school in the 1970s, until the time Dahmer began his killing spree in 1978. The film stars Ross Lynch as Dahmer, Alex Wolff as Derf, Dallas Roberts as Jeffrey's father, and Anne Heche as Jeffrey's mother.
A Father's Story is a memoir written by Lionel Dahmer, father of American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. The book was published in 1994 by William Morrow and Company.
38 Peter said to them, "Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.