Tag: violence

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Journal News Commentary Wisdom

Our Hearts are Broken

 

A wreath for grieving for the slain

A Christian singer is gunned down while signing autographs at the end of the concert by a gunman who did not know her and came there specifically to kill. Before the weekend is past another gunman, also driving miles to arrive at the end of the night, enters an Orlando club catering to gay men and opens fire with an assault rifle, killing dozens of patrons.  The shock and sadness of such needless, senseless, and depraved violence is deeply disturbing. And it should be.

We should pray

Our first response, is compassion and prayers for the families of victims and for victims facing months of recovery from their wounds.

O God, the brokenness of our world has evidenced itself again in these terrible acts. We pray for those who are grieving that you would comfort their hearts. We pray for those who are recovering from wounds that you would give them strength and healing. We pray that the Spirit of God would move in all of us in order that good may come out of evil. In the name of Jesus who also suffered unjust death, AMEN.

We should decrease availability of weapons for the mentally impaired

Our second response, as a nation needs to continue to be to seek ways to reduce the possibilities of such violence. As always, we will not agree as to the details, but we must work together to make progress on some solutions.

In the case of the Orlando shooter, it looks like from early reporting that officials had sufficient info to know that this man should not have had access to weapons.  Yet he did.  He was even working as a security guard–scary thought, but not surprising. Employers tell me they cannot find out anything useful from anybody for references.  Everyone is worried about being sued.   So people who should be flagged in that way are not.  His employer probably had no idea he had been investigated twice.  Stronger flagging of those who have shown they are dangerous individuals is needed.

Again, early reporting shows possible mental health issues for the Orlando shooter.   This also should have put restrictions upon his ability to obtain weapons but it did not.   This is the single most important change that we need to make as a country.  It is not without risks to individual liberty, as mental health risk is very difficult to define.  Yet, the evidence from all the mass shootings is piling up and becoming overwhelming.  Most of them are done by people of known impaired mental health who still had access to weapons.

We should increase our fear of God

Third, I repeat my insistence that one component of the problem is a lack of the fear of God in our land.   The Bible clearly teaches that God will judge murderers of this kind.  They are punching their own ticket to hell by their violence against the innocent (Matt. 5:21, 22; 1 John 3:15; Rev. 21:8; 22:15). God values life.  God loves the people in the human family.   Jesus revealed Satan as the one who loves murder, calling him a “murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44).   The lake of fire is a picture John uses to describe Satan’s ultimate punishment (Rev. 20:10, 14).  And it also describes the reward of those who practice Satan’s behavior.  But if there is no fear of God in the land, then potential shooters do not realize that it is not over when they are felled by the SWAT team.  Their accountability has only begun.  Listen to Jesus.

 “I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more.  But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him” (Luke 12:4-5 NIV 2011). 

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Journal News Commentary Wisdom

Tragedy in Oregon is Symptomatic

Mental health issues and guns do not mix
Mental health issues and guns do not mix

 

 

Name the heroes not the criminal

Our hearts are grieving for the families affected by the tragic shootings in Oregon.   Once again, the ordinary people who were there became extraordinary heroes.     On Facebook, one person nominated as the most courageous person in America the second person in that room who was asked by the shooter if they were a Christian and answered yes anyway.   I would like to know about that true martyr for our faith.   I also applaud the Army vet who charged the shooter.  I pray for Chris Mintz’s recovery from his wounds.   These are the names I want on my lips, not the name of the shooter.

 

But learn from situation

As unpleasant as the task may be, it is important for the prevention of further such incidents that we learn about the perpetrator.    Once again a person whose mental health was questionable had unwise access to guns and used them against innocent people in a place where he would not encounter armed resistance.  He wanted to achieve media notoriety.  I learn from the news of his hatred of Christianity.  I believe he was also from a single parent home, an additional risk factor.  In an eerie parallel to Sandy Hook, his mother was fascinated with guns.  His actions also indicate character issues, lack of respect for others, no compassion, and insensitivity to bloodshed and violence.

 

Mental health is a difficult issue

People will wring their hands and ask, “What can be done?”   Politicians will point to gun control.  Indeed, there is work to be done in the area of screening access to firearms for those whose mental health records are questionable.   But that is a very difficult agenda in a land where we cherish individual freedom.   Families cannot even get help for those whom they know are mentally ill because the sufferer hasn’t done anything illegal yet.   By the time they have it is too late either for them or for others.  Similarly, families and friends of Alzheimer victims are powerless until either the sufferer is hospitalized for other reasons or a caretaker is hospitalized for injuries, even though the ability to choose of their loved one has declined past the point of safety for all concerned.  The issue of mental health in America is much broader than just the gun control aspect.

 

Learning to value the valuable not the familiar

But almost no one will talk about the deeper issues involved here.  Why is a mentally ill person like this shooter thinking that it is more desirable to become infamous than to remain one of the crowd?  Might it be partly because we as a culture give too much adulation and credit to those who happen to appear regularly on television?    Who even knows the names of those who found movements of charity?    Who notices those who head up cancer research?    Teachers are more likely to be blamed for low scores than given credit for dealing with increasing numbers of special-needs students.  Our society does not know its real heroes!   It adores people whose faces simply appear in movies and on TV rather than sorting out those whose character and achievements truly deserve recognition.  There is something very wrong with how our culture rewards people based only on media exposure.

 

Media that considers its effect, not just its click numbers

I have been pleased with the effort of some news organizations to follow the lead of the Oregon community where the shooting happened and attempt to front page the names of victims and heroes while barely mentioning the perpetrator.   This is a wholesome trend because it considers the effects of the way the news is covered.  It counters the usual trend where media is driven by clicks, not by value.   To make a lasting difference, there will need to be leaders in media and government that desire to set a course for the moral uplift of America.   Negative portrayal of Christians in media today has to be contributing to the culture’s sad turn toward ungodliness and rejection of the Christian heritage of our country.

 

Needed: A resurgence of the fear of God

I have also noted before and repeat again that one thing that needs to change in our society in order for the culture of violence to change is this.  There needs to be a revival of the fear of God including teaching about the accounting that each person must give to God after they die.   People who kill others and then commit suicide think it is over.  Jesus clearly taught us that it is not over (John 5:28, 29)!  Our accountability for our actions has just begun.  We may have escaped earthly accountability but we cannot escape God’s judgment.  “We know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” and again, “The Lord will judge his people.” It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:30-31 NIV 2011).

 

Violent programming programs brains for violence

Finally, to change the violent climate of our country, we must stop loving violence in our entertainment.   The Bible warns that cultures that love violence will be dogged by it.   “Since you did not hate bloodshed, bloodshed will pursue you” (Ezek. 35:6 NIV). When children grow up watching hundreds of murders on television and committing virtual murders in video venues every day, why should we be surprised if some people on the margins whose ability to separate fiction and reality is impaired and whose ethical intelligence is very low commit real world mayhem?   Is it not probable that if violence had not been pre-programmed in by media habits, then their acting out would manifest entirely differently?

 

 

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Journal News Commentary Wisdom

Blood and guts films morally offensive

I cannot believe that after the massacre at Sandy Hook, this chainsaw massacre movie can be number one.    

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/01/06/chainsaw-3-d-carves-out-no-1-debut-with-23m-at-box-office/

Just from the article’s description, people of good moral intelligence should find fare like this disturbing at least and after Sandy Hook, downright disgusting.   It should have hardly a cult following and only among the unthinking and uncaring.  The fact that it is number one is a terrible indictment of our society.   God has warned us that those who fail to hate bloodshed will find it pursuing them (Ezekiel 35:6).  

In my view those who make these kinds of movies are on the same moral level as pimps, drug dealers, gambling house owners and others who make money at the expense of the vices of others.    Jesus himself warned that offenses (things that cause others to stumble) will come but that at the judgment it will not go well for those who bring them.

 “Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come! (Mt 18:7  NIV 2011)

 

   

 

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Journal News Commentary Wisdom

Movement against violent games gaining traction

I am so happy to see that others are recognizing the need to do something about the violence in media.  I am praising God for the change of heart of this 12-year-old middle school student from Connecticut. He changed his mind and behavior after attending the funeral of one of the victims of the Connecticut massacre.   This article from the Hartford newspaper tells the story

http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/newtown-sandy-hook-school-shooting/hc-newtown-united-sandy-hook-shooting-1220-20121219,0,2500252.story.

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Journal News Commentary Wisdom

Yes, We Need to Change

 

http://www.christianpost.com/news/we-must-change-obama-says-about-school-shooting-86754/

I think President Obama is right.  Our society as a whole must change if carnage like we have experienced four times in his four year presidency is to be stopped.   The key question is:  How must our country change?  As a pastor, writing from my perspective, I suggest the following three practical ways to change as a transforming start.

Believe in Hell

1.  We must get back to the genuine fear of God that acknowledges that we are responsible to God after we die for what we do while we are alive.   The Bible is clear that there is a hell and Jesus said plainly that those who do evil will be condemned (John 5:29).  Sad to say, the suffering of murderers like Adam Lanza has only begun.  The Apostle John wrote simply, “You know that no murderer has eternal life in him” (1 Jn 3:15 NIV)   Think about the ethical company of a murderer in the Bible and what happens to them after death.  For example, “We also know that law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers — and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine  that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me” (1 Ti 1:9-11 NIV)  In the Bible’s final book, murderers are included with others in such company  in the list of those condemned.   “The cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars — their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death” (Rev. 21:8 NIV).   The longer we indulge in practical atheism with a corresponding lack of after-life responsibility, the more people will believe the devil’s lie that they can commit suicide after murder and escape consequences.   It is not so.

Corollary A.  This also means preachers like me need to say more about hell.   One of the reasons people don’t believe in it much is that preachers don’t talk about it much.   In my grandparent’s time and before, preaching `hell-fire and brimstone’ was popular.  The pendulum has swung too far the other way and now it is seldom mentioned.   That needs some correction.    Jesus taught, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Mt 10:28 NIV).

 

Fewer Divorces

2.   We must acknowledge and act upon the truth that divorce makes children, including older adolescents like Adam Lanza more vulnerable to maladjustment.   As Christians, we acknowledge that sometimes divorce is going to happen, but it is happening way too much and without recognition of the consequences to children.  We have deceived ourselves as a society into thinking that we can divorce without consequences to our children’s development.  This assumption is not Biblical.   In Malachi, God says about the heterosexual couple, “Has not [the Lord] made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.    “I hate divorce,” says the Lord God of Israel, “and I hate a man’s covering himself with violence as well as with his garment,” says the Lord Almighty”  (Mal 2:15-16).   Why does God picture divorce as opposed to the goal of godly progeny?   Because it is the truth as any single Mom can attest and many sociological studies have confirmed that children have a much harder time doing well in life when the parents are not both present and on the job together.    We will not successfully address the problem of off-the-wall violent young adults until we address the broken homes that contribute to their pain.  We need to acknowledge that our selfishness in having it our way and refusing to seek counsel for reconciliation or refusing to bend, our hardness of heart as Jesus put it, is part of the problem.   

 

Bloodshed in Media is Not Entertaining

3.  As a society, we must stop enjoying violence in entertainment.  A society that makes heroes on film and in video games of people who spatter blood everywhere will sooner or later be afflicted by real violence of the kind we have seen.  Since God hates bloodshed, it cannot be our better side that calls bloodshed in media entertainment.    Morally undeveloped individuals tend to follow unreal fantasy heroes, including violent ones from film and video.   The more plentiful and highly acclaimed this kind of ‘hero’ is, the more likely to attract a low moral intelligence look-alike for real.  We can all honor the victims of Sandy Hook by returning all violent video games and not attending any movies with predominant shoot-em-up, blood-letting themes.   If we did that, soon we would have better fare at the box office and among the gaming apps.   When ancient Israel became a violent nation, God said to them, “Since you did not hate bloodshed, bloodshed will pursue you” (Eze 35:6).   If we truly hate what we saw in Connecticut and Virginia Tech, etc., then we have a clear consumer choice to make.     

 

Just these 3 changes would make a difference

Certainly these are not the only issues that need to be discussed after what has happened.  How we handle mental health issues in the family, access of the mentally unstable to guns in their family circle,  security at schools, jobs and job training for marginally employable young men, these also need further discussion.  But they are not my focus.  I believe that the three changes I have suggested would make a huge difference.  The change will not come overnight.  But these three modifications in our beliefs and behaviors would transform our culture in ways that would drastically reduce the incidence of horrendous violence. 

 

 

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Journal News Commentary

Another wrong-headed Supreme Court decision!

The Supreme Court

I could not believe that the Supreme Court of our land ruled that extremely violent video games for children are protected by the First Amendment!    This is an extreme libertarian position on a par with those who advocate the legalization of illegal drugs,  nonpayment of income taxes, etc.    Both of the dissenting judges, Breyer and Thomas, made allowance for the common sense need of parents and government to take responsibility for the effect of that which is allowed.   One of the fundamental responsibilities of government is to show some responsibility for the shaping of the future, at the very least, for the avoidance of destructive influences.   We are willing to do this in areas involving safety, pornography and obscenity, it seems to me that inciting violence –which is what these games do — is definitely an extension of safety.   The writer of the following article agrees with me.     We as a country seem to be moving more and more in the direction of freedom without the balance of responsibility.

As Alexander Solzhenitsyn observed, “It is time in the West to defend not so much human rights as human obligations.”    We want to be all about rights, but we don’t want to hear about responsibility or morality.   We want complete freedom of choice but no accountability as to the consequences of those choices whether it is our own choices, or the allowances that government makes. This is license not true freedom.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2011/06/scalia-wrong-thomas-right-violent-video-games