It is time for me to weigh in

It is time for me to weigh in on the tragic events that we experienced both in Newtown,  Connecticut, and Rochester, New York in those days before Christmas, and the national dialogue that has since been brought forth regarding how we can prevent such things from happening again.

It is not as much the loss of twenty-some innocent lives that bothers us; everyone will die of something. And unfortunately, children die every day.  It is not just the great aching loss felt by their families and community that causes us to mourn. In fact, how different would be our response if they had died in a school bus crash instead? No, what bothers us more than this is the blatant immorality of the senseless act that took them. We presume that these kindergarteners were pre-accountability innocents and they are now with their heavenly Father. Yet we deplore the repulsive morally devoid act that took them from us.

And as if this were not enough, within  a few days there came another senseless, morally repulsive act in Rochester, New York, in which firefighters were lured to their deaths for no apparent reason by a murderer lying in wait for their arrival at a fire he had set.

This has brought about a national, perhaps even international dialogue about gun control. This is probably appropriate. Yet we seem once again to be more willing to restrict the instruments of this immoral violence than to face the immorality itself.

After the tragedy at Newtown Connecticut, and the other in New York, it seems that we as a nation are looking within ourselves for a solution. We are quickly ready to penalize the honest people for what evil people have done. Because we have failed to recognize that evil exists and that we believe that we are all good, we do not understand evil when it manifests itself.

It is not the duck hunters or the deer hunters or the squirrel hunters of this world who are committing these acts of immoral violence with their guns. It is the James Holmeses and the Adam Lanzas and the Dylan Klebolds and the William Spanglers who commit these acts, but we have all had a part in creating the society in which has brought them forth. 

Have you noticed the recurrence of the word “immoral” in this writing? I believe that our nation has lost its moral compass. While for a long time I have had a problem with the notion that we should expect unbelievers to behave like believers, the fact remains that this nation used to subscribe to what we call the Judeo-Christian ethic. The superior aspect of this was that we looked to something (Someone) higher than ourselves for our moral standard. Since abandoning this Judeo-Christian ethic, we have adopted a morality that looks within ourselves for our standard and our morality now is about what seems right to each of us. I do not doubt that in some twisted way, all of the above named persons believed that what they did was right (or at least that it was not truly wrong).

I do not have all the answers about how to fix this problem which our nation is facing, but I am sure that God does. I would, however, like to offer a couple of suggestions based on Jesus’ reaction to a similar incident in His time:

“About this time Jesus was informed that Pilate had murdered some people from Galilee as they were offering sacrifices at the Temple. “Do you think those Galileans were worse sinners than all the other people from Galilee?” Jesus asked. “Is that why they suffered? Not at all! And you will perish, too, unless you repent of your sins and turn to God.”     Luke 13:1-3 NLT

Just as the people that Jesus talked about did not die for their own sins, but because of Pilate’s sin, so the twenty-seven who died at Newtown died, not because of their own sin but the sin of Adam Lanza. The simple meaning that I take away from Jesus’ words is that we as a nation need to turn to God (yes, I left out the word “repent” as it is almost universally misunderstood in modern times. We will talk about that at a later time). We need to ask His protection. We need to follow His ways and we need to bring His guidance into our decision making process. Instead of trying to put a muzzle on His spokespersons we need to let them speak out and we need to listen to what they say. If we do these things I think we will have made a good start in our journey toward finding that solution to our moral dilemma.

Thanks for sharing this moment with me today.