In the last month, we have seen great tragedy. I pray for those who lost friends, students, teachers, fathers, sons and daughters in these horrible acts of violence.
In Gilroy, California, 19 year old suspect Santino William Legan, murdered three — Stephen Romero (6), Keyla Salazar (13) and Trevor Deon Irby (25) — and wounded 13 when he opened fire at the Gilroy Garlic Festival on July 28.
On the morning of Aug. 3, 21-year-old suspect Patrick Crusius walked into an El Paso, Texas, Walmart and murdered 22 people: Javier Rodriguez (15), Andre Anchondo (23), Jordan Anchondo (24), Leonard Cipeda Campos (41), Ivan Hilierto Manzano (46), Maribel Hernandez (56), Elsa Libera Marquez (57), María Eugenia Legarreta Rothe (58), Arturo Benavides (60), Jorge Calvillo García (61), Gloria Irma Marquez (61), Margie Reckard (63), David Alvah Johnson (63), Alexander Gerhard Hoffman (66), Sara Esther Regalado (66), Adolfo Cerros Hernandez (68), Raul Flores (77), Maria Flores (77), Juan Velázquez (77), Teresa Sánchez de Freitas (82), Angelina Englisbee (86) and Luis Alfonzo Juarez (90). Twenty-four others were injured in the attack.
In Dayton, Ohio, in the early morning hours of Aug. 4, suspect 24 year old Connor Betts opened fire outside the entrance to Ned Peppers Bar in the Oregon Historic District, murdering nine — sister Megan Betts (22), Nicholas Cumer (25), Thomas McNichols (25), Lois Oglesby (27), Logan Turner (30), Beatrice Warren-Curtis (36), Saeed Saleh (38), Monica Brickhouse (39) and Derrick Fudge (57) — and injuring 27 others (14 from gunfire).
The first questions we all ask might be, why? What would make someone wake up one morning, load their weapons, get in their car and drive to a public gathering and open fire on innocent people; intending to murder as many as possible?
The perpetrators made a choice that most of us can’t even imagine. They seem to have followed a chain of thinking that glorifies darkness, hate, or revenge for some perceived wrong and decided that the best course of action is to enter a public place and randomly murder. People are shopping for “back to school” items, they are celebrating outdoor festivals; events that have happened countless times over generations. Events that have occurred peacefully for generations within the protection of less restrictive weapons laws. But these assassins have come to a personally motivating conclusion that these sweet and innocent people must die.
This thinking is so foreign and dangerous to civil society, that we must find a way to keep it from happening again. There must be some rational reason for this violence. Perhaps outside influences like TV, movies or video games; because no young man would come to these choices on their own. Perhaps the guns are to blame. Yes! That’s it, since we can’t imagine how these young men could carry out these heinous acts, it must be the guns. Let’s pour all our outrage against guns because we don’t know what else to do and this cannot happen again.
I understand why many would want to blame guns. It’s an easy answer. If we can deal with this one problem and we can prevent such horrible things won’t happen again. The slightly more cynical among us might suggest that blaming such a tragedy on a failure or perceived weakness in your opponent might give an advantage for those seeking election. I prefer to hope that we are all sincerely trying to keep this horror from happening again by using the tools we think are most likely to succeed.
However, I wonder if there could be other contributing factors. Contributing factors that might point out or own cultural decay. Maybe the problem is in our own philosophy?
Our contemporary society, in a proud arrogance, has attempted to replace God. We are worshiping gods of modernism, relativism, inclusion, climate change, progressive and enlightened thinking, secular humanism, and science. How long has it been since young people:
- have been discouraged from premarital sexual relations
- prayed in school
- have seen homosexuality as undesirable
- have had faithful leadership that they saw as heroes or worthy of imitating
- learned that America was founded on a belief in morality and religious virtue based on Judeo-Christian principles
- learned that freedom of religion doesn’t mean freedom from religion
- learned about Christianity in school
- learned that there are God-given laws that carry consequences if violated and blessings if followed
In short, as recent generations come up, they have received confusing and complex teaching. Rather than adopting boundaries based on biblical principles (external, immutable boundaries), today’s psychologists classify boundaries as relative.
“Boundaries are essentially about understanding and respecting our own needs, and being respectful and understanding of the needs of others,” explains Stephanie Dowd, a clinical psychologist, “and for that to work, we need to be putting a big emphasis on helping kids develop greater empathy and self-awareness.”
https://childmind.org/article/teaching-kids-boundaries-empathy/
If boundaries are dynamic constraints based on our own and others evolving needs, they aren’t boundaries any more. In fact, they are confusing and unpredictable. Where is an external moral compass or plumb-line that we can all rely on? Instead, we have to dynamically determine within the current context of interpersonal relationships, local customs and evolving laws, what is and is not appropriate behavior. Then, even when crossing well-established relativistic social boundaries such as theft and assault, adolescent children don’t suffer consequences. Rather, their records are sealed and no history of their adolescent criminal behavior is visible. We treat sin like it didn’t even happen with no consequences.
So, if you grow up in an environment where you are nurtured and not corrected, where your behavior is based on relativism, what path do you choose? When you grow up in a culture where God’s laws are regularly ignored or intentionally violated, what do you know of consequences to your actions? In light of our new enlightened philosophy, I suggest that young people make a choice that seems right to them at the moment, irrespective of what others believe. What choice can they make since there is no way to know what others believe; there is no external absolute truth any more.
As I consider our social decline over recent generations, I’m reminded of the analogy about a piano tuner. The story says that a good piano tuner tunes against a true note generated by a pitch fork or by a finely calibrated tone generator. That sets the tune of the piano to a known correct pitch. However, if you tune 5 pianos thusly; the first to a perfect pitch generator, the second to the first, the third to the second, the fourth to the third and the fifth to the fourth, the fifth piano is hopelessly out of tune. So it goes with relativistic morals.
16 And someone came to Him and said, “Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may obtain eternal life?” 17 And He said to him, “Why are you asking Me about what is good? There is only One who is good; but if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” 18 Then he *said to Him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not commit murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; 19 Honor your father and mother; and You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Matthew 19:16-19 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+19&version=NASB