Dec 12
21
The slaughter of Newtown’s children: What can we say?
From ChristianGovernance eletter – December 20, 2012
I have not had the time to read a great deal of the millions of words of commentary and analysis about this massacre. The dominant themes keep getting repeated, but there might be some points that don’t get much exposure. It wasn’t until the 18th that I saw something about the primary point I made from the outset – the need for “Divorce Control”. This was a reference to the fact that the killer came from a broken home. That is obviously not the sum total of analysis on this incident. Analysts and commentators who ignore this reality, however, or emphasize less important matters – including warehouse schooling and gun ownership – are very shoddy, to say the least.
Considering the prevalence of illegitimate divorce and deviant family forms, even in the Church, too many Christians are becoming comfortable with this reality. As a result, we are joining non-Christians in thinking that “non-traditional” family forms aren’t the end of the world, and don’t need to be considered a possible causal factor for social deviancy or deviant child behaviour. Thinking like this doesn’t offer a hope of intelligently analysing tragedies like this one in Newtown, Connecticut.
We won’t provide an exhaustive analysis of this slaughter or of society in light of it. We have several points to make. Reader feedback is most welcome.
* Many people have said that this incident was irrational. That is a lie. In fact, it’s a contemptible lie. It’s part of the Evolutionist ideology of chance. The atheist worldview FAILS because it can’t provide answers – or it doesn’t want to. The shooter shot his mother in the face, not a neighbour, not a grocery store clerk, not nobody until he got to the school. He shot his mother. There is a reason for that.
* A sibling to this kind of thinking is Christian commentary that is limited to general comments about sin and human nature. Al Mohler’s piece was like this. Perhaps such commentary has its place, but it is very inadequate on its own. People live their lives in the particulars, not as generalistic beings. We sin particularly. Particular causes have particular and different effects on different people. Remaining at the level of generalities when addressing a tragedy like this feels like little more than a “baptized” expression of the irrationality claim. It’s not a Biblical approach because the Bible deals with all our particulars. We can start by asking, “Why did he shoot his mother – in the face?”
* Mental illness: cause célèbre or excuse du jour! The main rationale given for this slaughter so far appears to be mental illness. Mankind is a cowardly, blame-shifting, self-deceived mess. The popularity today of the mental illness diagnosis and the medicalization of problems is simply today’s version of this blame-shifting tendency. Christianity teaches us to emphasize sin and personal responsibility regarding our actions. There may be some legitimate mental illness, but almost all our problems are the result of sin, which is personal irresponsibility of one sort or another. Even many Christians don’t see this because we’ve grown up with this blame-shifting mentality all around us, so it seems normal. It’s NOT. Affirmative action reflects this blame-shifting, responsibility-abdicating mentality. So do “positive rights,” which is fundamental to modern human rights theory. So are calls for gun control. So is the social welfare state, with its theft-based subsidization of envy. So is homosexuality and the modern ethic of “socialist sex”. If we lived what was in our hearts, the two most popular consumer items among today’s adults would be soothers and diapers. And this is the mentality that leads so many to turn immediately to mental illness as an explanation for this massacre instead of a Biblical sin/righteousness framework.
* At ChristianGovernance, we like to say that our understanding of Biblical worldview emphasizes Law and Lordship – the abiding relevance of the Law of God and the Lordship of Christ. I’m told that many people may not appreciate the point made by this language. This incident is a great way to illustrate the point. Most analysis – even that which has been mostly sound, regarding firearms ownership, government schools and family life – has been limited to this horizontal reality of human relationships and issues. There has been practically no discussion of the importance of recognizing and affirming the Lordship of Christ. We have taught ourselves to compartmentalize talk about the Lordship of Christ. At church, we say things such as, “we must love the Giver and not just His gifts.” And we have other similar sayings that make the same point. But when we get into the public square, into politics, into public debate, we abandon this thinking and pretend that we can honour God without explicitly affirming and celebrating the rule of King Jesus over every area of life, including society, culture and civil government. That is indefensible, and we won’t have learned the most important lesson from tragedies like these if we don’t learn to “kiss the Son” (Psalm 2) in every aspect of our lives, both private and public. That’s what respecting both Law and Lordship means.
* Tragedies like this are terrible for Atheism and Evolutionism because normal people recognize something outrageous and hideous about such incidents, but genuine atheists/evolutionists have to say, “So what?” The most scandalous atheists, whom you might find in animal rights groups like PETA, are far more consistent when they ask why we aren’t equally disgusted over hunting or over all those bugs you kill with your car while driving in the countryside after dark? People are looking for answers and justice after a slaughter like this, and Atheism and Evolutionism have nothing satisfactory to offer. People might not like Christianity’s answer, but we have one that resonates because it’s true.
* It has been noted that tragedies far worse than what took place in Newtown are a matter of almost daily and weekly life for children and communities in other parts of the world. Americans, therefore, enjoy a unique luxury of relative peace and justice to be able to feel such outrage when a slaughter like this takes place. This experience is a testimony to God, and to the comprehensive claims of Christ worked out in history and culture through Christendom and the subsequent Protestant Reformation that made it’s way to North America. Many modern Christians do not have a theology of Christendom, so they cannot celebrate this blessing from God in the face of such tragedies, let alone use this understanding to provide another way to point to Christ and healing in response to such misery.
More could be said in light of this slaughter, and we might say more later, but we’ll leave it at that for now. We would be glad to receive your comments and publish some of them in subsequent issues of our eletter.