Blood of the Innocents

In December 1997 in Paducah KY, a young student walked into his school with a problem. As a result of his state of mind, 3 innocent persons were killed and 5 wounded.

Almost a year later near Jonesboro, two young boys set off the fire alarm at their school and opened fire when everyone began filing out of the school; 5 were killed and another 11 wounded.

Though these two incidents were tragic enough, the nation was rudely awakened when in April 1999 two boys walked into Columbine High School in Colorado and opened fire, killing 13 and wounding 24 others before finally taking their own lives. Since May 1927 when 45 children were killed and another 58 wounded in Bath Township MI, this was the worst disaster of its kind. This kind of attack provoked all kinds of questions about parental authority and responsibility, school responsibility, our culture, our society, gun control, and a host of other issues. Now, it seemed, the nation was ready to get serious.

Just this past Friday a 9th grader entered into a school in Cazenovia WI and shot the school’s principal. Though there were no others killed or wounded, the principal died later as a result of the inflicted wounds.

Each of these incidents are in themselves tragic, but I do remember that the Jonesboro shooting hit a little close to home probably for all of us because the shooters were so young and this took place literally a little too close to home. The most tragic and common denominator in each of these shootings, with the exception of the 1927 MI shooting, is that it was children who committed these terrible crimes.

It might be notable to some social scientists as to why these boys decided to take such drastic measures but for most of the rest of us, it should only be notable that these were children who shot and killed children. Randomly.

What could possibly possess children to do such things? Why does the sanctity of life mean so precious little to these and so many other children? And since children learn best by watching, what are we as a society doing that would lead children to believe that such violence is going to solve any of their problems or that life is so cheap and expendable?

Now I know that it is the typical “bleeding heart liberal” thinking that seems to suggest that these boys are not to blame, that it was society or bad parenting or poverty or a host of other problems that many of us have also endured without deciding to end someone’s life. I think, however, there may be more to this than we can possibly imagine, and it is more likely that we can speculate from now until kingdom come and never fully know what can provoke such extreme acts.

I have a theory that keeps coming back to the front of my mind whenever I offer prayers after such tragedies that have led many to believe that I’m really reaching, but I ask only that you indulge me.

In 1973 in the name of “privacy rights”, the United State Supreme Court in the infamous Roe vs. Wade case decided that women had unrestricted rights to an abortion. Since that time there have been in excess of 40 million unborn children in this country alone who never saw the light of day. Yet unlike other social issues that were controversial in their own rights and in their own times, abortion today is likely THE hot button issue that divides us as a nation and even as a Church. It is also an issue that we are very vocal about consistently, so it is an issue that is discussed and argued publicly and often. EVERYONE knows about it. Think about this: for everyone under the age of 33, legalized abortion has been the law of the land their entire lives.

In this continuing debate, there are the pro-lifers who insist that all life, regardless of circumstances of conception, is precious, sacred, and given only by the Lord God. There are also the so-called pro-choicers who insist that each woman has the right to decide whether she will terminate her pregnancy or carry the baby to term.

I do not intend to delve too deeply into the abortion debate because this stand-alone issue is not my point. Rather, it is that even many who consider themselves pro-choice but who are also “personally opposed” to the tragedy of abortion continue to insist very publicly that this issue is at the heart of “women’s rights”.

This is wrong. It is a HUMAN rights issue, and our Declaration of Independence acknowledges a biblical truth: that we are endowed by our Creator with the “unalienable” RIGHT TO LIFE. “Unalienable” simply means that these rights are inherent to our existence and that we cannot by any means be separated or “alienated” from these rights. They are given to us by the Lord God, and man cannot take them away.

So what does this have to do with a young person’s faulty reasoning that taking an innocent life is somehow going to enhance the quality of his own life? In each of these shooting tragedies, the boys who fired the shots were ostracized by their peers. They were deemed either too weak or too weird. In KY and WI, each of the shooters felt that they were the constant targets of bullies. In AR, one of the boys had been jilted by a girl whom he had a crush on.

So it would seem that in their desperation to make things right, at least in their own minds, taking lives was the only option left. Of course it requires maturity to slow down and think things through, but then prepubescent and teenage boys have never been well known for thinking things through.

But why would these boys somehow come to believe that killing anyone for the sake of their own misery is a good idea? How did they come to place such a low value on life itself that killing not just the one person who may have done them wrong but opening fire randomly would somehow be ok even in their twisted little minds? What kind of rage is this??

Be aware that these are the killings that made the headlines. If you read the Arkansas section of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette carefully, you will find all kinds of teenagers arrested for shooting someone. It happens more often than we might like to believe.

My theory is that children are enabled to place such a low value on life by the standards and practices of the society in which they live and are raised. By not standing firm against the despicable practice of abortion and making known our belief in the God and Author of LIFE, we are teaching young children that the value of life is whatever we make of it, that we get to decide who lives and who dies according to our own needs. Terminate a pregnancy because one “chooses” to regardless of the reason, be it personal, financial, emotional, or medical? Then why can’t these young children believe that they, too, can take such decisions upon themselves? Who are we to set such ambiguous terms in that “this” life is ok, but “that” life is not? And how are children supposed to be able to tell the difference when we don’t even know ourselves?

But as I warned one lady some time back, be careful about suggesting that a MOTHER can decide whether her BABY lives or dies. Think about the nature of that statement and what such a careless proclamation makes about the sacred and societal value of life. There is the very shallow argument that it is “my” body and “my” choice, so it may be with a youngster who decides that perhaps since his own life has no significant value according to societal standards or that he has somehow suffered at the hands of someone who is making his own life miserable, life itself then has no significant value.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that we are a very angry nation. We are rushed, and we are under enormous pressure to maintain a certain standard of living. In our endless quest for that ambitious “Great American Dream”, we are forgetting that there are some fundamentals that require our attention. One of these fundamentals demands that we teach our children well and responsibly.

It seems, though, that in our never-ending quest for more, we also fail to acknowledge our weaknesses – and they are many! But how do we address our weaknesses which we inevitably hand off to our children? What will be required of us? More importantly, how committed are we to address these issues and repent from our path to self-destruction?

Tomorrow is Yom Kippur, the Jewish “day of atonement”. In the tradition of Judaism it is the day in which fasting and prayer are central to the commemoration. It is the day in which the Lord promises, according to tradition, to come near to hear the prayers of the faithful. In the faith of the Hebrews, it is the day in which one is devoted to making a commitment to the Lord. So what sort of commitment would He be looking for from us?

To “atone” is to require that we make amends for our past failures. If we have wronged someone, atonement would require that we make a deliberate and intentional move to make it right.

To “repent” is to commit to turning away from the paths that led us to commit these sins of our past, those paths that led us away from the Lord, the paths we know causes pain on any level, those paths that lead us AWAY from YHWH. And as mature and responsible adults, we should reasonably know when we are doing harm, either directly or indirectly.

The commitments we make now determine the path we will choose to travel from now until our time on this earth comes to an end but more importantly, it will help to determine the path on which our children will choose to travel for themselves, their journey of faith, and the journey of generations to come.

It is our duty. It is our privilege. It is our legacy. It is, indeed, our life.