The massacre at Virginia Tech on Monday 4/16/07 is but the latest chapter in a series of tragic events in which we are compelled to question the virtues of a free society such as ours in which anyone can buy virtually any kind of weapon legally or illegally and then choose to go on a shooting rampage. Angry parents and students at VT are asking questions of the university, its president, and its police force. Such questions are inevitable and necessary because when it comes to such senseless and mindless violence, we need to understand how it happened, why it happened, and what can possibly be done to prevent such a thing from happening again.
We try to make sense out of nonsense, and in the end we can never be quite satisfied because there are no logical conclusions. We as rational humans would not dare to commit such a horrendous act but we also know, or should know, that we cannot control the thoughts and the actions of others. They will do what they will do, rational or not, and others will be left to pick up the pieces. I was reminded of comments made by the governor of PA when he was questioned after the awful shooting at the Amish school last year: we cannot stop random acts of violence especially when the perpetrator is willing to trade his life for another.
Then come the political arguments about gun control and metal detectors and concealed-carry permits with folks trying to convince us that more weapons in the hands of more citizens will somehow put an end to the madness that is random violence while others will be trying to convince us that we need to more aggressively control the weapons that are available.
This is not an attempt to interpret the 2nd amendment. Constitutional arguments have no bearing on what we are facing. I am painfully aware that there are such things as accidental shootings – my own son was shot in the eye with a B-B gun at point-blank range in ’93 by a kid who had no business owning a gun of any kind (I shutter to imagine what our lives would be like now had that been a hand gun, shotgun or a rifle) – but in the end we cannot blame weapons that are inert and have no soul. To quote a familiar bumper sticker: guns don’t kill people. People kill people – but then I would add: and sometimes they use guns.
To this end, then, is a question of what kind of battle we face. For many, perhaps most, this is a political and public-policy fight by which we consider the constitutional implications of lawful gun ownership while also being mindful of the fact that some persons just don’t need to own weapons of any kind for the sake of public safety. It already is that convicted felons are not allowed to buy weapons – legally, that is. As should be clear to us, however, this does not stop an as-yet unknown assailant.
It occurs to me that, typically, it is conservatives who demand “gun rights”. Again typically, this particular crowd is also pro-death penalty and anti-abortion. They demand “In God We Trust” to stay on our currency, they advocate prayer in public school, and they vow to keep “one nation under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. Why is it, then, that these presumably godly persons who continue to invoke the name of the Lord and insist that ours is a “Christian nation founded on Christian principles” have somehow come to the conclusion that meeting these threats of violence with violence is the act of a righteous person?
I will grant you, it is not easy to assume the role of ‘potential victim’ in which we wait for someone else to see to our well-being and protection while we live in fear. We are essentially survivors, and we come by such instincts honestly. So if we perceive a threat to the well-being of those whom we love, we are instinctively going to move in such a way as to protect them by whatever means necessary. It’s what we do. It has nothing to do with being a Republican or a Democrat, and it has nothing to do with being liberal or conservative.
Here’s the thing, though. This is not our world, and our carnal nature (our human instinct, to a degree) is that which we are called to overcome. Evil entered into this world through Adam who voluntarily succumbed to the temptation; he made a bad choice, but the choice was clearly his. The devil did not make him do it. Evil still exists as it did then but only because it has been perpetuated by man’s careless and self-serving choices. Man belongs in Eden’s garden where he was created and was intended to live but by man’s own choices, he is ejected from Paradise and into the realities of another world, another realm.
By our own choices and actions we become a part of the world we are called to reject. By our own choices and actions we are ejected from a realm in which we are cared for and provided for and then thrust into a world in which we are forced to stand alone and to fend for ourselves, left by our own choice to trust no one or nothing except our own instincts and judgment. By our choices we become a part of everything we abhor, everything we are called to resist, and everything we claim to be struggling against. It is a dark and sinister world we voluntarily enter into when we go in armed and with intent to destroy for the sake of vengeance. Especially in cases such as these random acts of violence, there is a fine line between justice and vengeance.
When we choose to combat evil on its own terms and on its own turf, we choose to enter into the realm of evil where evil resides, a world of darkness, a realm where the people of YHWH are prohibited from entering into. By resisting the temptation to repay evil for evil or responding in like manner, however, we are clearly within the realm of Eden where we belong in the first place. When we witness such tragedies as occurred at VT and call it “unmitigated evil”, why would we then actively choose to become a part of it? I do not believe that Jesus literally meant we would die by the sword (or gunshot wound) if we chose to live by the sword. Rather, He may have been referring to another death, a premature death, perhaps a spiritual death as a result of such a choice as meeting evil on its own terms.
We will continue to be concerned for the well-being of our loved ones, we will continue to be concerned for the future of our society, and we may also fear for the continuing downward spiral of our culture in which random acts of violence seem to have become so prevalent. However, if we allow such fears and anxieties to overwhelm us to the point that we become impatient and choose to take adverse action ourselves, we will have far more to fear in the eternal world that is to come than from the temporary state we are now in. “Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot destroy the soul. Fear instead the One who can cast both body and soul into the lake of fire.”
The only thing that can possibly make sense for us now in this madness of nonsense is to remove that fear from our lives and replace it with the presence of the Holy One who chose not to subject us to the judgment, choosing instead to take that judgment upon Himself. He did choose to meet evil face-to-face, my dear friends, and, in effect, allowed evil to destroy itself. “I now hold the keys to Hades and death…”
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