As most of you would imagine after my recent rant on the time-consuming nature of television, I get most of my news through the radio and the internet (both lines of communication I’m easily prone to becoming addicted to–but hey, at least I have one of the three booted). Within a short time of it’s happening, my father forwarded me a story about a Sunday morning shooting in Denver, CO at a YWAM base. The shooter tragically killed two of the staff. You can read the AP story here.
I was deeply grieved to read of yet again another senseless shooting. My deepest condolences to the families and church staff close to this situation. I have long loved the YWAM program, involved myself for many years, and now active in sending teens into it. And as the president of the similar two-year international discipleship program, I can not even begin to imagine the sense of loss and vulnerability they must be experiencing.
While this story fuels the fire for the agenda of stronger gun-control, and likewise may not see as much press because of it’s purely Christian environment, the tragedy reminded me of a distantly related happening late last week.
On Thursday morning’s national airing of Glenn Beck’s radio show, a young man called in from Texas regarding this month’s other tragic mall shooting. Another host from San Antonio was sitting in for Glenn (I would have loved to hear what Glenn would have said himself) and remained rather silent to the caller’s opinions–I think mostly because the host didn’t know what to say.
“What do you expect?” said the caller (I’m paraphrasing; you’ll have to become an Insider to get the real quote from the audio archives). “When you remove God from culture, take Him and prayer out of schools and make it a faux pas to speak about Jesus and his teachings so as not to ‘offend’ others, what do you think is going to happen?”
I had a sense that the host was thinking, “What a wacko.”
But truth be told, I agree with him. But even more so…
It’s not just talking God out of the culture, but it’s the Christians backing down from the fight. Saturday night I heard of a teacher in our local high school right here in Clayton, NY, a single solitary teacher, complained that she didn’t like the term “Christmas Dance” for the school’s December ball. So they changed it–for one teacher who spoke unopposed. It’s now the “Winter Dance.”
Edmund Burke’s famous quote rings true in my ears this morning: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
“Christopher, changing the school dance name is evil?” It’s worse than that. It’s the fact that we’re loosing our American chutzpah, continuously letting a fraction of a percentage of a minority sway the direction of our nation on a number of core issues. I won’t say that no one is doing anything to counter it; that would be too broad and certainly disrespectful. But clearly, there aren’t enough.
Back to the topic. About ten years ago I contemplated sending a letter to all local and national law enforcement including the FBI and CIA. In it I would simply write that, if left to a Godless political view that truly pursued the unconstitutional farce of the “separation of church and state,” their bureaus would continue to see an increase in pointless, violent crime completely devoid of any logical motive.
I believe that’s what the caller to Beck’s program was really trying to say.
I truly believe that we must see a revival in our land that brings Jesus back to the center of our focus. Why do people unload on innocent YWAM staff, malls and high school and college campuses? Because the Author and the Finisher of their faith, the Creator of their very DNA has been forced from His rightful place in our thinking, leaving us to the devices of our own sinful natures. And He will not push His way into the will of the individual. He will stand, waiting to be chosen.
He wrote it in the best selling book of all time. He sent prophets to warn us. He allowed 4,000 years of failing human history to transpire just so he could prove the point. He sent His perfect Son, God in the flesh, to amend the course. And He has been more than tolerant, if ever there was someone who did not need to be.
And though He is sovereign and long-suffering, though He wishes that non should perish without knowing Him, it’s as if I can hear Him in the background saying…
What did you expect?
There was another shooting in CO 12 hours later at the New Life Church in Colordo Springs. They think it’s related to the YWAM one.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3977342&page=1
Very tragic, and I agree completely with your post.
Check out what Dr. Dobson spoke about this and the “removal” of Christmas recently.
http://listen.family.org/daily/A000000842.cfm
Before I comment, I wish to express condolences as well.
I think part of the reason culture decays into a place of little or no nobility is because for a generation we’ve been reading/hearing/watching the wrong stories. I think Lewis in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader called it reading the wrong books.
After Christianity, nothing impacts culture more then the stories it pays attention to. That’s why it’s great that folks like you and Wayne Thomas Batson etc. are out there writing good fantasy. Our culture doesn’t just have a hunger for noble heroes to follow, it has a need. I’m excited that there are Christian fantasy authors out there, and that it seems to be a growing genre.
To barrow a concept from Tolkien, I find it a bit frightening that the message that the minority rulers suggest we follow is exactly what The Mouth of Sauron was suggesting the Captains of the West to do, give up their rights unto Mordor for the sake of a bit of faux security. I cannot help but think of Mordor when such views are presented.
I think post-modernism is one of the reasons that these things take place, the human mind isn’t designed to think in terms of grey. We all know, acknowledge it or not, that black and white truth exist.
Above all the reason that we see such tragic events is that man is inherently evil. America’s history is littered with such tragic events. Some of the way that some American Indians were treated as we spread out west for example, and I know it was sometimes the other way as well. Still… Man’s evil nature lies at the root of such things, and since it is only Christ that can pull us out of the mud of our evil nature, it is to be expected that people will do these evils.
As for Christmas decorations, ball names, and such, it would seem that we live in a society of Scrooges! Bah Humbug! It’s time for a loud Merry Christmas to one and all!
MERRY CHRISTMAS indeed! And here’s to hoping that Christians everywhere will “MAN-UP” and tell it like it really is.
*shakes head*
Where is the love? Really. The home group bible study I help to lead has been going through I Corinthians 13. I fall short of love; not only in teaching my kids, but even more in living it out. Think of just a few of these attributes that would have averted this tragedy: it does not demand it’s own way, is not irritable, and keeps no record of being wronged.
Love has exited the home in far too many cases. So many parents neglect the need of their children to be taught these qualities, hoping some day they will just figure it out. There are a handful of people that I know that come close to considering their kids an inconvenience to what they want to do in life. There is a dual meaning to John 15:13, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” We always think of dying for someone, but it is also that while we are alive, we are considering them before us.
A majority of parents have stopped laying down their lives for their children and handed over the responsibility of rearing them to strangers. Any man can be a dad, and any woman a mom; but where, I pray, are the fathers and mothers?
Peace,
- mooney