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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 27 November 2023

If you’ve lived a few years as an adult, you’ve likely noted how many things once considered wrong, are now considered acceptable. So, what is contributing to this redefinition of poor choices?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #120 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Defining Deviancy Down is “an expression coined by the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1993…The senator applied his slogan to the ‘moral deregulation’ that had eroded families, increased crime, and produced the mentally ill ‘homeless’ population” people were observing in America.

“We are getting used to a lot of behavior that is not good for us,” said (Senator) Moynihan, a Harvard professor of education and sociology and then U.S. senator, in his celebrated 1993 American Scholar essay “Defining Deviancy Down.” The nation had been “redefining deviancy so as to exempt much conduct previously stigmatized, and also quietly raising the ‘normal’ level in categories where behavior is now abnormal by any earlier standard.”

Senator Moynihan’s “thesis was that American society since the 1960s had undergone a shift in what it understood as deviant behavior. As a result, society was beginning to excuse actions, attitudes, and lifestyles once understood to be bad for social cohesion. Thirty years later, the refusal to define deviancy is as strong in progressive circles as it was in Moynihan’s time. But now, there are almost no Moynihans on the left willing to heed his obvious lessons. The results have been predictable.”

“The insane and wayward—increasingly freed from stigma and shame—today terrify functional America even more so than in his time, on account of their shamelessness as well as increasing prevalence.”

“Violent music, video games, and depraved entertainment are cash machines. Electronic tools provide America’s youth—and their parents—with easy, possibly irresistible portals to the dark side. The weakening of families and religion-based communities contribute to the void. So do social media and porn. 

Unstable adolescents, if they are identified and treated, get medicated on the chance that anti-depressants or uppers will do their mood magic. Drugs—legal and illegal and everything in between—are palliatives for Americans of all ages.”

Think about this short list of behaviors once considered morally deviant:

1. 1973, the US Supreme Court approved abortion in Roe v Wade. In 2022, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, contrary to what the prochoice lobby says, the Court did not make abortion illegal but simply turned it back to the states to decide. America continues to eliminate its future in the name of privacy, women’s freedom or healthcare, convenience, or simply sex without consequences.

2. Gambling had been decriminalized, beginning in 1988 with the Federal Indian Gaming Act, then in 2018, the Supreme Court of the United States allowed national sports betting in Murphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association. The result:  professional sports have invested significantly in gambling so that now you can’t watch an NFL game without being periodically reminded to get on Fan Duel to place your bets. 

3. In 2015, the US Supreme Court said in Obergefell v Hodgesthat same-sex marriage was a fundamental right found in the US Constitution. Also in 2015, former Olympic decathlon gold medalist Bruce Jenner came out on the cover of Vanity Fair, “Call me Caitlyn,” as transgender. I’ve often thought that Satan could not have chosen a better poster child for transgender ideology than Bruce Call-me-Caitlyn Jenner. Think about it, a gold medalist in the decathlon so he’s considered the “world’s greatest athlete,” a handsome, “hunk” kind of guy who dated models and eventually married Kris Kardashian. Then he’s part of the “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” TV reality program, fathering two of the younger sisters, making a total of five Kardashian-Jenner clan who along with their mother are now worth multiple billions of dollars and count among the highest social media followers. Then there’s Bruce in the middle of this, increasingly emasculated, a caricature of his former self, deluded, emotionally twisted, and finally coming out as a trans woman. Why did Satan use him? Worldwide fame.

4. Marijuana has been gradually decriminalized. “Voters in Colorado and Washington legalized marijuanafor recreational use in November 2012…Other states have since followed their lead. This includes Alaska and Oregon (both in 2014) and California and Massachusetts (both in 2016). Now, at this time, 23 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) have legalized recreational marijuana possession in small amounts. Each state sets the age for recreational possession and use at 21.”

5. Politics has always been rancorous, but like standards in the 50s-60s for what could be said or acted on television, there were certain political mores or parameters beyond which most politicians would not go. Now, like television where almost anything goes, so too in politics where elected officials lie with impunity, unilaterally ignore the law or don’t do their jobs, act with an increasing hubris or narcissism, demagogically make reckless speeches aimed at advancing themselves at the expense of democratic institutions, or simply serve not the people but ideology. And the populace puts up with this in both political parties.

6. If we had time, we could talk about more than changes relative to sexuality or We could talk about mainstream media that no longer presents objective reports on “the news,” but rather have given themselves over to advocacy, partisanship, ideology, and an ends justify the means mentality that allows them to lie or misrepresent and feel good about doing it. We could talk about how with COVID and the subsequent Black Lives Matter-juiced reaction to the death of George Floyd, we got a societal disavowal of law and order and criminal justice, and a rejection of police in the foolish “Defund the police” movement.

“Deviancies defined down aren’t only in the realm of criminal behavior. In Senator Moynihan’s original report, he noted that the proportion of white children born to a single mother had increased from one in 40 in 1962 to one-fifth 30 years later. For black children, the increase was from one-fifth to two-thirds. Today, one-fourth of white children and two-thirds of black children are born to single parents. Yet outside of conservative circles, there is little push to reduce the number of single-parent households. Instead, the solution since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs has remained the same: more federal subsidies.”

“There are some differences in the deviancies discussed…but the root of each is that some cultural understanding is being changed.” Localities and states changing their criminal codes reveal a willingness to tolerate crime by trying to redefine it away.

A line must be drawn. There is virtue in defining what is and isn’t deviant behavior. It allows us to highlight what is truly good. Preserving civilization requires us to be able to define what it is, and what it isn’t. It is not cruel to say that, (for example), carjackers should be punished, or that drug users should not be tolerated; it is a statement of social understanding that those who do not carjack or abuse drugs are better than those that do. It is not wrong to say that single-parenthood is a social problem, or that government policy should favor two-parent households; it is just, because it recognizes that two-parent households are the best model for families, the core unit of all societies. Without a shared set of social standards, civilization cannot continue. Whether it is being sympathetic to crime or ignoring the virtues of marriage, the Left is determined to undermine those social standards by refusing to define deviancy. Daniel Patrick Moynihan understood the problems of this approach in his time and argued against it.”

Christian Scripture tells us human beings are created in God’s image with moral agency. We have the capacity and the opportunity to choose. Since we live in a fallen world and we have deceitful hearts, we often choose sin. A culture that rejects God and the idea of sin is on the broad road to destruction.

We now see or hear something every day in which deviancy has been defined down.

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,
who put darkness for light and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter” (Is 5:20).

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. 

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2023    

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 28 August 2023

Does it seem to you that lawbreakers of one kind or another seem to be having a field day in America? Have you wondered whatever happened to the rule of law?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #105 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

If you are a certain age, you’d be forgiven for wondering, whatever happened to accountability, law and order, and blind justice?

You might even wonder what happened to Pres. George H. W. Bush’s call for a “kinder, gentler nation.”

And remember the words of John Winthrop in the year 1630, quoting from Matthew's Gospel (5:14) in which Jesus warns, "a city on a hill cannot be hid," 

Winthrop warned his fellow Puritans that their new community would be "as a city upon a hill the eyes of all people are upon us." 

Two hundred fifty years later in 1980, Candidate Ronald Reagan said, “I have quoted John Winthrop's words more than once on the campaign trail this year—for I believe that Americans in 1980 are every bit as committed to that vision of a shining city on a hill, as were those long ago settlers...These visitors to that city on the Potomac do not come as white or black, red or yellow; they are not Jews or Christians; conservatives or liberals; or Democrats or Republicans. They are Americans awed by what has gone before, proud of what for them is still… a shining city on a hill.”

Or remember the words of Katharine Lee Bates’ poem later put to music to become an iconic patriotic hymn:

“O beautiful for patriot dream, That sees beyond the years, Thine alabaster cities gleam, Undimmed by human tears! America! America! God mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty in law!” Quite a vision that does not seem to align with what we’re experiencing today.

More recently, what we see happening in America sadly falls short of these powerful ideals.

Following the tragic killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the country was subjected to urban riots that destroyed stores and neighborhoods, resulted in billions of dollars of destruction, and wrecked the economy and livelihood of many people living and working in cities across the country. Ostensibly, these riots – some commentators refused to call them riots, using only the word protests – were a cry for racial justice. And there were a few people and instances in which legitimate peaceful protest took place. But still, the arson, looting, vandalism ruined peoples livelihoods and properties, many of the minority owned. Lawlessness in the name of justice.

America has experienced both a crime wave and a violence wave. Looters, sometimes in broad daylight, break upscale retail store windows and doors in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, then run off with millions in goods in so-called “smash and grab” endeavors, many coordinated by gangs. But perpetrators face few consequences because “there is no political will to prosecute.” The “defund the police” movement has sapped some officers’ morale. “Decriminalization of low-level offenses in some states (like California) has created opportunities for criminals to manipulate the system.” Progressive district and prosecuting attorneys, mayors, even governors announced they do not intend to prosecute and thus do not hold perpetrators accountable.

“American citizens who try to defend themselves and their property from violent looters, arsonists and criminals are immediately labeled ‘white supremacists,’ ‘vigilantes’ or worse by the media.” 

American cities are declining. People and businesses are departing in droves, especially in criminal-friendly states like California. Central downtowns in cities like Portland, Los Angeles, Seattle, Sacramento, New York, Austin, Washington, DC, and several more are turning into a sad mix of the very wealthy living above and the abject, abandoned, addicted, and abused living below, similar to what can be found in cities around the world located in countries without the social welfare programs or healthcare available in the United States.

Homelessness – with multiple root causes – now plague cities with makeshift shelters, tent cities lining sidewalks, tarps covering broken-down cars, and sleeping bags tucked in storefront doorways. Some say it is drug addiction, some blame mental illness, some argue homelessness is economic, others say it is lifestyle choices, some say these homeless tent cities within cities are hotbeds of crime, abuse, and general lack of safety for the neighborhoods affected, some contend many homeless should be in mental health or drug addiction facilities, or in jail.

Whatever it is, human feces and urine, drug syringes, filthy used condoms, beer and liquor containers, and fast-food waste are evident in America’s alabaster cities.

Altercations in public schools are increasing and increasingly violent. Yes, school shooters, the lone gunman, a genuine anarchic threat to free society and our children, but there’s more, violent outbreaks among students, the product of our toxic, divisive times and dysfunctional families that give these youth no support, no hope, nothing but angst, anger, and anomie. Teachers and staff are now regularly subjected to violence in schools.

What is the source of this violence? It’s the culture – students are coming of age in a society that rejects truth, disdains authority, argues for “fairness,” a euphemism for “everything must be the same,” a constant barrage of social media, political, and social inputs demeaning the nation’s history, its values, and its aspirations, and in its place, giving youth and an increase number of adults a demanding sense of envy, alienation, and surliness.

Brawls, random brawls involving adults are becoming commonplace on airplanes and at sporting venues. 

A woman swore at the flight crew and threw a bottle on a recent flight after the attendant reportedly asked the woman to take her dog off her lap.

“A Disney World visitor took their frustration due to a ride’s technical problem out on a Cast Member, sending them to the hospital.”

A man became so violent on a Paris to Detroit flight he was put in restraints.

“A Dodgers fan got knocked unconscious during a brawl outside Dodger Stadium,” after a game with the Twins.

“Two Alabamians were suspended from a Tennessee park after a brawl, arrests at softball game.”

Tourists in national parks seem to now believe they should be permitted to do whatever they want to do, including place themselves at risk in the close proximity of large wild animals like bison, grizzly bears – yes, grizzly bears, with cubs no less. Or the tourists ignore park warnings not to deviate from established walking trails or not to put their hands into incredibly high temperature natural hot springs like those found at Yellowstone. Often, when these kinds of incidents occur, other tourists or park rangers are put at risk as well, attempting to assist or protect the tourist acting out their behaviors.

Many of these pictures with animals or on the edge of cliffs featuring precipitous hundred-foot drops are motivated by people wanting selfies or taking videos to post on Tik Tok or Instagram. “Hey, look at me. I am placing myself in extreme danger. This means I am, a) uninformed, b) brave, c) not smart, possess no common sense, and think the world revolves around me.”

Another example of lawlessness in America is sponsored by the United States government, or more precisely President Joe Biden. It is the near unrestricted immigration on the nation’s southern border.“The only White House strategy seems to be: Keep the flow going, fly migrants around the country to spread out the impact, trust the media not to report on it — and pretend nothing is really happening.”Some 66% of Americans disapprove of the Biden Administration’s exceptionally lenient southern border immigration policy that allows hundreds of thousands to enter the United States without benefit of legal process.

I have always been, and I remain, pro-immigrant. The U.S. is a nation of immigrants after all. But I am pro-immigrant via legal means along with a legal process toward citizenship, not come one, come all, including child traffickers, fentanyl drug pushers, and many others with criminal records.

Lawlessness is now not simply a matter of murders and sex crimes. Lawlessness is now prevalent in how some Americans believe they can behave.

During COVID, I did not like it when conservative county sheriffs announced they would not enforce legitimate state approved laws or executive orders from the progressive governor’s office. It did not matter that I agreed with their point of view about the new law or order. What mattered is that if anyone can do what’s right in his own eyes, then we have not law and order but anarchy and chaos.

This is not a recipe, in the words of the U.S. Constitution, for a more perfect Union, establishing Justice, ensuring domestic tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

Lawlessness is no longer the activity of the outlaw. It is what average Americans do when they don’t get their way.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. 

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2023    

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 24 April 2023

Does it seem to you that criminality, mass shootings, and threats against persons in public spaces are increasing? Whatever happened to crime and punishment?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #82 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Recently in downtown Chicago, an event occurred that media called “Teen Takeover.” It was a social media fueled mob of youth, apparently from throughout the metropolitan area, who simply decided to run amok under the Loop and on Michigan Avenue.

Numerous videos are available online showing hordes of young people breaking windows, jumping on cars, trashing whatever was in their path, firing guns in the streets, even assaulting innocent bystanders and tourists.

In videos, “teens can be seen jumping on top of a bus while others start a massive brawl. A Tesla, said to be worth $120,000, was vandalized.” Two teens were shot during the incident. Fifteen teens were arrested.

Teen takeovers have happened before in Chicago. It’s a deadly hobby. So is violence in general in Chicago, and in other major American cities where law and order is on life support.

“The weekly shootings and murders in Chicago have become so routine that it rarely makes national news. Newsweek noted: ‘The number of homicides in Chicago hit a 25-year high in 2021 with more than 800, according to the Chicago Police Department. That number decreased to 695 last year but is still far higher than when (outgoing Mayor Lori) Lightfoot took office in 2019. Crimes including carjackings and robberies have also increased in recent years.’"

Meanwhile, two elected officials’ response to the teen takeover is telling:

Robert Peters, an Illinois State Senator who represents part of Chicago, tweeted, “Since I’m a glutton for punishment and I’m sure I’m gonna get the most unhinged, crime weirdo replies but: I would look at the behavior of young people as a political act and statement. It’s a mass protest against poverty and segregation. Rest in peace to my mentions.”

In other words, this violence against property and persons is a protest about poverty. One problem with that argument is that the U.S. has a large body of law dating to the 1960s that clearly delineates how social protests can take place, how freedom of speech can be exercised and is encouraged under the First Amendment, as long as property, people, and the public’s right to free thoroughfares is not violated. Point is, the minute violence ensues, the action is no longer a legal protest but an illegal riot.

Chicago Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson, the progressive who will succeed ineffective Mayor Lori Lightfoot, said, "In no way do I condone the destructive activity we saw in the Loop and lakefront this weekend. It is unacceptable and has no place in our city. However, it is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities."

In other words, to hold youths accountable for destruction of property, assaults, and breaking other laws is somehow to “demonize” them. Mayor-elect Johnson’s solution, by the way, is not to employ more trained police officers. No, he said, “Our city must work together to create spaces for youth to gather safely and responsibly, under adult guidance and supervision, to ensure that every part of our city remains welcome for both residents and visitors.”

What spaces is he talking about? Does he really believe youth would go to some controlled space under adult guidance and supervision?

How can these political leaders think this way? Sadly, they are not alone. Many so-called “woke” individuals have been elected in recent years, or those in office have jumped on this bandwagon in the name of race relations, only to make race relations worse.

“State and city district attorneys, and county prosecutors seek either to release violent criminals without bail or reduce their felonies to misdemeanors. Critical legal and race theories are their creeds. So, they argue that crimes have little to do with individual free will. Criminals are not deterred by tough enforcement of the laws. Instead, ‘crime’ reflects arbitrary constructs of a racially oppressive hierarchy.”

But, “rhe cure to lawlessness is not to indulge the lawbreakers by justifying or seeking to explain their behavior. It is to enforce the law. Doing so serves to tell others there are consequences for illegal behavior and justice will be swift and certain. Without law enforcement there is no glue that can hold a city or a society together. Hundreds of Chicago police officers have left the force and the city is having trouble recruiting replacements. Is it any wonder with the ‘defund the police’ movement and growing disrespect for those who feel called to protect and serve?”

“When lawless behavior is tolerated and leaders who are supposed to keep neighborhoods safe effectively see lawbreakers as depraved because they are deprived, to quote lyrics from ‘West Side Story,’ it is a virtual guarantee that some will run wild. As the Proverb says: "Where there is no vision the people cast off restraint" (Proverbs 29:18).

What is happening?

1. As I’ve noted before, America is engaged in an unnamed Second Civil War, pitting those who do not believe in God or at least one who to whom they are accountable, and who reject the idea of objectively determined right and wrong, individual responsibility, and law and order 

against those who still believe in God, absolute truth, morality, and righteous justice for all.

2. The practice and rule of law and order, blind justice, and accountability are under attack.

“Take illegal immigration. Nearly 6 million people have poured across our borders illegally since President Joe Biden took office…In blue state cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, New York and Chicago, laws protecting private property, public safety and public health are routinely flouted; the consequences are felt only by law-abiding citizens…Retail theft is no longer prosecuted, so bands of thieves walk into stores and steal with impunity. Small businesses are forced to close or move. Even large corporations like Walgreens, Walmart, Target, Macy's, BestBuy and REI are…leaving, citing theft and crime that is undeterred and unpunished. In 2020, under then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot's tenure, mobs of vandals did millions of dollars in damage and theft to the upscale stores on Chicago's Magnificent Mile.”

This crime wave evident across our country and culture is not pure happenstance. It is the result of a society reaping what it sows in discarding time tested, moral standards, mores, and values. 

I’ve heard it said that “Nowhere is safe today,” or “We’re experiencing diminished personal safety like never before.” I know what they mean, because there was a time in my lifetime that if you exercised good judgment and avoided places you knew were prone to “bad things happening,” you could move about relatively safe and secure. This time seems to have passed.

There has always been crime and there always will be. What we have now in American culture is ignored or approved crime.

Now, you cannot be sure if you go to an athletic stadium, music concert, mall, campus, even church, that you will be safe. We are retrogressing to a time when individuals and families did indeed care for their own safety. In frontier times and later in the Old West, everyone carried a gun or was with someone who did.

In days gone by, the place where you did not carry a gun or worry about protecting yourself was what they called “civilization,” meaning localities back East that had established right and wrong law and order.

What’s now disappearing in America is just that, “civilization,” an advanced state of human society based upon moral standards, mores, and values that respects and protects life.

The principles that undergird the United States of America -- indeed, what we think of as "Western civilization" generally are being dismantled.

Our living assignment remains the same:

To know truth and to make it known.

To speak the truth in love.

To be ready always to give an answer of the hope we have within us.

To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.

In so doing, you also need to become more aware, more conscious of your surroundings, more capable of protecting your family and friends if you are called upon to do so.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com. 

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

© Rex M. Rogers – All Rights Reserved, 2023   

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers.  

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 30 May 2022

Have you been thinking about the children lost at Uvalde? How can such senseless violence occur?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #26 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Robb Elementary School, Uvalde, TX.

Columbine high school (CO), Red Lake high school (MN), West Nickel Mines Amish school (PA), Sandy Hook elementary (CT), Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school (FL), Santa Fe high school (TX).

This somber list records the deadliest school shootings in the United States. It is horrendous. And worse, this list does not even include university shootings or innumerable other gun violence events in which injuries occurred but fewer or no fatalities.

Killing is always gut-wrenching, the killing of innocent children even more so.

Uvalde strikes us like Sandy Hook or West Nickel Mines. Children 6–10 years old. Who could do this? Who can understand this?

When it happens, we wonder how our Christian faith speaks to these kinds of events? What understanding does it provide?

In part, I believe we are living in the last days. I believe that as Jesus tarries his coming, we will witness an ever-greater impact of sin in this fallen world. In the last days, the Scripture tells us there will be (Rom 1, 2 Tim 3, 2 Peter 3, Jude 1):

• people who suppress the truth in their wickedness • terrible times • brutality • evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived • scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires • every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, depravity, envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice • people who invent ways of doing evil • people who are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless • false teachers who introduce destructive heresies.

Things are indeed waxing worse and worse, and mass shootings are now a part of our lived experience.

This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends.

Life is cheap in these last days in multiple and various ways, e.g., abortion, death-dealing wars including what’s happening with Russia and the Ukraine, random killings, systematic criminal killings like those occurring every weekend in Chicago, school shootings, church shootings, mall shootings.

What makes a young man want to kill children? Is he mentally ill as media often claim? Perhaps he is. I’m not negating the potential of some psychological programs to help troubled young men, if they can be identified and if they will seek help.

But perhaps more often he is not mentally ill. I find it difficult to accept the diagnosis “mental illness” when this shooter and so many others leave evidence that in days or even weeks running up to the event, they scoped out the location, purchased weaponry and ammo, planned what to wear and when to enter the facility, and sometimes planned to die in the process.

This kind of preparation speaks to intelligent if warped intention to me, not mental illness. In most of these cases, the issue at bottom is not psychological or social but moral. The shooter is simply given over to sin. The root of this sin could be his own heart, the individuals around him, the absence of individuals around him, particularly no father in his life, or a declining, morally decrepit American culture. Or it is all the above.

Whatever the source, sin works out as an uncontrollable rage making the young man not only to want to die (mass shooters are often suicidal) but to take as many people with him when he goes as he can.

Rage, an evil emotion-then-behavior rooted in twisted feelings of rejection, inadequacy, loneliness, alienation, and a hopelessness that leads him to believe the lie that the only way his life can have meaning is to end it by seeking revenge upon others in some sensational fashion. The shooter is ready to die and ready to kill in order to create some resentful, bitter, “I’ll-show-you,” meaning to his life.

This kind of evil can develop in the lone gunman or radical terrorists. It is Satan’s fake triumph, conquering the soul of a person created in the image of God who comes to believe God is not there or does not care and all that’s left is nihilism.

So, the primary challenge in the U.S. today is this: though we are “religious” with functioning dominant religions, yet our culture and millions within it are disconnected from profound spiritual moorings. We’ve rejected moral parameters in the mistaken belief our fate is in our own hands, or rather in our own feelings. We think we are social creatures of our own making. We control our own destiny.

Except this doesn’t work, and ironically, it is the disillusioned young gunman who discovers this create-yourself approach to life is found wanting, when what he sees around him and within him offers no hope.

We live in a fallen world where sin is real, and the Devil is the Prince of the power of the air. So evil events will happen. This is not fatalism. It is realism.

We do not know why God allows tragic events like Uvalde. We do know that he knows why and is engaged day by day. This, too, is realism, the truth.

This is where our Christian belief and our testimony should speak to the moment. We know the God of the Bible is present, loves, and provides a path to healing and hope. So, our response to heinous events in which innocent children are gunned down in the U.S. should be multi-layered:

1. Weep with those who weep. Mourn with those who mourn. Pray for the families involved. This means more than bland comments like “our thoughts and prayers are with you.”

2. We don’t blame God, and we help others understand that in the face of evil our God is still sovereign, holy, and just. We must speak and live out this truth in love.

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Written by: Rex M. Rogers

Published: 14 September 2020