27 Murders After Breakfast

A deepening sense of sadness is growing within me this week. It is a sadness which is welling from my spirit for the families who are heart-broken by Friday’s shooting.  The grief and loss they are dealing with is beyond expression.

I am also saddened by some of the foolishness being seen on social media.  Amidst the heartfelt sympathies, there are glib comments, arguing over silly issues, and a hardness shown by those with a point to make that is disturbing (both liberal and conservative.)

I am saddened for our country.  How can we live in a land where these things happen?  As a pastor, I know the spiritual reason. But really, how does someone murder 27 people after breakfast?  How do we have a society where such an act can happen? I mean – the building was secure, safety procedures were being followed.  But this young man was so intent on slaughtering children that he blasted his way through a door and window to begin the killing spree.  Why?

It would be so easy for me to slip into my “preacher-mode” here; and, in a sense, that would be appropriate.  And to some extent, that is what I’m doing.

But would you please think with me…

Why?

Is it guns?

Is it video games?

Is it the fervency to remove God from anything “public”?

Is it a lack of education?

Is it liberal fanatics?  Or conservative?

Is it?

If all of these were “fixed” to the degree society found acceptable, would that prevent further massacres? Would it?

I don’t think so.  In fact, I know it wouldn’t. No, definitely No. No matter how much I wish the solution was that easy, fixing those things is not the answer.

Our problem is not a lack of education or social civility.  It is not a lack of police or the proliferation of weapons. It is not entrenched political beliefs at either end of the spectrum.  It is also not a biological problem that can be fixed with chemicals.   Continue at Shawn Barr

See Also: The lessons from Newtown are not Political

How Great Evil Confirms the Biblical Teaching about Demons

I can mourn with and pray for the families in Connecticut who lost their children (and in a few cases their spouses) in the school shooting. I certainly cannot offer any definitive explanation. I am dedicating this week’s three blogs to perspectives that may be helpful to some. Keep in mind that we are treating only a few aspects of the problem of evil, and therefore much will remain unaddressed. For a larger perspective, see my books on this issue, in particular If God is Good.

Acts of extreme evil, though routinely used as arguments against God, are actually arguments for supernaturalism.

I spent hours walking through Cambodia’s Killing Fields. Vek and Samoeun Taing, a gentle Cambodian couple who had survived there with a young child for two years, escorted our small group. Feeling numb, I saw the skulls piled up and stood by the mud pits where killers threw hundreds of bodies. A human jawbone lay at my feet. I picked it up, held it in my hand, and wept.

The darkness felt overwhelming. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge murdered nearly one-third of the country’s population. Yet the three million slaughtered in Cambodia amount to less than one-fiftieth of the murders by twentieth century tyrants, who killed mostly their own people. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao accounted for most of the carnage, but the ongoing state-sponsored killing in Sudan, including the Darfur region, follows the same script. (And this figure ignores the staggering number of preborn children aborted throughout the world.)   Continue at Randy Alcorn

Christmas in Newtown, and in Your Town. Where is the Hope?

Like most parents, I’ve taken stock the past two days of the time I spend with each of my children.  And like  most, I’m unsatisfied.  In the wake of Friday’s tragic shooting in Connecticut, many parents admit that they don’t spend the time with their kids that they would prefer.  Still, there are a few dates that have become traditions to block out on my calendar.

Friday morning was just such a date.  Though it was my last day in the office for the year, I took an hour from that day to travel to my 7-year-old’s elementary school for “Gingerbread House Day.”  I make it a point to be part of this event, and build and decorate a great (and tasty!) gingerbread house with my son.  All of our kids have their own unique areas in which they excel, but when it comes to creativity, my Seth tops us all, and one of many evidences of this is the elaborate way in which he decorates a gingerbread house.  We had a great time, along with other parents, teachers, and administration.  The result was that by 10:30 AM the classroom was filled with gingerbread homes that made it look like a fantasy, winter wonderland.

After this event, I arrived back at the office shocked to find constant CNN news alerts and log-jammed social media, all reporting the unspeakable events that unfolded in Newtown, CT.  It was some time later before I reconstructed the timeline in my head and realized that 20 first-graders were losing their lives in the same time-frame that my first-grader was building a gingerbread house with his dad.  At that moment, the line between fantasy and reality was never drawn more clearly for me.  Even now as I think about it, my heart breaks for those families.

As a parent, I experienced–and am still experiencing–all the emotions that go with bearing witness to an unspeakable massacre like this; sadness at the loss of life, shock at youth taken from us too soon, anger at the pure evil it took to commit such atrocity, and anxiety about protecting my own children from such an event.  And of course, all of this happened in the middle of the “season of hope,” but the more I’ve thought deeply about the events of this weekend, the more I realize that the “Christmas” most of our culture celebrates offers no hope at all.   Continue at Joel Rainey

See Also: 

 Weeping with those who weep–a first-hand response from Newtown

 Sandy Hook CT school shooting shows need for tougher fatherlessness laws
  
Connecticut shooting shows why we need to ban gun-free zones

There Is Spiritual Evil in the World

Since the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut there have been numerous explanations offered to account for what happened. Television reporters and commentators have spoken about evil. One said that “evil rolled through” Newtown.

It does not take particular genius to see that mass murder is evil but it is important that we understand that evil is not something that rolls or just appears in otherwise innocent bucolic places. Evil is something that fallen creatures do. Scripture explains that the Evil One had already fallen. The Evil One made use of the serpent in order to tempt the first image bearers. As the Reformed theologian Caspar Olevianus said, Adam made a false covenant with Satan and repudiated the covenant the Lord had made with him. Adam accepted the Liar’s offer but instead of eternal life and glory through obedience Adam earned death and corruption through disobedience. He is our father and we are his heirs.

At the birth of Jesus, the Evil One sought to destroy him in his infancy. In his attempt to eliminate the One who could destroy him, he waged war on infant boys through King Herod. Our Lord Jesus confronted the reign of the Evil One in the world through weakness. The Evil One attempted to seduce the Second Adam as he had the first. Again he offered The Man that which was not his to give on condition that the Last Adam should make covenant with him. Jesus rebuked him...   Continue at R. Scott Clark

See also: John MacArthur