The first news to hit my phone this morning was of the tragic killing of twelve innocent people at the Dark Knight premier.
The first thought to hit my brain was “Oh no…not again.”
In April of 1999, we were living in Cincinnati, Ohio. I remember sitting on the floor of our home in the Landen area, watching them carry bodies out of Columbine High School after Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had murdered so many of their classmates.
It’s an eery coincidence that these events took place within 20 miles of one another.
In the days following Columbine there was a frantic race to discover why these things happen. TV personalities pondered everything from drug use to the youth of America’s exposure to TeleTubbies.
The rational was that surely something external was responsible. Surely these boys had been driven to act – by bullying, by manipulation, by super secret fairy dust that wafted from the TV screen when MTV was played.
What we couldn’t fathom was that two kids actually had that act in them.
I am not discounting social issues, abuse, neglect or demonic activity in these incidents. Surely neither of these shootings happened in a vacuum. I’m simply fighting to remember that the human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked, per the prophet Jeremiah.
We are in a season of time when men and women, young and old, are under intense pressure.
- They are facing financial difficulties that have not been seen since their grand parents or great grandparents day and facing them while being pressed to meet televised, unrealistic, digitally-enhanced expectations. They feel they have little in a world that tells them that others have everything.
- They are constantly exposed to a culture that says you can be famous for being famous and the circumstances under which you achieve that fame are irrelevant. (Charlie Sheen, Paris Hilton, etc…).
- They are bearing this load with a social framework that has had most vestiges of God removed.
None of these symptoms of societal ill caused these shootings, but they applied pressure to the souls of men, and when under enough pressure, the contents of a container will come out.
Given a Biblical world view to start from, the question should not be ‘why has this happened’ but rather ‘why has it not happened until now’ and ‘how many more of these situations are out there, waiting to be triggered?
Regrettably, I think many.
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Don’t miss today’s 3 minute Daily Short(s) - The most important thing you can do as a parent.
Michael Raftery
Jul 20, 2012 -
Mmm. Exactly. Very well stated.
William Neville
Jul 20, 2012 -
While I most certainly agree with I believe a second question is also important to think about. How can we reduce the chances of this happening again? It is simply shocking how frequent such horrific events occur here in the U.S.
Red
Jul 20, 2012 -
More people were killed by violent crime in 75 miles of Chicago in 2007, than US soldiers killed in all of Iraq. The Media paints it’s message. They have an agenda.
The question should be “With the right to bare arms, Why didn’t one of those movie goers, protect their family & friends? If I had been there the guy would be toast. Lives would have been saved. It’s a parents job to protect their children. It’s a husband job to protect their wife. It’s a neighbor’s job to protect the neighborhood.
That’s why we have a 2nd amendment!
randybohlender
Jul 20, 2012 -
Red, I’ve had those thoughts too. Granted this guy was wearing a bullet proof vest, but certainly he could have been slowed down.
KJ
Jul 20, 2012 -
Everyone having guns doesn’t comfort me for when the harlot religion turns its influence to killing intolerant Christ followers. Let’s stop looking and encouraging such man-made solutions and humble ourselves and intercede for our cities, turning from our selfish ways. Lets call the church as an Ekklesia to regular prayer for real, and leave our comfortable bubble. A culture of life can tear down the ideologies perpetuated through principalities via the media. Let’s break our agreement with judgmental bitterness and stand for something, the gap. What could a rending of the hearts accomplish? I submit to you, it would avail much in our cities and in our youths. If the watchman fails to blow the trumpet.. Our sphere of influence is not necessarily our scope of reward on Judgment Day.
randybohlender
Jul 20, 2012 -
KJ, speaking for myself (and actually for Red, who I know pretty well), we’ve made no agreements with judgmental bitterness. Personally, I believe in gun control. Meaning, if there is a gun in the situation, I want control of it. So I have a conceal carry license. Would it have mattered in this situation? It’s far too complex to say, but Jesus never called any of those victims to lay down their lives via this crazed gunman.
I think I’ve proven myself to be pro-prayer over the years (again, as has Red). We also shoot back.
No conflict there.
Stephen Brock
Jul 20, 2012 -
@randybohlender, +1
KJ
Jul 20, 2012 -
Metaphorically, in terms of a call to war, the trumpet call is actually a call to weakness not strength, meaning that while the majority of the church in America trusts more in the arms of the flesh than the arms of the Spirit, the priority of God is to change that. The use of media should be to sound the blast is the message that the weapons of our warfare are not of human might or firepower but most powerful by His Spirit, tearing down Cosmic strongholds over cities.
Our hands were created for war, lets put the right weapon in them. A water bottle and a bible.
randybohlender
Jul 20, 2012 -
So, for clarity, if we’re in the movies and the Joker goes postal…if I’m packing and the bad man is focused on you or your child, you are telling me to hold fire? I don’t want to use ammo only to be rebuked later.
Kaitlyn
Jul 20, 2012 -
On the gun arguement, first, I totally agree with exercising our 2nd amendment rights. My family has been very active in gun communities for many years. Secondly, after reading many accounts, the theater where the shooting occurred was a “gun free zone”. I don’t know how many citizens with a CCW would abide by that, but with certainty this tragedy would have been slowed at the least if a responsible man or woman was armed. If, say, my husband had been carrying (against the theater’s policy) I would rather him shoot & face the ramifications for such an action, rather than be hurt or dead at the hands of a lunatic gunman.
randybohlender
Jul 20, 2012 -
Kaitlyn, that’s a very good point regarding the Gun Free Zone.
And technically, they come in two flavors in Missouri. There are true gun free zones – libraries, post offices, banks, liquor stores, etc – and then there are places where the owner has decided “NO GUNZ ALLOWED”. You can tell the difference by looking at the sign posted. A legal, no gun zone will have a state issued sign with a number at the bottom (a regulation number I think). The second type – where the owner has simply declared it – is not ‘binding’ in the sense that it is not illegal to carry a gun inside, but the owner has the right to kick you out. Sort of like riding a pogo stick down the main aisle at Walmart. Not illegal, but they’ll show you the door if they catch you.
Stephen Brock
Jul 20, 2012 -
I reserve the basic human right to pogo stick where ever darn i please. thank you very much.
randybohlender
Jul 20, 2012 -
When pogo sticks are outlawed, only outlaws will have pogo sticks.
Ronni
Jul 20, 2012 -
I pray for everyone involved, but my .44acp would on first shot knocked him to the ground even with armor and the next 4-5 shots would have stopped him.
Right there with you. Pray but defend. I don’t ever want to have to do it but I will.
KJ
Jul 21, 2012 -
Actually I was just stating the obvious, i’ll be more plain: the takeaway we should be using our influence for is, ‘this generation needs in-breaking of revival via intercession’ instead of the takeaway is ‘stay armed, my friends.’
(Because you firing through heavy smoke at a gunman you can’t see accomplishing anything is a hero of the day fantasy, we have to come to grips with our weakness related to our inability to stand against the heavy deep darkness that is fasting covering the earth, and embrace it, that His strength would be perfected through our ‘collective’ ordained weakness of prayer and fasting, that we would war against the principalities over our respective city, and arise as the true light of the Lord.
Also don’t discount the ministry of angels, pray your eyes get opened like Elisha’s.)
Madeline Watson
Jul 21, 2012 -
Hooray for KJ…..
KJ
Jul 21, 2012 -
*fastly covering the earth(Isa 60:2).
joshua
Jul 21, 2012 -
Thanks again, Randy, for your insight. I think it unwise to use social factors to rule our spiritual factors, or vice versa. Being that i am unsure where i stand ethically with responding to violence with violence, i am pretty sure that my “ethics” would disappear in a moment like that where my wife, friends, and the public are in danger of being killed. One name comes to my mind when i think of situations like that, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, pacifist and conspirator. Does packing negate prayer or prayer, packing? I don’t know. But if i was packing, i would defend my wife’s life.
KJ
Jul 21, 2012 -
To be clear I’m not saying its wrong to protect your family, I’m saying they that advocate meekness will inherit the earth and be called great not least, because God has chosen voluntary weakness as the vehicle for Him to show Himself strong on our behalf. Meekness is voluntarily (and involuntarily sometimes) giving up our strength, and it’s the way the Kingdom is released and strongholds and ideologies that holds the culture of our city in bondage. We choose weakness in finances and call it giving, we choose weakness in food to pray and call it fasting, we choose weakness in our time and speech telling God what He wants us to tell Him and call it having a prayer life. In this the ministry of angels and the Spirit go to war against works of darkness cosmically/culturally and personally. He can raise up Kings and tear them down, He can reform school systems and entire workplaces by revival and Spirit infused ideological revolutions.
Or we could just trust in our firearms to protect us, shoot the MarkofBeast persecutors (Dan 11:33-35), store up barns of retirement riches (Luk12:21), and use our freetime for soup and feeding from the breast of Jezebel-ivision and Jezebe-cular music. >Calling people to strength and their own hand of protection over angels)>
It is finished at the cross, this generation is ours, not the liberal atheists’. Therefore Josh 18:3 demands we ask the church under our sphere of influence “How long are you going to wait before taking possession of the remaining land the Lord has given you.’
randybohlender
Jul 21, 2012 -
KJ, kudos for use of the word Jezebel-ivision. I would not have thought of that one. Wow. Also for the length of your comments.
You’re welcome to continue to post, but we’re going in circles because you insist on positioning meekness and self defense as polar opposites. They’re not, and I’m done.
KJ
Jul 21, 2012 -
Misunderstanding, it’s fine to defend yourself, your family etc., with guns and such. It’s not fine to stop there and think that’s enough preparation from coming darkness, Colorado and such are wakeup calls to what time it is, and to defining our role in preparing our brothers. Storing up guns and soup is the consensus, yet what happens when the starving kids down the block find out about all our soup, do we shoot em? We could contend for an apostolic witness to multiply food and/or call down manna, (Eze 9:4), I perhaps am in the wrong for suggesting such topics demand consideration, heart was in the right place tho.