After Pittsburgh and Pipe Bombs...What?

Racism, xenophobia, antisemitism: convenient lies that people choose to believe in order to “explain” why things aren’t as they “should be” in their lives. They're the sinful cesspool into which people dip their cups to both slake and feed their resentments, fears, and pretensions.

When these hateful, irrational lies get injected into the mainstream of a culture, sick, deluded people use them to justify violence like shooting up schools, churches, concerts, and synagogues. It becomes thinkable for some to send pipe bombs to people they don’t know, they don't like, and toward whom they harbor bitter feelings. 

I’m sick and disgusted by it all, aren’t you?

We DO need prayers at this time. But they must include more than just petitions for healing for the injured and comfort for the grieving.

We need to pray that all of our leaders of all political persuasions will not add to the stew of resentments, ineffectual policies, and spinelessness before the power of lobbyists waving campaign contributions that have led us to where we are today.

We need to pray that we will become kinder and gentler in our civil discourse. Free speech is and ought to be guaranteed in our country. But when, because of our lack of self-control, violence enters accepted daily speech, we encourage violence.

We need to pray that people will enter authentic relationships with the Prince of Peace and the Author of love, Jesus the Christ. The cheap political moralism "preached” in many Christian pulpits is not of God and not the gospel. The gospel is the good news described by Jesus in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” 

Every human being is a sinner in need of the freedom from sin and death that only Jesus has won for us through His sinless life, His sacrificial death, and His resurrection. 

The gospel tells me that I am no better than my neighbor, that we both are loved and valued passionately by God, that we both need to repent, that we both need to entrust our lives to Jesus for a grace that takes me as I am and leads me to become what God will make of me fully in the resurrection. 

And this Gospel incites me, a sinner saved by God’s charitable love (His grace) and not by my "virtue" or "goodness," to love my neighbor as I love myself. 

Prayer that we will live in authentic relationship with Jesus and that God will help all disciples of Jesus to share His gospel with others is the most practical thing we can do personally to address the lies that lead to so much violence in America.

I agree with those who are tired of hollow, idle, meaningless expressions of "thoughts and prayers." If you're going to pray, mean it. And if you pray in Jesus' name, don't be surprised when God makes it clear that you need to be part of a solution, not just a trafficker in sanctimonious cliches.

In the end, to overcome the sickness of hatred and violence that seems to be part of our everyday lives, it's our souls that must be transformed. And that transformation can only happen through the faith in Jesus Christ and His gospel. 

This is our most desperate need at this hour. 

[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

A Bumper Sticker That Made Me Sick

At a red light earlier this evening, I stopped behind a car with a bumper sticker that said, "Make hockey violent again." The sentiment expressed on another bumper sticker on that car indicated to me that the first one was not ironic, not meant as a joke.

And it made me a little sick at heart.

Today of all days, with 58 people dead and 527 more injured after a mass shooting in Las Vegas, the last thing I want to see in America is a bumper sticker calling for more violence, especially in a sport already marked by gratuitous violence.

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio. Living Water is a congregation of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC).

Long Time Users of Violent Video Games Are More Aggressive

Previous research has shown a link between extended use of violent video games and increased aggression and anger by players. But now a new study conducted at The Ohio State University confirms it:

Brad Bushman is a professor at OSU, who teaches a course in violence in the media, and recently participated in the research project on violent video games.

"Violent video games make people more and more and more aggressive over time. They have a cumulative effect," Bushman said.

In the study, Bushman had students play violent video games over three days, then had them compete against each other.

"The winner gets to blast the loser with loud noises through headphones and the noise is a mixture of noises that most people really hate," Bushman said.

What he found was that the more someone played the violent video games, the more they made their opponent want to suffer in another game.

"These games decrease helping behaviors and they decrease feelings of empathy and compassion. For others, they make people numb," Bushman said.

Read the whole thing.

Video games, Netflix, and cable and satellite TV are all convenient babysitters. But are parents who fail to set limits on their kids' consumption of these things doing them--or society--any favors? Probably not.

How Can We Bring an End to This Slaughter of the Innocents?

Recently, New York City clergy gathered to address 90,000 deaths that happen there each year, deaths that go unnoticed. That's the number of pregnancies ended by abortion in New York each year, a figure that represents 40% of all pregnancies in the city annually!

The figure in the United States is about half that, but still haunting at 22%!

Increasingly, ours is a violent society that believes it can simply kill off its problems. Abortion is one element of our violent culture.

So too are our popular video games, music, and films which glorify bloodshed, nihilism, and misogyny.

So too are our indifference to the hurts of others and to the agony of gun violence.

 So too, are the violence of a crass culture that urges us to depersonalize those with whom we disagree and that lionizes reality show figures whose only virtues appear to be narcissism and a willingness to mistreat anyone inconvenient to their personal aims.

In the Old Testament, God gave an inviolable and permanent commandment for human beings, literally, "You shall not murder," the Fifth Commandment. The New Testament records that when God came into the world in the person of Jesus Christ, He cited that commandment, then explained its inner meaning and purpose:

“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ ²²But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire." (Matthew 5:21-22)

The Bible understands that there may be times when killing is a necessary and horrible option in human interaction, as when defending one's self or loved ones. But murder, the willful ending of another person's life simply because that person's continued existence doesn't suit us, is indefensible. Jesus says that we murder others when we insult or hurt them, objectifying them, robbing them of their humanity.

God takes our humanity very seriously. It's time we did too!

I'm not addressing abortion or our culture of violence as political issues. Although I think that the ruling in Roe v. Wade was unconscionable and ought to be overturned, for example, overturning it won't change a culture that finds the disposal of unborn fetuses acceptable.

The American culture of violence presents us with profound moral and spiritual issues. We resort to violence to impose our own wills on others, to be in control, to be gods.

But there is only one God, revealed as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ and He calls us (commands us) to repent for our sins and to trust in Him alone, to love God completely, and to love others as we love ourselves.

Surrendering to Christ as our God will bring the power of God into our lives so that we can think and act more creatively than we do when we resort to violence to solve our problems.

How can this slaughter of the innocents end?

It will not happen with new laws, constitutional amendments, or court rulings, laudable and appropriate as any of those may be.

The end of the slaughter of the innocents will only begin when we hit our knees, repenting of our sins and asking Jesus Christ to make us new from the inside out. It will only begin when we surrender all to the One who formed as in our mothers' wombs and aims to have us live in a fellowship of love with God and others for all eternity.

In Christ, we can be forgiven of our sins and we can be made new. Turn to Him and live. Then, share this new life with others. Please.