Author Archives: Dave

We’ve learned here in America that there’s just nothing quite like empowering a sociopathic gunman after his own death. After all, why leave him with the nasty label of deranged killer? Let’s have the decency to raise him to the status of martyr.

When I read the breaking news about the Virginia Tech gunman’s so-called “manifesto” I was intrigued by the quotes from the document. I worked in the counseling field for several years, and it was insight as to what was broken in his mind.

But when I saw the images being played (and played and played and played) all over mainstream news media, I was taken aback. Then disturbed. Then appalled. An image that particularly forced me to look away from the screen after the first time was the image of Cho pointing his weapon toward the camera. For a moment, I had a glimpse of what the victims may have experienced in their last seconds of life. I’m not sure I should ever have had that.

I have two issues here: first of all, why is the media slapping the victims and their families in the face with this? I’ve also worked in the journalism field for a while. The quotes were enough to carry a news-worthy story. The video should carry the same decision as graphic terrorist execution videos that the news media refuses to show: tell us it exists, quote the deranged ranting, and that’s enough. These victims don’t need more nightmares.

Secondly, by airing Cho’s videos we’ve given him exactly what he wanted. We’ve empowered him in death beyond what he was able to accomplish in life, even in his last horrific actions. There are other disturbed individuals out there, and now they have a twisted role model. Remember in Star Wars when Obi Wan Kenobi proved more powerful in death than he was in life? We’ve just created an evil version of that.

Not everything that’s newsworthy needs to be aired. Not everything that’s ethically acceptable is morally acceptable. To quote an Apostle, “Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate” (I Corinthians 6:12a, The Message). While the public certainly has a right to know, the extent to which that information was disseminated in this case is a poor professional judgement call. It’s, ultimately, a poor spiritual decision, because the effect it has on the spirit of our nation and on the spirit of the victims, their families, as well as survivors at Tech, is absolutely poisonous. It’s a cancerous link to the past they are trying to leave behind.

And that’s the last thing they need right now.

As the story of the senseless slaughter at Virginia Tech has unfolded, I’ve seen a lot of faces on the news recently. I’ve heard the stories that go with those faces, the hopes that I can imagine were wrapped up in those stories, the passions, the proud parents, the potential futures. A gifted dancer. A self-sacrificial leader. A professor who has survived the Holocaust in what must have seemed another lifetime in order to block a doorway and lose his own life shielding students from the gunman.

I’ve seen the face of a killer, staring out from the world of the dead in his photograph, chilling me. I wondered initially was can cause someone to commit this insanity. I think I caught a glimpse of what was broken inside when I saw his picture.

Thousands are probing their faith right now. This is the age-old question that theologians call “the problem of evil:” why would a loving God allow bad things to happen to good people?

Have you ever seen a parent pour years of painful effort into raising a child, only to have that child ignore their best efforts, and break the parents’ hearts as they chose a different path anyway? We’re the children that have broken God’s heart.

You see, He couldn’t have created us in His image without giving us freedom. Freedom to create, freedom to think and examine, freedom to choose. The bittersweet agony for God is that He knew the possibility that some, even many, of us would choose not to love Him back. Some simply ignore His best efforts and follow a different course.

And so, in a world where nothing is as it should be, as it was designed to be, insanity and sociopathy take control, and precious lives are taken. Instead of walking toward the sunshine, we prefer to take comfort in the shadow.

We just keep walking the other way.

A few hours ago, just over an hour from where I live, at least 30 people were murdered. Some reports say they were lined up and shot in an execution-like manner. Some reports say the killer may have been looking for his girlfriend.

I was talking with a friend at a coffee shop early this morning when I saw the breaking news on a television monitor. The body count kept going up. The bottom of my stomach fell out.

Why?

I was watching a movie last night that had a graveyard scene. The scene caused me to contemplate the prospect of life after this one. The importance of knowing I’m prepared for it.

This morning’s bloodbath at Virginia Tech is the rudest of awakenings as to our own mortality, how quickly it can all be ripped away from us. None of those students woke up this morning knowing it was their last morning. They were reviewing for exams, cursing because they overslept, excited over new relationships, groaning because it was Monday. And then it was all taken from them. None of them saw it coming. None of them deserved it.

Why?

What is it that is so broken in our society? In ourselves?

If you pray, please pray for the families of those lost.

While you’re at it, pray for everyone. There is no such thing as safety.

Okay, okay, so Imus is an insensitive idiot. Let’s be serious, though: he’s a shock-jock. He’s said this kind of thing before, without nearly the nuclear fallout. This time, however, the resulting mushroom cloud got him fired.

My issue is this: what Imus said wasn’t dangerous. Calling the Rutgers basketball team “nappy-headed hoes” was offensive and hurtful, but, as free speech goes, it was not yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre. We’ve over-reacted here.

Imus’ comments were derogatory, but they were not dangerous. They were offensive, but they were not hate speech. There was no danger that could have resulted from these comments, only insult. Therefore, legally, they were within the realm of free speech. Yet, he loses his job over them. Do you think maybe the insult has been exaggerated? I rather imagine that the members of that basketball team have been the recipients of worse jabs from other ignorant people. While the comments Imus flippantly made are morally sketchy and racially ignorant, I fail to see how they are worth firing him, essentially censoring him, which is infringing upon his constitutional freedoms.

Should Imus receive consequences for this? Absolutely. Should he be fired? Absolutely not. This is a serious slippery slope we’re starting down. Are artists to be told what they can and cannot paint or write? Are journalists to be told what questions they can and cannot ask? There’s already way too much of this going around for my taste. Almost every professional organization I’ve worked for has regulations as to what sort of content can be contained in email communications. That’s creating a professional work environment. I can live with that. Compare this, however, with a certain evangelical school, where the staff at the campus radio station are not only under specific regulations as to what sort of humor they can engage in on the air, but also strictly forbidden from making any comments against the school’s founder. That’s censorship. It should be illegal. Instead its tolerated. That’s just wrong.

Someone’s opinion may be stupid, as in Imus’ case. The opinion may be controversial. Here, however, we all have the right to express that opinion. That’s what sets us apart as a free nation. Tragically, this may be a trend that leads us to a freedom that exists in name only.

I didn’t know what to write yesterday. I guess I didn’t want to write anything normal, traditional, or flippant. And, honestly, I was trying to unpack the significance of it for me this year.

So, I was meditating on the Spring bloom around us. Curtailed as it has been by “winter’s last blast,” you have to appreciate the beauty in it. In the south, everything is pastels right now. Not really my color choice, but, still, you have to appreciate the beauty in it. The birds singing, everything coming into bloom.

And for the first time, I appreciated the reason we celebrate Easter during the Spring. I mean, I always knew it was to associate the resurrection of the Christ with new life, but I just really appreciated it for the first time. The whole takeaway from Easter is a redemptive one, a new life that is available to us. That is what makes Easter the core of the Christian faith, the culmination of the divine plan: new life. Easter is about the ultimate apologetical argument for the Christian faith: no body has ever been produced. People were and are willing to die for the name of Christ, and that’s not something you do if you hold doubts. There is no body because of the new life that Christ initiated for us.

And this morning, the day after Easter, as I was looking out the window, I couldn’t even really pray. I could just mouth the words “thank you.”

Happy Easter.