All Comments (37)

Guns:

http://www.indybay.org/uploads/2007/11/09/guns-make-monsters_larmee.jpg

The Virginia Tech shootings was such a palpable and alarming incident that raises the fact of how deliberately incomprehensible a human mind works.

We can't blame a single institution, nor the person's religious ties unto his woefully shocking actions. It's a web of events, a consequence of numerous things that lead him to commit such act.

http://www.jerusalemexport.com is a great resource for hand crafted religious products and decorative religious items.

You are right, this is not lifes final word. See, usually crazy people like this guy are given medicine to fix the imbalance of chemicals in their brain to prevent them from going on a path of mass murder. I would rather put my faith in modern medicine and the laws of man that require these people to take medicine that will prevent things like this from happening, cause as we can clearly see, faith in God did not prevent it.

Regret the botched cut and paste job above

Hey, J Daley - A couple of quick comments - I know you and many other christians don't think you're going to fly up or that non-believers or non-Christians are not doomed to hell. I understand the desire, too, to let others here know what kind of a Christian you are, because many non-believers want people to know that they are not valueless rapists and pillagers.

I understand that my "emotionally charged statements" elicit intense responses

I think people like you and I are not the problem - the fundamentalists are and while I enjoy discussing it with you here I'd like you to also discuss it with the fundamentalists - they are intolerant and thus a problem for both of us and many others.

Hey, J Daley - A couple of quick comments - I know you and many other Christians don't think you're going to fly up or that non-believers or non-Christians are doomed. I understand the desire, too, to let others here know what kind of a Christian you are, just as many non-believers want people to know that they are not valueless rapists and pillagers. (Seriously, people here have asked non-believers - If you don’t believe in God, you must have no morals, so why not rape and pillage?) As a Christian, I’d like you to be more concerned and proactive about your brothers and sisters in Christ who do feel this way. I think people like you and I are not the problem - the fundamentalists are and while I enjoy discussing it with you here I'd like you to also discuss it with the fundamentalists - they are intolerant and thus a problem for both of us and many others. They’re trying to hijack your religion – and possibly much more.

I understand that emotionally charged statements elicit intense responses. Among other things, I want to get people like you thinking – not about defending your faith to atheists – but defending your faith to fundamentalists, even if they’re harder to talk to.

E Favorite: I am not trying to pummel you today, and this post doesn't contain any questions -- just a few comments. Re: "I do make an point to remind Christians who wax eloquent about the wonders of Christian love that there is a dark side for people who reject it or never hear about it through no fault of their own. Imagine a suitor who promises undying love and fidelity if his girlfriend marries him, and a lifetime of harassment and pain if she doesn’t. Christianity goes one step further and promises pain for eternity."

The meaning of the word "reject," as you use it above, is a matter of much debate. Rejection may not mean non-assent to Jesus's messiahship, but willful destruction and darkness that lead others to desolation, deprivation and fear. I'm hoping not many of us fall into that category. And many great Christian thinkers posit that many people who have never heard of Jesus -- through no fault of their own -- are in fact doing God's will by living lives of love.

I do not believe that I will "fly up to heaven" while people like you (like what?) are left here to be trampled by the conquering armies of Jesus.

You have suggested several times that I talk to my own -- other Christians -- about love and tolerance, rather than discuss it so much here. I'm not sure I have much chance of changing the views of a fundamentialist Christian. So I must rely, at least partially, on forums like this to show that Christians are not "homogeneous..." They come in all types, colors, sizes and stripes. Some of our stripes aren't so bad!

I truly am not trying to barrage you. But you must expect that when you make the (for some of us) emotionally charged statements you have, we're going to respond with some intensity. Perhaps some of us haven't thought through these things in quite a while, and it feels challenging and refreshing.

I'll be quiet now. Take care.

J Daley – I certainly agree with your ideas on mercy and justice and think the bumper sticker would be great, and I don’t believe everything I hear about “Christians thinking everybody but they are ‘going to hell.’” I do make an point to remind Christians who wax eloquent about the wonders of Christian love that there is a dark side for people who reject it or never hear about it through no fault of their own. Imagine a suitor who promises undying love and fidelity if his girlfriend marries him, and a lifetime of harassment and pain if she doesn’t. Christianity goes one step further and promises pain for eternity.

I know a lot of Christians don’t believe that, I never did. It didn’t make any sense. But it is a tenet of your religion. The Pope reiterated it recently: “HELL is a place where sinners really do burn in an everlasting fire, and not just a religious symbol designed to galvanise the faithful, Pope Benedict XVI has said.” http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.25988/pub_detail.asp The same article mentions that his immediate predecessor had a less literal view of hell: “Rather than a place, hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy." Apparently even the nature of hell can change, depending on the Pope in charge.

Again, I suggest you spread your message of love and tolerance to Christians who don’t’ share your views. Non-believers are not the problem. Unlike some Christians, we’re not trying to reclaim Christ for America. We’re not hoping for the end of the world, when all believers (including you, I presume) will fly up to heaven, leaving people like me here to suffer on earth before being killed en masse by Jesus’ conquering army.

Atheists have a lower divorce rate than Christians and a minuscule incarceration rate. We’re pretty good citizens here on earth, compared to many Christians, but for some Christians (not you, though) that doesn’t count for anything. It’s those people I’d like you to address. They only want to inform me that I’m going to hell. Maybe they’ll listen to you.

E Favorite: No, you can have him -- if you want -- without dwelling on the "going to hell for all eternity." Did Jesus not say, "Do not judge, lest ye be judged?" If he was speaking here about something like adultery -- saying it wasn't up to us to make life-and-death judgments about fellow humans -- then how can we assume it's alright for Christians to pronounce others headed for hell? All things are possible with God. "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor my ways your ways," says the Lord.

If we are busy enough loving, we are too busy to be telling others who will "go to hell." I don't think "saving souls" is as much about rescuing them from hell because they don't give intellectual assent to Jesus's messiahship as it is about showing God's love -- an inexplicable, wonderful love whose purpose is to draw ours out. Yes, by our behavior and witness we want to attract people to Christ, but because of the abundant life he offers, not by scaring people into comtemplating eternal deprivation.

Of what any of us have coming, remember the parable of the workers in the vineyard. Those who had worked all day expected to be paid more than those hired at five o'clock -- though the early-comers had agreed with the employer for a certain amount. Do you remember what the employer says to those who believe they are entitled to more? "Do I not have a right to do as I please with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous? Take what is yours and go your way." In other words, gently, "Is it your business how I choose to deal with others? Get about your work, and I'll do mine."

Of course, as Christians, we conceive of God as being concerned with mercy and justice. I am not convinced that the meanings of these terms are as limited as mercy=forgiveness and justice =punishment. I am not denying that there are people who, by the way they choose to live, don't know God during their bodily life and, for reasons way beyond me, may not be close to him in the next realm. But the point is, we creatures cannot know this for certain and shouldn't make speculation about it a major topic of conversation. We want to respond to God in love, not out of terror. Our charge to "preach the Gospel" -- that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand -- and make disciples of all nations must be rooted, I believe, in how Jesus responds in one report re: whether he is the Messiah. "Tell whoever is asking that the blind see, the lame walk and the sick are healed."

Maybe I reveal myself as ignorant of what others view as "standard Christian teaching." I'm a practicing Catholic, as I've stated before, and I don't think these views are that far out of line with many people's.

Am not trying to change you from an atheist into a Christian, E Fav. I just want you to know that you can't believe everything you hear about Christians thinking everybody but they are "going to hell."

Remember the Clinton-era bumper sticker, "It's the Economy, Stupid?" I think a great sticker for Christians would be, "It's the Love, Silly."

"God made nature to sing His praises, to declare His glory and to love Him. He made humans with the ability to choose. He could have ordered our obedience; instead, he calls for our heart."

And if we don't accept His invitation, he sends us to hell for eternity?

Why believe in a god like that? You can have him.

God, being in control of the universe, can prevent suffering whenever He sees fit, but wherever free will exists, consequences of choice must also exist. We refuse to remember that we are the ones who betrayed God, not vice versa. We are the ones who listened to the lies of the evil one in the Garden of Eden. We chose to mistrust the heart of God. In breaking the one command He gave us, we set in motion a life of breaking His commands.

Being able to discipline oneself for the benefit of others is the very essence of maturity. Shantideva said, “All the joy the world contains, Has come through wishing happiness for others. All the misery the world contains, Has come through wanting pleasure for oneself (at the expense of others).” How we spend our time shapes who we are, and how we assemble the persons we are is cause for social concern. What examples are adults, entrusted with the awesome responsibility for their care, to the rapidly maturing next generation who will impact our society positively or negatively depending on to what we expose them. We have experienced the natural progression of an unguarded nation towards neglect, corruption and the loss of idealism. When awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, the Dalai Lama said in his lecture, “…For if we each selfishly pursue only what we believe to be in our own interest, without caring about the needs of others, we end up harming not only others but also ourselves…” One does not have far to look to witness the chaos and devastation caused in our society due to our turning away as a nation from our Judeo-Christian roots. Our culture is rotting. Just listen to the lyrics of popular songs, pick up a book or magazine, view a movie or television show. Pay attention to the violence permeating our communities, the disrespect and lack of courtesy displayed by all, judicial tyranny, and the neglect of and abuse directed at women. (Could this be a direct result of pornography? Duh!) Then consider that perhaps we are allowing the wrong input in our lives and the lives of those who have been entrusted to our care. After all, we are raising our next generation of leaders!!! Words like diversity, pluralism and tolerance have anesthetized us to the reality of good and evil. Tolerance is the cultivation of an attitude of indifference to things we see happening around us. In the name of peace, we tolerate evil. In the name of tolerance, we accept sin and call it freedom of speech or freedom of sexual persuasion. Albert Einstein once said, “The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” We dare not stand up for what we believe for fear of being labeled intolerant. Tolerance sees your sin and embraces it. Grace sees your sin and hands you over to Christ's healing embrace.

God cannot make us choose to abide with Him. For now, God, tormented, waits upon us through one holocaust after another. satan’s best deception is its general success in concealing its own reality from the human mind. Most people live in such naivete regarding evil. What will it take for us to take evil seriously? satan lashes out on the earth like a madman, setting people against each other all over the globe. it devastates many lives through starvation, alcoholism, substance abuse and pornography. satan is at work in the holocaust of violent, disrespecting aborting of babies; narcissism; materialism; elitism; and the self-absorption we wallow in when we do not ensure our next generation is brought up in a culture with enriching, wholesome values. Failing to label evil evil misleads us about the world in which we live and our necessity for God’s grace, the only real answer and hope for any of us. If you are not living in touch with God, it is easy to blame Him or pass judgment on Him. We experience suffering and temptation because mankind chose to follow satan. Lurking in the heart of man, evil will erupt when it is permitted to act unimpeded.

Entrusted with the awesome responsibility of my children’s care, I am concerned about how their generation is being raised, to what they are being exposed, and the examples they have in their lives. Are they being enriched in mind, spirit and character? They all need highly esteemed mentors to guide them along the path to liberty. If we don’t stand for something, we will fall for anything. “The humblest citizen of all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of Error,” - William Jennings Bryan. Hopefully, seeking our own pleasure is not the measure of our lives. We are called to be intolerant in love. Why not live as Philippians 4:8 instructs us to: Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. God is reaching out to rescue us … God made nature to sing His praises, to declare His glory and to love Him. He made humans with the ability to choose. He could have ordered our obedience; instead, he calls for our heart.

Prayer, Tragedy, and Va. Tech

The events that took place at Va. Tech Monday are horrible indeed. I offer for your own use and in offering pastoral care to others a sermon on "Prayer and Tragedy" posted below.

In Christ,

John M. Crowe, D.Min., APC
Incapacity Leave
Chair Committee on Disability Concerns
nccumcmentalhealth.org

On September 9, 2001, a sermon was preached from Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18. Psalm 139 contains King David's joyous reflections upon the truth that God knows. Throughout King David's obstacle filled life, he learned the security of living in relationship with God. David's Psalms express his certainty that God knew and understood the depths of his words. So, he poured them all out before God in times of tragedy, crisis, and when godless foes attacked him.

Two days after the preaching of the sermon on Psalm 139, the tragic events of 9/11 took place. People gathered together to pray. How comforting it is to know in times like those that God knows and understands the depths of our words when we pour them all out before Jesus in times of tragedy, and crisis.

According to Psalm 139, God knows the very depths of your soul. God knows what you are saying to him in prayer even better than you do. Isn't this what we are told in Romans 8:26 about the Holy Spirit helping us.26 "In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express."

As we focus on prayer, remember last year's national tragedy, and focus on the tragedies of our own or of others, I

Human tragedy cuts deep. It is very painful. The Bible says in Ephesians 6 that your real struggle with tragedy, suffering, and evil in the world is not a fight against people on earth. You are fighting against spiritual powers of evil that attack outwardly through others who yield themselves to evil attitudes and actions. You also fight against spiritual power of evil that attack your soul in hope of leading you into evil attitudes and actions. The strongest attacks upon your soul always come in times of great tragedy and crisis. These attacks can be overcome through prayer. You can do this by asking God daily to grant you wisdom and courage for the living of these days. Then, God's grace will save you from weak resignation to the evils you deplore.

Fulfilling the Bible's call to be angry and yet not sin is very difficult when you are in the middle of a painful crisis. Barnacles on a wooden ship are as bad for the ship as for anyone who knocked up against them for their cuts are painful. Some find their lives shipwrecked after such experiences with the barnacle like tragedies of life by becoming a barnacle themselves.

If you forever nurse the pain, you will never be free to love again. Also, if you do not feel the pain of your experience with the barnacle like tragedies of life, then you become numb and remain naive. Feeling the pain and giving it to God for his healing work as well as his dealing with those responsible in prayer is the biblical way to a better day. This is much healthier than feeding the pain and holding onto it as if that is somehow going to accomplish something. Not to forgive digs a dark and dreary day. However, to forgive brings about a better day.

To forgive means taking others off of your hook and placing them on God's hook. Such a prayerful response by God's free grace through Jesus Christ can make you a better person. I am convinced that a lot of people's lives' are shipwrecked in a crisis by their living in self-pity. Bitter self-pity, unfocused anger, loveless fears, and wounded pride will shipwreck you unless you stop and change your mind as well as your heart from the bondage of unforgivenessto freedom through forgiveness. Such freedom comes only after pouring your heart out completely to God in prayer.

Also, you can prayerfully refocus the energy of your anger. You can focus your energy to work toward making the world, your country, your state, your county, your schools (shooting), your community (political assassination, racism), your families (spouse abuse & child abuse), and your hearts free from the sins that leads to inflicting terror into people's lives.

Very often in times of tragedy, you feel abandoned by God. You may find it difficult to believe that with God's help, your life can be rebuilt. Yet, the good news of rebuilding with God's help is the Bible's message for you today.

It is easy to sail along life in your own strength and wisdom, when life is smooth sailing. However, no one's life is without tragedy. Disaster and heart-ache will inevitably hit you. There's sorrow by death. A woman dies, leaving her husband with three small children to raise. A car accident claims the life of a couple's only son or daughter. A senseless boating accident caused by someone' drunken and reckless condition takes the life of someone's fiancée just a few days before the wedding.

While some are the soul survivors of a departed spouse, others experience multiple losses in their life over a short time. In one three year period, a lady lost her father to cancer, her mother to senile dementia, her husband after 31 years of marriage, her talented son in an accident. Many were the nights that she went to bed hoping that she would never wake up. Because of her faith, she knew that she could no more take her life than the life of someone else. Through it all she never doubted God's love and mercy for her, yet she did not always feel his presence. She did however reach a point where she could no longer bear the pain of her losses. She prayed to God for help. He brought I Thessalonians 5:18 to her mind. It speaks of giving thanks in all things. It does not say give thanks only when your life is going right. Nothing in her life changed outwardly, but she did gain a heart for gratitude that changed her. Truly, without her faith, she would either be a miserable person or dead. The hymn "I need the every hour" probably became very dear to her.

Neither the book of Isaiah nor the rest of the Bible make any claims that rebuilding is easy. No, rebuilding after any tragedy or crisis in our lives is tough and takes time. Isaiah and the Bible does say that with God's help through prayer whatever rebuilding needs doing will be done by God's grace and power.

God still controls the world, even your world with unexplainable suffering. Your mind can neither contain nor control all knowledge. The important truth is that God can be trusted in the worst of circumstances as well as in the best. Thus, living by faith means far more than simply accepting suffering as a part of life.Living by faith means growing in your relationship with God, knowing his care and love more deeply as you trust God more thoroughly in prayer.

The author of "It Is Well WithMy Soul" must have been a great person of prayer to have written this hymn after such a personal family tragedy.

As you intercede for those most directly impacted by 9/11 and other tragedies, pray that each one will experience the reality of God knowing and understanding the intensity of their souls.

As you intercede for those most directly impacted by 9/11 and other tragedies, pray that each one will see their fight is not against other human beings, but against the spiritual attacks upon their souls in hope of leading them into evil attitudes and actions.

* Pray for God to help them fulfill the Bible's call to be angry and yet not sin.

* Pray for people to not nurse the pain forever, but to feel the pain and give it to God in prayer for his healing work.

* Pray for the healing of those whose lives are already or almost shipwrecked by bitter self-pity, unfocused anger, loveless fears, and wounded pride.

* Pray for people to refocus the energy of their anger toward making their country, state, county, community, workplaces, schools, churches, marriages, families, and hearts free from the sins that leads to inflicting terror into people's lives.

* Pray for people to believe and keep believing that with God's help, their life can be rebuilt

* Pray for others to know that God still controls the world, even their world with unexplainable suffering. Pray that they may trust God in the worst of circumstances as well as in the best.

Prayer

God our hope and refuge, we confess that anger and hatred have held on to us. Healing has begun, but loss is still real. We are not in control. We don't like being vulnerable. We still want security or the illusion of it. We still want our enemies to be annihilated and for our lives to return to safety and Shalom. Forgive us and heal us. Raise us to new life. Strengthen us in the way of compassion and justice. Fix our faith on you so we know that nothing can separate us from you, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Reprinted from Candles in the Dark, Flames for the Future: Preaching and Poetry in Times for Crisis, ed. David Randolph (Albany, CA: New Way Media, 2003)

http://bachdevelopment.com/BACH7b.htm

E Favorite: I grant you, there's lots of cherry-picking with the Bible, which contains both wonderful stories and not-so-wonderful stories. Christians do regard it as the Word of God...I cannot "explain" this. All I can say is the following: If there is a God, would He/She not utter words like, "Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Don't do anything to others you don't want them to do to you. Heal the sick. Feed the hungry. Do not judge, lest you be judged." And if there's an imperfect world, which we know there is, there would be violence, murder, disrespect, avarice, covetousness, etc. So why shouldn't it be possible that these two dimensions of our world would be reflected in the Word of God -- through vicious things and marvelous things...the odd mix of which each of us sees, if we're being honest, within our own hearts and mind? The Word of God wouldn't be very credible if it presented only one aspect of a complex existence, would it?

I know that nothing I say here is intellectually rigorous. But that's OK. I spent my youth, adolescence and young adulthood trying to be so, and then the practical overran the theoretical. The heavy demands of everyday love and commitment claimed my full energy and attention. I haven't given up on God's great gift of reason -- I just no longer see it as the "default" for dealing with life's problems.

I noted with interest your use of the word "humanism" in your post about Va. Tech students gathering to kneel, and in ritual, and that these acts need not be religious in nature to be meaningful. I agree. But to many of us, the word "humanism" is scary because it not only denotes what's best in us, but what is worst -- as in, "I'm only human." Humanity encompasses everything from glorious to heinous.

Is it that far-fetched -- even while truly respecting and loving ourselves -- to see our gross limitations and believe in the existence of a greater power? To attribute an ability to transcend some of these limitations to a loving Being that at once indwells and surpasses us? Why is this considered so foolish?

None of us can prove or disprove the existence of God. But it's fun to argue about it -- to grow, to learn from others, to say "wow" at the beauty of each other's gifts and perspectives. And, thereby, to find meaning in times of great tragedy, like this week.

As Rabbi Irving Greenberg said about post-Holocaust religion, No statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of burning children. At times like this, whether we are people of faith or not, we can weep and offer a hug. Words, as someone noted above, fail us.

Hi, J Daley, it's me again.

I respect your effort to stick up for your faith (see my comments on the Reese thread). Regarding Fenster, please consider that though his comments about the bible may seem "simplistic and unfair" they are not inaccurate. The point I'd make about this is that the Bible says all the things you and Fenster mention - making it quite difficult to sort out, easy to misunderstand and tempting to cherry-pick for one's own purposes.

The bible is a great old book, full of wonderful stories - and some that are not so wonderful.
The problem, in my view, is that your religion also considers it to be the word of God.

Fenster: Do you have to sound so flip and disrespectful? We're all here agreeing to disagree. Why the cutting comments about animal sacrifice and stoning of adulteresses? Have you ever actually read the New Testament? Jesus told the stoners, "He who is without sin among you, cast the first stone." They all went away. Have you read the Old Testament, which also says, "I desire mercy and not a sacrifice, says the Lord?" I'm no Bible scholar, but I think what you're saying represents a very simplistic and unfair view of what Jews and Christians call their scriptures.

Jimbo: Please don't lump all Christians together in this untrue, ungenerous fashion. Yes, there are Christians who believe anyone who doesn't "accept Jesus as their savior" will be eternally separated from God. But MANY of us belive no such thing. Stating or implying that all Christians think alike is the same as saying that all Muslims think alike...Did you see millions of them blowing up the World Trade Center? No. Just a few. Please don't perpetuate the myth that all Christians think others will "burn in hell." I'm a Catholic Christian, and I belive Dr. Librescu is a beloved child of God.

"The word of promise that Christianity offers is God’s assurance that such brokenness is not life’s final word. We can be healed both of the causes and the consequences of such depravity. Death is evil, but evil is finally not triumphant. God’s love, God’s life defeats death."

Actually, Bishop Sisk, the word of promise that Christianity offers to the family of Dr. Liviu Librescu, a Jewish professor at Virginia Tech who died trying to save his students, is that Professor Librescu is now burning in Hell for not accepting Jesus as his savior.

G DL --

Actually, "The lighting of candles; the listening of stories, the kneeling in the face of such tragedy” seem perfectly sensible to me. I and other non-believers, being human too, understand the need and meaning for “such activity, or such talk” and if anyone in this discussion has declared it “meaningless,” I missed it. Please consider that you’re projecting your perception of how non-believers would react and that you’re assuming that a religious service is the only possible context for lighting candles, listening to stories and finding some kind of peace.

Actually I was moved to tears when I heard about the students meeting at the stadium with lighted candles and singing the VTech fight song. I get chills again just thinking about it. I thought, “That’s the spirit, kids – reach out to each other – you’re all you’ve got.” They used the power of the group and their shared culture to get them through. That’s real humanism at work.

Ken,

Pray for me all you want. While you are at it why not also sacrifice an animal on my behalf or stone an adultress. It's in the Bible which you believe is the infallible word of God, don't you?

You may have heard it before but I will say it again. You have organized your life around a superstition and an extremely old and outdated book. It is man, including the likes of you, who perpetuate the myth.

When God speaks to me and tells me I am wrong, I'll listen to God, not people like you. You have nothing to offer but the same old story.

What happened on the Virginia Tech campus is trying to send us a message about how thoughtless and impersonal our society has become.

If one made the choice, one would never have to have face-to-face contact with another living soul. You could accomplish all your communication through that antiquated marvel the telephone, through email, instant messaging, text messaging via cell phone and snail mail.

Yes we can communicate in an instant but are we really connecting? Our high tech society has depersonalized and marginalized the human condition.

Cho Seung Hui had been disturbed for some time before the shootings yet he was never committed to a mental health institution for long term therapy. There was too much fear of a lawsuit by the university.

God didn't "let this happen." We, as a society, let this happen by choosing to ignore warning signs and standing on the sidelines. How much more proof do we need that mental illness is on a par with any other illness like diabetes or heart disease and needs equal coverage rather than the patchwork system we now have in place.

Cho Seung Hui chose of his own volition to end his own mental torment by taking as many people with him as he could. He probably had other "demons" that might have been discovered if he had received comprehensive treatment at a reputable mental health facility.

Don't blame God. Blame us

Fenster,

Well then, I suppose all those with a Biblical protestant seminary education and a conservative world view are brain washed in your view. However, this is nothing new. Anyone whose preached the gospel for the last 2,000 years has received responses like yours. And for 2,000 years ones like me have been praying for ones like you that the Lord would grant you repentance from your hardness of heart and that you would turn to the living God.

As I read through all the comments made on this sight, I'm horrified at the depth at which we humans have sunk in not acknowledging God and deliberately choosing not to believe or understand His Word and the plans He has for us. If your life is not in tune with God, you're alread in hell on earth. The only way you can be sure of anything in life is if you're obedient to Him and to His Word. Other than that you're Satan's sporn and your thinking reflects his mind and not that of God.
All those who are not intelligent enough to believe there is an all-powerful God who holds all things in the palm of His hand, are pathetic and deprived.

This may come up, a news feed from the AP (a quote):

"You thought it was one pathetic boy's life you were extinguishing. Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people."

How much angrier can one get before snapping? This has nothing to do with sin. This has nothing to do with an interpretation of the life of Christ as the savior of all mankind. It has nothing to do with 'more faith will help'.

It has everything to do with the fact that some people (of faith or not) will lose it and kill others. Statistics are clear on that.

You want comfort and understanding from God as to why it happened? Well then, maybe you can focus your attention on the human and environmental conditions that lead to this tragedy, an understanding of which might have lead to intervention (and then a cure).

Yes, that will take study of the brain and of science (and critical examination of your beliefs). And that may be difficult for the faithful, but think of the credit God can claim for such inspired thought!

Keep your platitudes and your scripture for you have nothing to offer me through those.

This is a tragedy that no one has answers to. As heinous as his actions were , I am really saddened by the shooter's pictures and words. People go through evil everyday, and, really, without forgiveness and prayer, we can only create more and more hatred and violence. Contrary to what the shooter said, I believe in Jesus and His power of healing. God doesn't crucify us, only Jesus was crucified once and for all.

May God's saving Grace be upon those in pain.

Just wanted to say thank you all for your heartfelt thoughts. I am struggling --- have been for years-- to make sense of God's role or lack of intervention during horrible, horrible things. An ultimate irony for me was the professor who survived the Holocaust yet was killed at Tech. Go figure. I only wish there was a pat answer we could believe in, but there isn't. Emerging stronger from a tragedy is true, but, damn, throughout history nothing has changed. Except access to media, I suppose.

Bp. Sisk's words fail. As do ALL of ours. But I think Bp. Sisk's posting is about as good as anything can be on this matter. No one who has criticized him has said anything more helpful or created any more understanding. We seek understanding at a time like this to help us cope or feel a semblance of control, but some acts overwhelm the mind and wound the soul so deeply that words and almost everything else fails us. I have been on pediatric floors, and many other places of pain and courage and care. Frankly, devolving, you don't know where Bp. Sisk has been, and you might be surprised to find out. He has had many years in ministry, he might know a few things by now. Having a pat answer (which I don't believe his is) after something like this would be an insult to anyone involved. We are all struggling to deal. The best people to speak to this are the people who have been through this or something like it. When they are ready to speak, listen.

'Senseless tragedy'! What a concept!

I suppose that there are some 'Sensible' /'Senseful' tragedies as well.

Ken,

You are a brainwashed little person. What you write is tripe. Pity is all you bring to mind, for your lack of ability to use your brain for anything besides scriptural analysis that has nothing to do with the subject at hand. How very sad your world view is.

God created human beings unfallen in the case of Adam. It was sin that brought about the depravity of man and all the suffering that followed. Jesus himself mourned the terrible effects of sin, which this recent tragedy is just one example of. God forbid that we should ever forget the holocaust lest it ever be repeated.

The cure for depravity is, according to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, a poverty of spirit that leads us to Him. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven". There is a song sung at the Billy Graham crusades that expresses this idea. It's first line goes "Just as I am without one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me (i.e. Jesus on the cross) and at the implus of Thy love oh Lamb of God I come, I come." Paul said in Romans 8, "that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved."

So then, when we see our sinful condition in the light of Jesus' perfect righteousness and see Him on the cross, innocent but suffering for our sin, and we see our need so that we are willing to come to Him we will be saved. In John 6 Jesus Himself said "and whoever comes to me I will never cast out". (John 6:37) How poor in spirit muct we be? All that we need is to see our need for Jesus, that because of our sin, He is our only hope of heaven.

"A good God would never let these things happen, and, if they somehow did, he'd fix them in a flash." This is the image of God as puppetteer. In such a view, God's freedom supplants human freedom. That would be a God worth rebelling against.

What is erroneous is that God is perfectly omnipotent in the way we would imagine a superman is. No - we would say that God works through time, human hands, the work of nature.

The fundamentalist and the atheist both consider God as worthy only if it represents a radical power that can stop nature, in its cruelty, from working. That we can see beauty working in spite of - and within - nature is what is remarkable and deserves reflection, which may use religious vocabulary.

The objections to a religious poetry and gesture that allow the mind to do what it needs to make sense of tragedy show a lack of understanding of human instinct. Through symbols - religious symbols also - we may manage better than the pseudo catharsis offered by immediate counseling. Not perfectly - and not universally - but enough. The lighting of candles; the listening of stories, the kneeling in the face of such tragedy are may seem senseless to the atheist, perhaps, but we do them anyway. The urge to declare such activity, or such talk, meaningless curtails the power of the human mind to use religious thought and vocabulary for healing and action.

E Fav,

I've seen it too with this question. One says 'it's all part of God's plan etc." and another says "God didn't want these children to die."

Which is it? I certainly wouldn't want to put my faith in a god that would be that wishy-washy - "yeah, it was their time to be with me, but I didn't want for this to happen"

Robert:

I can explain it for you: God works in mysterious ways. Either that, or there is no God.

Though this was a “pop” question compared to the others the “On Faith” forum has asked panelists to address, it’s the kind of thing clergy have to deal with a lot, so I'd expect them to have a ready answer to it. Yet, as I read through these essays, it seems that this question has thrown the panelists the most. It’s as if they know they can’t give a good explanation that involves God, so they try some other strategy that just doesn’t work very well at all.

I look forward to the day when counselors can offer comfort and condolences without having to include a convoluted and unsatisfying explanation of what God was up to amidst all the horror.

The Bishop writes, "It is that well meaning, but misguided, spirit that causes someone to ask, or to look for, God’s will in such a tragic act of desperate rage; as though God, for some unfathomable reason, had intended such a dreadful act. Nothing could be further from the truth."

However, other Christians inform me that, "Because God made you for a reason, he also decided when you would be born and how long you would live. He planned the days of your life in advance, choosing the exact time of your birth and death. The Bible says, ‘You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your book!’ (Psalm 139:16)" -Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life

So, it appears that your god DID intend for this to happen, unless there's an alternate reading to Psalm 139:16. Feel free to explain.

A good God would never let these things happen, and, if they somehow did, he'd fix them in a flash.

Christian theology, as described by Bishop Sisk, is as tormented as Jesus on the cross.

Bishop Sisk,

You write, "To the family and friends of those who were murdered (and to the family and friends of the one who did the killing) there can be no easy answer why"

Lee Strobel in The Case for Faith answers 'why' quite well in his first chapter...'suffering brings us closer to God' he concludes after several interviews.

I am amazed that folks of faith can credit God for all the good that happens in their lives, can give God all the power imaginable, see all sorts of lessons God is trying to teach us from suffering and yet still give God that loophole of God's inability to do anything about 'human freedom' and 'evil'.

As for 'love as an expression' that can help in times of tragedy...yes, love and comfort as much and as often as humanly possible has the power heal over time but one does not need to believe in the religious dogma that drives unprovable claims to truth in order to offer love and comfort to those (all of us) affected by the actions of a mentally disturbed individual (who apparently showed plenty of warning signs if I read the news correctly). Why can't people see it for what it is in the most human of terms instead of trying to ascribe comfort from a man's (OK, a Bishop, but still a fallible human's) description of the almighty that frankly, falls flat on its face in my humble opinion.

Devolving should learn more about a subject before decrying it as unintelligent. I am no theologian either, but as I understand it, God created humans with free choice, not "dangerously broken". The idea is that a deed can't be good unless the doer had the ability to choose between doing it or another action. The freedom to do good implies the freedom to do bad.

As valuable as the theory of evolution is in explaining our nature, it doesn't necessarliy do a good job of explaining why the mass murders in Darfur and Bosnia are bad. Theology at least provides another way to attempt to do that.

So god created humans but deliberately broken. And the goal of life is to desperately `hang our hope' on the love of a god who made us broken just so we would cling to the promise that `evil can never be life's final word.' Shouldn't theology be a little more intelligent than this babble? If I lost someone dear to me in a brutal murder, this crap would not be of much comfort, methinks. Mr. Sisk needs to get a real job, perhaps get out in the world and into some pediatric hospitals and see god's work in action. Then on to Darfur and see more of god's work. Next stop: mass graves of Muslims in Bosnia. The tour could go on and on ...