Mass Shootings and the Terror Culture

Yesterday’s mass shooting in Newtown,Connecticut instantly became the talk across America. Everyone wondered how anyone could so callously murder twenty little kids, and six adults, with seemingly no remorse. It is an ugly day, a tragic era, when these kinds of things are brought before our faces. It is disconcerting to me though, how our responses and expectations have changed over the past few decades. I am thinking about our emotional response to this event, and how different it is from a similar one 46 years ago.

It was in August of 1966 that Charles Whitman, a college student and ex-marine, climbed the Bell Tower in Austin,Texas. From that 300 foot high vantage, using his marine rifle training, he coldly shot down fourteen dead, with numerous wounded. It was the first modern-day shooting rampage in the United States. It was an event that marked history for us. It also seared in our psyches the assurance that our nation had changed. It was the event that fixed in our minds that America was a different place. We were becoming a different culture.

Over these past 46 years we have experienced so many mass shootings, Columbine, Virginia Tech, and the bloody others, we cannot recall the list. In fact, if we do attempt to re-construct the count we have to look it up. There are too many to remember. Now we may add Newtown,Connecticut to the list.

However, there is to consider more than the shootings. During those same 46 years the very nature of our society has morphed into a psychologically dangerous animal. We have entered into what I am calling the terror culture. It is becoming disarmingly normal for us to think about terror, to not be surprised by reports of terror, or even to expect reports of mayhem in the news. One of the things that should most scare us is our expectations, our normal expectations, of ghastly things. At this latest story we are shocked that little children would be targeted, but as to these events in general, we are no longer shocked, just dismayed. They have become almost a part of our cultural landscape.

It is not only mass shootings that have changed our sensibilities. Over these same years we have seen the rise of drug battles, now raging especially at our southern border. Road rage murders were almost unheard of forty years ago but are expected now. Gangs roam inner city streets and public parks to a degree that many of us rarely venture into them. We understand almost intrinsically that the streets are a dangerous place. On top of these things, we all have come to understand that the police themselves may well be a terror against good citizens instead of the criminals they are supposed to pursue. Do not talk to the cops, they will entrap you into something. Our societal brew is becoming pretty nasty.

As Christians we may look to our own household to discover the solutions to the terror society. When Christian civilization was stronger, the terror culture did not prevail. It was with the weakening of Christian doctrine and morals that the ugly nature of man began to rule our streets with greater force. We are experiencing what the Bible calls the natural  man in his unfettered state. What theologians labeled original sin and God called a desperately wicked heart, has come to reign with increasingly powerful effects. With the failure culturally, of the church, individuals are decreasingly restrained in their consciences. Behavior that once was understood by all to be untenable now is becoming, in fact has become, acceptable in many people’s minds. We have spent years teaching our children that all moral perspectives (all religions and philosophies) are equal. They have believed us. Now they are teaching us that terror and blood are acceptable. They are raining upon our heads the blows we ought to have expected having taught them such theological rubbish. Having never taught our children the superiority of Biblical culture why should we be surprised when they act out the values of naturally wicked people? They have never been morally forced to stare sin in the face and reject it for Christian virtue. They have neither the power nor the wisdom of Christ to do so. Most of our children, even at this late hour, remain learners in a legally godless education environment. They return each evening to a home where there is minimal Biblical instruction. They have had no training in the one Source that could have saved us from ourselves. Now we are staring at the collapsing edifice, once called Christian America, and wondering what to do.

Besides all this, Christian men have allowed themselves to be legally disarmed by state and local governments. These mass shootings all occur in locations where it is illegal for citizens to legally carry firearms. Our theology ought to inform us that undefended people will become prey for the unrestrained wicked. We have been going happily down the path with deceived, unredeemed men, who passed laws against lawful gun carry. They believed that guns were the problem and so banned them. We should have understood that unrepentant sin is the problem. We should have remained armed to restrain them, instead of accepting their cultural lead. Now we are faced with a terror culture and no way to defend our families. We are the ones under suspicion, while they are the hacks murdering their neighbors.

The answer to all of this circles around re-applying our theology to the rearing of our children, and the influencing of society. We must rear well-taught, Biblically-minded children. We also have to stop letting humanists lead society while we blindly follow. Gentlemen, we must assert Biblical thought at every turn. We must return Christian law and thought to our families, pulpits, and the public square. If we lack courage for these duties, we may expect only further terrors and loss of liberty. The season of decision is upon us.

For Christian Culture,

Don Schanzenbach

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