Two Christian commentators are offering their ideas about who or what to blame for the shootings this weekend. One blames, in part, the Church … and the other blames what he calls America's "mis-education" system for teaching children that they're essentially animals.
In the aftermath of the massacres in El Paso and Dayton that left 31 dead and dozens wounded and injured, politicians and pundits across the U.S. are stating their opinions about the reasons the shootings took place. President Donald Trump, for example, blamed mental illness, violent video games, and insufficient background checks. But many of his political opponents are blaming the president's political rhetoric, saying it has fostered an "anti-immigrant" and "racist" culture.
In the midst of the debate, Christian apologist, author, and speaker Dr. Frank Turek argues that the Church needs to be more counter-culture. "We've created this culture of nihilism, [a culture] of meaningless – and [then] we wonder why people treat one another as if their lives are meaningless. I think a big part of the problem is the Church has been complicit in this, in the sense that the Church has not engaged the culture," Turek said Tuesday on American Family Radio.
He continued: "The Church, since the 1920s, has been pretty much separated from the culture. The Church hasn't been involved in evidence or reason, [in] trying to give reasons as to why Christianity is true and to show people why it is really true that there is a God and you're made in His image and we should respect everyone."
Turek went on to point out that people often say, "Well, just have faith" – an admonition he says isn't biblical. "Jesus never said 'Just have faith,' [but rather that we should] always be ready to give an answer for the hope that you have, to trust in what you have good reason to believe," he noted. "That's what faith is. And so part of the problem is us; that the Church, for the past 100 years, has not really engaged the culture – and we wonder why when we take the godly people out the culture that culture goes godless. Whose fault is that? It's ours."
'When lawlessness increases, love of man waxes cold'
Monday on American Family Radio, talk-show host Abraham Hamilton III also blamed a devaluing of life – but in addition argued that a godless education system shoulders much of the blame for tragedies like those in El Paso, Dayton, and other sites of mass shootings. "We have a generation [now] that has been force-fed, through their mis-education systems, the message that they're nothing but animals; [that] there's nothing unique or sacred about human life – [and therefore] life has no purpose, no meaning," he began. "That is what society has force-fed a generation."
Yet, he said, Americans continue to support "that anti-Christ theological teaching" by enshrining in law and paying taxpayer dollars for the right to abortion. "We have marches primarily for the right to murder these little 'animals,'" he noted. "And then society wants to gasp collectively when we have tragedies like we had over the weekend?"
And despite the public outcry from the left, Hamilton contends liberal politicians don't really care when these events occur.
"That's why they immediately run to their predictable political talking points," he said. "I'm saying that if we have a society that truly cares about the termination of innocent human life, we have to grapple with the fact that we probably should stop telling people that they're just animals. You kick God out of society – the God who says 'You were made in My image' and that life is precious – you reject Him [and] expel Him from society; yet want to complain when people act like animals. We can't have it both ways."
And the repeated calls from Capitol Hill for gun control are "foolishness," he concluded. "Everybody knows that for the first 125 to 150 years of America's history there were guns everywhere. [There were even] marksmanship classes at the schools – but you want to tell me it's the guns?
"It's not the guns, man," Hamilton emphasized. "This is what happens when a nation has rejected the Lord: As lawlessness increases, the love of man waxes cold." (Matthew 24:12)
