It's happened again. Evil has manifested itself once again, taking from us our children and their innocence. Not a newspaper or television this past week has been free of the constant barrage of news from Littleton, Colorado - forcing us all to re-live those infamous four hours last Tuesday, telling the stories of the victims' lives, trying to determine what went wrong with the two boys, and evoking the fears and feelings of millions as grieving families share their heart-wrenching grief with the nation. Why? Why does this keep happening?
Littleton is a grieving city, and the nation is hurting along with them. We want to somehow show our support and concern, and yet it seems that in the face of such carnage, no expression of sympathy would be enough. Most of us can not even fathom such brutality. The entire event seems surreal, like a television mini-series unfolding over the course of the past week. But it is all too real, and the pain and the grief have only begun.
They tell us that this is the eighth such shooting in the last couple of years. Is it our children? Perhaps the blame lies with the schools or the media. But it's just a few teens gone wrong, unable to make sense of the world or themselves. Perhaps the problem lies with their parents. Surely they should have seen this coming. There were warning signs they say. Why didn't somebody do something about it?
In the aftermath of this terrible event, our minds were again taken to Jonesboro, Pearl, Mississippi, Springfield, Oregon, Paducah, Dunblane and many other suburban areas, including our own Richmond area. What caused these awful incidents? What's wrong with these kids? How can we fix this epidemic sweeping our nation?
And I couldn't help but remember the Oklahoma City bombing, and the Olympic Village in Atlanta, Ted Kozinski, Lockerbie, Scotland. What has gone wrong with our world? But it doesn't stop there. I believe the same problem exists at the heart of each of these disasters as lies at the heart of the problems in Yugoslavia, South Africa, Northern Ireland, Bosnia, and our own inner cities. And it's not just an inner city problem, is it? Then, what is it? What can be done about it?
They interviewed NRA president, Charlton Hesston, Wednesday and asked his response to the Littleton incident. I was shocked and surprised by his response. He suggested that armed guards be stationed in every school. I just can't believe that more guns in the schools will keep this from happening again. News articles spoke of the need for metal detectors at every school entrance.
But school security and gun control is not the problem Of course, I'm all in favor of anything which would lessen the chances for something like last week's tragedy to occur, but I believe the problem is much deeper than this.
Perhaps we can blame the media. There has been so much coverage on television and radio. The newspapers flash the headlines. Special news stories and programs are on every television station. And what of all the video games our children play, or the Internet access they have to all sorts of sites. Following the Jonesboro tragedy, a military psychologist by the name of David Grossman worked with the local clergy and counselors to help them deal with the people of Jonesboro after such a brutal shooting. He has written about his previous study in the military in what he calls "killology." He writes about the way in which soldiers are trained to overcome our natural resistance to killing. Through their training, soldiers become desensitized to violence and begin to accept survival as the essential norm. Grossman argues that this same training goes on with our children when they see people shot, stabbed, raped, brutalized, degraded, or murdered on TV. They become desensitized to pain and suffering.
He goes on to say that our children are also receiving another kind of training called "classic conditioning" where violent interactive video games teach them the same reflex skills as a soldier or police officer in training. We see it in the movie theaters when the bloody violence evokes laughter and cheers as we continue to eat our popcorn and enjoy our drinks.
Finally, he refers to the stimulus-response kind of training our children receive which is known as "operant conditioning." When we are frightened or angry, we do what we have been conditioned to do. We use this Pavlovian conditioning when we practice fire drills, teaching children to file out of a building in orderly fashion. If the need would one day arise, even if frightened, the children would do what they have been conditioned to do and it would save lives. But in interactive point-and-shoot video games, our children learn the same conditioned reflex and motor skills that soldiers use on the battlefield. (1)
And so we can point our fingers at the media for training our children the conditioned responses which bring about violence when they are frightened or angry. Perhaps we need to work to reform the media and control the entertainment of our children and society. And I'm all for it, but we're just putting Band-Aids on deep wounds.
We look at the parents of these children, but the parents aren't the problem either. Good parents weep night after night over the bad choices their children make. And we see some less-than-glowing examples of parents whose children go on to excel in life. No, the problem isn't the parents, though I'm all for helping parents acquire better parenting skills or learn more about their children. But the parents aren't the problem.
And I read Friday that Virginia asked the FBI about psychological profiles of these kinds of children. If we could obtain a profile of those who were at greater risk of committing these kinds of violent acts, we could identify these kids and segregate them out of the masses.
But the problem isn't that we don't have enough armed guards or enough guns, the problem isn't that we need security systems in our schools, or psychologists who can identify walking time-bombs. The problem isn't gun control or rock music.
The problem is with us -- with people. We isolate people we don't like - we call them names, and make them wear labels like "Trenchcoat Mafia" or "jock" or "homosexual" or "ethnic Albanian," "outcast," "loser," "black" or "white," us and them. We label people and it makes it easier for us to see them, not as people, but as a label. When they lose the qualities that make them a person, it becomes easier for us to hate them, to shun them, to turn on them.
Earlier this week, two boys committed unthinkable horror, but in the days, months, perhaps even years leading up to this carnage, they had been the targets. They had been singled out, picked on, ridiculed. They had been labeled and shunned, segregated out because they were different. This doesn't excuse what happened, but why aren't the news anchors asking why we allow our children, and ourselves, to ostracize, criticize, pick on, label and isolate people we don't understand, people who look different, act different, or think different. We aren't seeing any "experts"who tell us that healing change is only going to take place when we quit seeing people as labels and see them as people, that hatred and suspicion and prejudice is really what is at the root of this kind of tragedy. And because the real problem -- our own sinfulness -- is not being talked about, it is likely that this will happen again. (2)
This problem isn't something we can legislate. We can't just make a few rules or change our policies and fix this problem. This is a problem that will be difficult to address, but I believe that we must address it and the church should be its heart.
Paul names it and calls us to task in our text from Romans this morning. Our very nature brings us to single out those who are different from us, but our faith calls us to be different. We are to outdo one another in showing honor, extend hospitality to strangers, bless those who persecute us. Paul even names our natural response to persecution - cursing. He knows our tendency is to strike back. But he goes on to say that we are not to curse those who persecute, but rather, to bless. He calls us to associate with the lowly. "Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all" (vs. 17). And he reminds us, "if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink; for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads." Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (vs. 20-21). Read the first verses of this chapter in Romans. This is Paul's charge to us, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-- what is good and acceptable and perfect" (vs.2).
I don't know about you, but I find this holy kind of behavior difficult. It is so easy to give lip service, but to live it out as Christ would have us, as Christ modeled for us, is incredibly difficult. But imagine with me a world where people behave like Paul writes. Imagine the school where our children go out of their way to befriend those who are different than they are, to stand up for the ones who are singled out and labeled, to give compliments and blessings to those who would try to hurt them. And imagine us adults in our work places and gatherings, even in our own families, modeling that kind of behavior for them. Can you imagine us practicing that each Sunday when we gather to worship and continue that practice in our meetings and socials, teaching it to our children?
We know from later chapters in Acts that our sinful nature caused problems in the early church as well, but I think they had it right when they tried to band together for mutual support against persecution. They tried to help one another, to live in harmony with one another. To build one another up in love.
Until we learn to love and learn not to hate, we are at risk of being caught up in the fruits of human sinfulness wherever we are, whatever we find ourselves doing. It is so easy for us to make judgments and place labels on people who are different than we are, but Christ calls us to a higher way.
I challenge each of us today, and together as a church, to take out our Bibles at home this week and review Paul's words in the twelfth chapter of Romans. Study them, learn them, memorize them, and practice them during the week and in the days ahead. And when you fall down, get up and practice it again. Refuse to be conformed to this world. Refuse to hate. Practice love and acceptance.
Do not be conformed to this world and its ways. Do not give in to our sinful nature, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God -- what is good and acceptable and perfect. Amen.
Notes
1) Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, an expert on the psychology of killing, retired from the U.S. Army in February. He now teaches psychology at Arkansas State University, directs the Killology Research Group in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and has written On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (Little, Brown and Co., 1996). This article was adapted from a lecture he gave at Bethel College, North Newton, Kansas, in April. The article was downloaded from the Internet web site www.bafn.org/~lightumc/traine~1.doc.
2) Allen Gibson, pastor of the Epworth United Methodist Church in Lexington, Kentucky. He wrote these thoughts as part of his own journal following the Jonesboro shooting, shared on the Internet homiletical group, Homilies by E-mail.
© 1999 Michelle James, all rights reserved
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