Guns and Young Men: It's a theological problem not a gun problem

I wrote this after the Parkland shooting in Florida.  I'm re-posting it because we still don't perceive the real problem.

The school shooting in Uvalde, Texas has once again ignited the standard debate that erupts after these events.  One side screams that if you don’t want to get rid of guns immediately, you don’t care about the children.  The other side claims that any gun control will immediately result in the United States spiraling into absolute totalitarianism.  Both arguments are irrational; both are, simply put, dead wrong.

I believe in private ownership of guns because of the 2^nd Amendment, just like I believe in free speech and freedom to exercise my religion because of the 1^st Amendment.  However, just as there are limits on the 1^st Amendment freedoms (for instance, I can’t use my free speech or my freedom to exercise my religion to defraud or defame someone) there can be appropriate limitations on gun ownership.  I guess you could say I take a middle of the road approach.

I could cite plenty of numbers to back up a reasoned argument that gun deaths are an insignificant portion of deaths among teenagers and children [you can review the CDC numbers on such deaths for yourself  here.]  When you combine those numbers with the number of children in schools across the nation it becomes clear, via simple math, that there is no school shooting epidemic that requires instant and drastic intervention.  See the NCES numbers here.   What the numbers suggest is that it is irrational for a parent or a child to fear there is anything more than an infinitesimal chance that child will ever die in a school shooting or even be present when a school shooting takes place.  This is much like the very irrational fear that flying in an airliner is at all likely to result in death (there were ZERO deaths from airliner crashes in 2017, across the entire world).[1] 

I fully understand it is no consolation to a grieving parent, family member or friend to know your child's death was a relatively unlikely occurrence.  Nor am I, by citing these statistics and numbers, attempting to make light of any child's death.  Far from it, I believe each one of these children was a soul made in the image of the God of the universe and, for that reason, had value, meaning and purpose imbued into their very existence.

If people truly want to figure out how to minimize these school shootings, the question we should be asking isn’t about guns, but about why these young men make the choice to go on these rampages.  I believe the answer lies in what we teach them about who and what they are.

Our society has for many years promoted a materialist understanding of reality.  By this I refer to the view that the material universe is, as Carl Sagan liked to famously point out, “all there ever was, all there is and all there ever will be.”  There is no room for the supernatural and very little room for religion of any kind.  As a consequence, our public school students, in particular, learn from the time they are very young that they are nothing but animals – higher order animals to be sure, but animals nonetheless.  Oh you can fantasize about being “stardust” and get all jittery and spine-tingly about it, but the consequence of this belief system results in an understanding, learned all too well, especially by testosterone laden young men, that human life has no true meaning, value, or purpose.  We are merely cosmic protoplasm that has developed for no particular reason into human animals due to forces that operate without any morals, standards, or design.  Thus, since we have no intrinsic value, meaning or purpose, young men have nothing restraining them from engaging in these kinds of acts.  Moreover, this nihilistic tendency absolutely follows from such a dim and dark view of reality. Rather than asking why these shootings happen, we should really be asking why don’t they happen more often. 

Until we are prepared to acknowledge this reality, we will never get a handle on the school shooting problem.  If we keep teaching our children that they’re nothing more than an accidental blip in the evolutionary ladder, our young men will continue to believe their lives have no meaning, value, or purpose.  Once they imbibe this teaching, particularly young men who have no influences outside school to give them some counter-balancing, we’ll continue to get school shootings.  Or go ahead and take guns away and you’ll get kids crashing cars into crowds of students or kids using knives or baseball bats or making homemade bombs or finding other inventive ways to take lives.  It’s not a gun question; it’s a moral, philosophical and, most importantly, theological question.

There is, of course, an obvious way out.  Allow students freedom to use their 1^st amendment rights to actually “exercise” their religion.  That would mean that, yes, some students would actually proselytize others.  But it also means that many Christian students and teachers would seek ways to engage students with kindness and generosity and acceptance.  They would be allowed to actually pray for them while on school grounds without fear of reprimand.  They would be allowed to actually speak the name of Jesus or read the bible to others.

I’ll ask the question I asked a friend of mine years ago when he claimed religion didn’t belong in schools: what are you afraid of?  Are you worried that kids will become Christians and will suddenly start treating each other with greater kindness and respect and dignity.  Oh, how awful that would be. 

I can hear the cacophony of “but what about homosexuality and transgenders – you Christians are bigoted, misogynist, et ceteras when it comes to those things.  How can we trust you to treat young men right?  We don’t feel like you treat us with kindness, respect, and dignity.”  Some who claim the name of Christ are not always sensitive about how they present the gospel message; this is true.  Yet, Jesus met a woman at a well who was a sexual sinner of significant magnitude and he called her out on it.  He wasn’t mean, nor did he dwell on her sin.  But he didn’t hide from it, either.  As Christians we have an obligation to explain what the Bible teaches, even when it’s unpopular.  The Bible teaches that everyone, including lost young men, lost homosexuals, and lost transgenders have value, meaning and purpose and that all who call on the name of Christ will be saved.  It is absolutely necessary that Christians explain what sin looks like, just as Jesus did with the woman at the well and it should be done with reserve and respect.  But until someone recognizes they are a sinner, just like every other human who has ever lived, save Jesus, they will never see the need to call on the name of Christ. Those who claim the message is bigoted, etc. need to take that up with the God of the universe – he inspired the writing of the book such that it would say what it says.  No man simply wrote what was on his mind.

This is incredibly important to understand because Christianity teaches, Jesus teaches, the Bible teaches, that all people are meaningful, purposeful, and valuable.  The secular materialist viewpoint teaches people have the value assigned to them by society’s whims.  Don’t get me wrong, Christian beliefs won’t inoculate the schools from ever seeing another school shooting.  But it would sure go a long way toward teaching these young men that their lives and other’s lives are worth something.  It’s really hard to randomly start killing people if you think they’re something more than just a mere animal.  It’s even harder to do if you believe your own life has value, meaning, and purpose.  But as long as we continue to teach children they come from primordial slime, they’ll keep growing up to act like the slime they’ve been told they are.

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[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-aviation-safety/2017-safest-year-on-record-for-commercial-passenger-air-travel-groups-idUSKBN1EQ17L