School Shootings — The Missing Link

As familiar as they seem, it still horrifies us when we hear that another school shooting is taking place. Yesterday’s shooting at Virginia Tech U is now the worst ever in US history. Only a few months ago it happened in Montreal. This is not just happening in North America, it has become a worldwide epidemic with an unprescedented rise in the mid-90’s (See stats here). Since 1996 there have been 48 School shootings, the majority of them committed by students. The average age of school shooters is 13-18, in one incident, the student was 12, the youngest school shooter was 6 years old. There is no question that this trend has a common denominator. Something is causing this and it’s not just video games. The problem is compounding but there is one missing link that I doubt will be targeted in the media’s quest to find answers.

Today will be the day the world is asking questions in order to find solutions to hopefully halt this epidemic. All kinds of fingers are pointing to all kinds of causes… bullying, guns, violent movies, video games, and psychopathic mental disorders. But it takes a close look at todays youth culture in contrast to history in order to solve this dilema. Here is a list of compounding issues that have lead to a violent youth culture…

- Divorce and broken homelife.
- Both Parents Working.
- Web Based Isolation.
- Drug and Alcohol Abuse.
- Disrespectful Social Structures
- Negative Influences in society.
- Immoral perversions and sexual abuse.
- Lack of Spiritual guidance or Moral foundation.
- Lack of guidance and sound judgment in making choices.
- Excessive Exposure to Violent and horrific Murder Scenes through various mediums.

When the social/family structure and moral foundation of a child is breached, he/she is extremely vulnerable to all of the other issues listed above. All it takes to trigger a violent reaction is some form of ridicule or rejection.

While I was a youth pastor I had several kids in my group who had experienced some form of broken home-life. All of them had serious emotional problems and tendencies towards problematic situations, they got into trouble often. These kids were sending signals as a way of crying out for help. Some of them felt injustices in their lives were never resolved and were angry or depressed. One day I received a call from a church member asking me to meet with a friend's 13 year old son who had been uttering death threats towards his class-mates. This boy was an amazing kid... Very polite, quiet spirit, good looking, athletic, very intelligent... it was baffling to say the least. But it didn't take long to find the root of the problem. His parents had recently divorced and his mother had a new boyfriend living with them. The situation drove the mother and the sister to hate their father immensely, and the boy was now expressing how much he hated his father. That issue was the weak link that caused this chain of events. Kids deal with rejection and social pressures all the time. But when their family life collapses, they can no longer deal with any further turmoil. Once the foundation crumbles, they have no strength to overcome rejection and ridicule.

We now know the gunman behind yesterday’s shooting rampage was a very disturbed individual who did not fit into the social structure of a socially elite institution. We are hearing in the news about how strange and isolated he seemed. No doubt, there were extenuating circumstances we may never know about, however, what enabled him to pull this off with such indifference was a lack of moral conscience. How different would it have been if he feared the Lord and understood that there would be serious consequences to such actions?

In order to affirm an epidemic, we must esablish a link between these school shootings.

Divorce and family breakdown undermines a child’s emotional and moral foundation. Their sense of loyalty, faithfullness, and trust has been severely damaged. But aside from all the issues I’ve raised, there is one more essential issue that causes these type of reactions…

When Harris and Klebold plotted the massacre at Columbine High School, they revealed their motive in a journal. Though the actions were brought on due to various sociel dilema’s at the school, the underlying culprit that allowed their emotional condition to evolve into a violent reaction that was committed in a brazen manner withouty moral conscience or concern for the consequences, was EVOLUTION!

Dr D. James Kennedy said ”Evolution is taught in every public school in America, and not without consequences, as Darwin’s Deadly Legacy documents. Columbine killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 people and themselves in the worst school shooting in U.S. history. Their goal was to bring death to more than 500. Harris wrote on his website, “YOU KNOW WHAT I LOVE??? Natural SELECTION! It’s the best thing that ever happened to the Earth. Getting rid of all the stupid and weak organisms.” The autopsy report for Harris revealed that on the day of the attack, he wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Natural Selection.” Harris and Klebold, who planned their rampage for a year, paid homage to their hero, Adolf Hitler by carrying out their killing spree on April 20, Hitler’s birthday. (Entire Article here.)

We also know that the 2 boys asked some of their victims if they believed in God before they shot them. It is therefore no coincidence that Harris and Klebold were fascinated with Hitler and Natzism which held the same philosophies of advancing the “evolution of humanity” where the more advanced and powerful dominate and conquere the weaker species.

This is the most significant component contributing to this violent youth culture and the rise of violent deaths commited by youths. What happens when you remove the moral conscience of a generation and replace it with a theory that causes kids to believe they came from nothing, have no meaningful purpose for their exisence, and have no ultimate purpose of destiny for which they exist. If there is no purpose to this life, no afterlife, no absolute truth, and no God to hold them to account for their behavior, there is virtually no deterent to reacting in this manner when circumstances drive them to an emotional dilema in which they no longer care to live!

So is it any wonder that these acts are being committed in the very institutions that have created these conditions, by teaching and indoctrinating students to believe they are basically just animals with no belonging to an intelligent creator who designed them with purpose and loves them?

Pastor David L. Brown, Ph.D. “The Judeo-Christian values that our country was founded on have been kicked out of the Government schools. And what has replaced them? Evolution which teaches that man is basically an animal; relativism which teaches that there is really no right and wrong; humanism which teaches them to be self-oriented instead of others oriented; psychology which teaches that man is basically good, problems of life are someone else’s fault and can be solved without God.”

Ray Comfort once produced a gospel tract called “The Bullet” which was designed to answer the question, “Why do kids Kill?” And he said this… “In the 1960’s, authorities saw fit to remove the Ten Commandments from the walls of our schools. It seems that they didn’t like our youth being given moral guidelines, such as “You shall not lie,” “You shall not steal,” and “You shall not kill.” No doubt they thought that they were liberating a generation. It worked. We now have a generation who feels that they have the liberty to lie, steal, and even kill, without qualms of conscience. We, as a nation, must bear some of the responsibility for school shootings. After all, who is to blame when moral light is removed those who remove the light, or those who stumble in the darkness?”

There is the reason for all this... The teaching of EVOLUTION as scientific fact is the missing link in the causes behind why we have so many school shootings.

Rev Chris Curry
www.LivingWatersCanada.com