To the Readers' Forum:
Everyone seems to ask, "Why are there so many school shootings lately?" especially after the most recent one that killed 27 persons, mostly children.
But the more important question to ask is - "Given our cultural climate, why aren't there more school shootings?" Let me explain. We've seen a radical shift in moral perspective in the last few decades in the U.S., and it's producing more violence as a result. It used to be most people in America shared a common moral framework, a mostly Jewish-Christian ethic in respect to good and bad, right and wrong based on the Bible. But today that's not the case.
Instead, current post-modern pop culture teaches everyone to "live and let live," or "believe whatever you want just keep it to yourself." There is the ongoing secular social movement to strip society of all Christian moral values, while maintaining a secular "value-neutral" position that is fair to all beliefs, philosophies and religions; all moral values are relative.
Children are deliberately not taught moral values in school and elsewhere; instead, they are taught there is no absolute morality, just diverse human perspectives. This is all done in the name of equality and fairness. Consequently, at least an entire generation has grown up today thinking that ultimately ethics is a matter of mere human opinion, not divine command. Is it any wonder, therefore, that we see school shootings and in greater numbers today?
President Obama said at the memorial service in Newtown that he'll do anything and everything he can to prevent another school shooting like the one that just took place. OK, how about he and his administration stop publicly attacking and assaulting Judeo-Christian morality and undermining the moral foundations of our nation, for example, by confusing traditional marriage with so-called gay marriage.
If you dismantle the moral framework for society, you have no right to complain (or cry) about the troubling results. Rapid secularization in the U.S. has produced a cultural situation where people, especially young people, disbelieve in any absolute morality. They've been taught to disbelieve it. Why shouldn't an angry young person kill others and then kill himself, and go out with a bang?
If one disbelieves or ignores God's moral commands (and is taught by society to do so), then only random and arbitrary personal (often violent) acts will result. This is obvious, isn't it?
Pastor Jeff Short
Jamestown