Annie and I recently returned from a trip to Scotland, Wales, England and Ireland—the lands of our ancestors.
In Dublin, I read a news article that is almost unbelievable yet ever so believable in today’s world.
About two years ago, two thirteen-year-old boys brutally raped and murdered a fourteen-year-old girl. All were from wholesome families and seemed to lead normal lives.
Everyone in Ireland kept asking, “What happened?”
As I read the story, I mused that such violent behavior is not surprising given the preponderance of vicious video games, social media, porn, and weird cults in modern culture. The end of the article revealed that one of the boys had over twelve thousand images of animal porn, child porn, and violent sex on his electronic devices.
Have you gone to the movies lately and tried to find a wholesome movie without violence, brutal murders, fights to a gory death, graphic sex, heavy cussing (today’s films use the f word like a comma), or world-ending battles? It’s hard to find a movie, television show, or movie trailer without violence.
On our ten-hour flight home, I watched a movie entitled Booksmart about two bright high school seniors who decided to learn how to party before they went off to college. The film was full of sex, drugs, and profanity that would make a Marine Corps drill sergeant blush. Is this really what high school is about? That movie could lead people to believe so.
Another article in that Irish newspaper talked about the ubiquity of the internet and social media in children’s lives. One fourteen-year-old girl told the author that she had received three graphic images before 8:00 a.m. on the day of their interview.
I remember when the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre took place, many people believed that incident would put an end to gun violence. That tragedy happened on December 14, 2012. Today, nothing has changed. We have become so numbed by mass shootings that they no longer seem to affect us—“Oh, another massacre today. Any interesting news?”
As I wrote this blog post decrying violence on November 14, 2019, another mass shooting occurred at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California. Three died.
Once again, our leadership’s response is thoughts and prayers.
We all know nothing will change as long as the National Rifle Association is allowed to buy off elected officials and as along as gun advocates believe that the Second Amendment is about purchasing semiautomatic guns.
Maybe we are born violent (thanks to survival-of-the-fittest evolution) and have to learn nonviolence rather than the other way around. I’m reminded daily of how violent the Bible and the history of Christianity are.
The silence of the institutional church about this plague of violence is deafening.
Many people have stopped caring because social media is unregulated, our leadership defends the NRA, school psychologists are almost extinct, and bullies prevail.
What’s your take on violence?