Commentary: Lessons from Sandy Hook

Publisher's Note:   This Commentary by Star Parker is being republished on the Faith Hope and Love Christian Ministry Blog for your review and consideration.   We have underlined portions of her comments to emphasize them.   We particularly want to highlight this statement:

"We ought to be asking what connection there might be between the state of mind and behavior of the young man who committed this crime and the home and society in which he lived."  

The young man who committed this mass murder had Asperger's Syndrome, which is a developmental condition. The impairment resulting from this condition can be slight or it can be significant.  But there has been much commentary made that has equated this Syndrome with mental illness, but that is not correct.   We ask that you consider carefully Star Parker's comments, particularly asking yourself if laws regarding guns really are what is broken.   Also consider this comment by George Nielsen, in response to the commentary: "If you treat people with a disability like they are dirt, will you get away with it?  Are you not going to reap what you sow?"



Lessons from Sandy Hook
By:  Star Parker,  December 24, 2012

Nothing strikes deeper to the heart than the loss of children.   It’s one more reason why the horror in Newtown, Conn., has hurt our nation so badly.

I do not believe there is any human suffering like the suffering of a parent who loses a child.  I know it from personal experience. I lost a beautiful, young teenage daughter almost 10 years ago, and the pain never goes away.

When tragedy strikes, we want to do something. It is a natural human instinct that when we suffer, we conclude it is because something is broken and to want to fix it.

But in order to fix it, we need to understand what’s broken.

Debate about access to guns and assault weapons is reasonable at this time. But it would layer tragedy on top of tragedy if the only thing we walk away from this incident with is that what may be broken in our nation is our gun laws.

We ought to be asking what connection there might be between the state of mind and behavior of the young man who committed this crime and the home and society in which he lived.

We should use Christmas this year to think about this. Nothing could be more in the spirit of the holiday.

Our popular idea about freedom is that it is about individuals being able to do what they want as long as they don’t hurt others.

But the limitation we have in thinking about whether we hurt others is whether there is immediate and obvious physical damage. Hence, the first political reaction to the Newtown tragedy has been to consider how we can better prevent the mentally ill from injuring others.

But what about damage done to others that may not be immediately obvious in the form of physical injury?

What responsibility do we bear for those we call “mentally ill”? How might their mental state and behavior reflect and result from our behavior toward them?

The theme that seems to have defined this tragic young man’s reality is isolation.

The descriptions we read convey that he was a “nerd,” “socially awkward.”

I think we all can agree that isolation, certainly of a child, is unhealthy. But if we agree that isolation is unhealthy – damaging – how is this reconciled in a society that rejects the idea that there are truths that transcend individuals and connect us all to each other, that there are social truths as well as individual truths?

If a free society is just a collection of individuals who choose to live together because it is useful to do so, then those whom we do not view as useful we push aside and isolate.

The most vulnerable to this emotional brutality are children – and often the most sensitive and talented.

We ought to be thinking about the falsehoods we commonly accept so we can wake up and improve.

If we really believe that in a free society pursuit of self-interest does not include behavior that harms others, we should appreciate that a society that equates freedom to moral relativism and meaninglessness does harm others – and we should reject that [as a societal standard for freedom].

The collateral damage of embracing the half truths and outright lies of moral relativism create too many problems to sweep under the rug.    The damage that is done to the elderly, the unattractive and unskilled, the “socially awkward” and the unborn cannot be fixed by Band-Aid laws that pretend to fix it all.

There is no Band-Aid for the damage caused by not seeing and respecting each individual as unique and sacred, made in the image of their Creator.

The isolation and alienation that results in a society fueled by usefulness rather than unconditional love leads inevitably to tragedy like what we have just witnessed.

This should be this year’s Christmas message from Newtown.   □

Star Parker is president of CURE.

CURE is Center for Urban Renewal and Education.   www.urbancure.org

A Manifesto for War on Christianity

"The SKY GOD"

Gore Vidal's Manifesto for War on Christianity

Note:  Six days ago, I published a post on this blog which was an Excerpt of an article by Dr. Albert Mohler, President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.    My comments were in the posting itself, and the Excerpt was supposed to be available by clicking on a LINK.  Because of problems with that link, today I am re-publishing the full Excerpt here.

Gore Vidal and the Sky God  -  By R. Albert Mohler, Jr. ,  August 7, 2012   9:28 am

Excerpt taken from article at http://www.christianpost.com/news/gore-vidal-and-the-sky-god-79595/#T2RZ1epIAjKKRVQ6.99

In his 1992 Lowell Lecture at Harvard University, Gore Vidal attacked not just Christianity, but the very notion of monotheism.    In his essay, "Monotheism and its Discontents," based on the lecture at Harvard, Vidal perceptively and blasphemously blamed the existence of a binding sexual morality on monotheism.

"The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism," Vidal asserted, "From a barbaric Bronze Age text known as the Old Testament three anti-human religions have evolved - Judaism, Christianity and Islam. These are sky-god religions."

He went on to describe the "sky-god" as patriarchal and jealous. "He requires total obedience from everyone on earth, as he is in place not just for one tribe but for all creation."

He claimed that America's founders were "not enthusiasts of the sky-god" [in spite of clear references to God, the Creator, in the Declaration of Independence], but that devotees have had an inordinate influence throughout most of the nation's history.

"From the beginning, sky-godders have always exerted great pressure in our secular republic," he argued.    "Also, evangelical Christian groups have traditionally drawn strength from the suppressed."    He blamed the "sky-godders" for "their innumerable taboos on sex, alcohol, gambling."

In one scathing paragraph, he pressed his case:

"Although many of the Christian evangelists feel it necessary to convert everyone on earth to their primitive religion, they have been prevented - so far - from forcing others to worship as they do, but they have forced - most tyrannically and wickedly - their superstitions and hatred upon all of us through the civil law and through general prohibitions.    So it is upon that account that I now favor an all-out war on the monotheists."

He was not reluctant to state his main concern:

"The ongoing psychopathic hatred of same-sexuality has made the United States the laughingstock of the civilized world.   In most of the First World [Europe], monotheism is weak or nonexistent, private sexual behavior has nothing at all to do with those not involved, much less with the law."

Christians should pay close attention to Gore Vidal's argument, but the mainstream media have almost uniformly ignored it. The obituaries have celebrated his literary gifts, and noted his radical political ideas and rejection of Christianity, but not his call for "all-out war on the monotheists."

We should realize that Vidal's rejection of monotheism, though blasphemous, was truly perceptive. He was certainly correct that a binding and objective morality requires a monotheistic God who both exists and reveals himself.   He was also correct in pointing to the fact that a secularized Europe has largely abandoned a biblical morality when it comes, most specifically, to sexual behavior.

Gore Vidal was a controversialist, but in making this argument, he was simply saying aloud what many others in his social class and literary circles were thinking.

Christians must not miss the troubling parable of Gore Vidal and the Sky God.  It tells us a very great deal about the intellectual world Gore Vidal now leaves behind.   It is a manifesto for aggressive homosexual activism against Christianity.

"The SKY GOD"

This post to my blog is an excerpt from an article by Dr. Albert Mohler.  He is the President of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and is a scholar and a man of God who I have high regard for.  The article is a commentary on the beliefs and the life of author Gore Vidal.   My excerpt highlights Vidal's assertion that:

 "The great unmentionable evil at the center of our culture is monotheism,"

Vidal's answer to this evil was that he "now favors an all-out war on the monotheists."   He intended to concentrate on evangelical Christians, rather than observant Jews and Muslims.    Christians are the ones who supposedly force their superstitions and hatred on all the rest of the people.
 

To see the full excerpt of Dr. Mohler's article, click:  Gore Vidal and the Sky God - By R. Albert Mohler, August 7, 2012 .    

The excerpt has the address for retrieving the full article and for Dr. Mohler's weblog.