Why All the Killing?

"One doesn’t have to be religious to know right from wrong", is a seemingly innocuous statement that, in the aftermath of the Littleton tragedy, has been expressed in subtle and various ways. In reality, this statement is the totality of humanist philosophy which deals a deathblow to the belief in God’s ultimate authority. If this idea has become the underlying presupposition of our modern culture, and I fear it has, then, as a society, we need to ponder long and hard the statement uttered by Nazi Martin Heidegger,

If God is dead, there is no longer a transcendental authority or reference point for objective truth…to make one's own rules is the highest freedom.

Heidegger had one very important word in his statement – the word IF. The truth is that God is NOT dead but, we have been teaching our children as if He were. We have carried on the lies that we can substitute our own rationality for God's revelation, our purpose for His, our version of truth for His, man's norms for His laws; and now we, ourselves a rebellious generation which laughs in the face of God’s authority, are watching the lies come home to roost.

For decades now, we have expressly or tacitly consented to filling our children's heads with humanistic curriculum and ideas which have taught them that there should be no obstacle to the expression of any of their instinctual urges. In essence we have told them that there is no moral authority beyond themselves or another man. Man is the measure of all things, including right and wrong – all is subjective. At best, we have indulged in syncretism. We have filled our children with fear about their environment; told them it was okay to abort babies; told them that "safe" sex is okay outside of marriage; told them that man is a cancer on the earth and that overpopulation threatens their survival; subjected them to death and suicide education; and we have told them that there is no Creator. Read the morbid effects of all this in our children's poetry, hear it in their music, see it in their art, and see it in their faces. Death and darkness have become their haven, replacing true hope and purpose. In our hubris, we are shocked.

We are moral creatures. When man becomes the ultimate moral authority, corruption will eat the heart out of a culture. "Old fashioned" morality and values didn’t just evolve from good men, there was a basis and we chose to turn away.

We all need to think a great deal more about the Littleton tragedy, and we need to dig a little deeper until we can unashamedly and truthfully answer life's most important questions for ourselves and for our children: "Who made me"? "Why was I made"? and "What is my purpose"? Hopefully, if we can stop long enough to really think, that reflection will lead to repentance because we will finally come to answer this question, "WHY all the killing"?

How long before we truly repent and begin to speak life-giving truth?

Roxanne Sitler

Colville, Washington

© May 1999

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