Adam Lanza, Gun Control, Social Norms and Resting in God

   America has been shocked this week by Adam Lanza's unthinkably murderous rampage in Newtown, Connecticut. Several times I've found myself in tears as the details of the deaths of innocent young children have been revealed. In response, public debate has opened on a variety of subjects including mental illness identification and treatment, gun control, and the impact of violent entertainment. Plagued by a sense that we must do something to make certain that an event like this will never happen again, it seems that everything is on the table for discussion. 
 

   As the focus of these discussions sharpens, the debate often centers on "what is normal"? In a free society, what is normal and acceptable gun control? What is normal and acceptable monitoring of those who suffer mental illness? What is normal and acceptable portrayal of violence in movies and video games? We are searching simple answers to a an exhaustively complex set of questions. As we search, we regularly bump up against our constitution. Gun advocates wave the Second Amendment, the entertainment industry waves First Amendment free speech rights, and advocates for those who suffer mental illness Wave First, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment privacy rights. Given these diverse factions, interest groups, and settled law,  is it possible to find and define an accurate new social norm?

 

   Proverbs 3:5,6 says -- Trust the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. Acknowledge Him in a all your ways and He shall direct your paths. Our society was founded upon and for years looked to the bible for the definition of behavioral normalcy. In my lifetime, cultural normalcy has been redefined in many ways which are no longer compatible with biblical teaching. It seems that normal as defined by man is far weaker than normal as defined by God. Our cultural shift from God has created a courser society. Our societal floating normal, ever changing, leaves no well defined image in its wake, and that jiggly, slippery  normal it produces prohibits peace, with confused definitions of right and wrong competing for our approval.

 

   Through the great prophet Isaiah (55:9) the Lord reminds us -- As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts. As Christians we can find peace only by resting in God's Truth.  There is no need for us to form opinions on every subject debated and we certainly should never bend to the social pressure applied to us to reject biblical wisdom and rely instead on human thinking. We do not conform to cultural norms, but rather are transformed by the renewing of our minds by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and by studying God's Word.  

 

    We can have a positive effect on the debate not by spouting angry opinions, but by contributing God's wisdom instead of ours. We can console the wounded, empathize with those suffering, and pray for grieving families and our political leaders. We must be purveyors of a point of view born in the heavenlies. We are vessels of the Lord's peace, to be poured out amid pained confusion.

 

    We live in a world broken and transformed from God's image by sin. Evil will strike our heel from time to time, but one day the Lord will crush Evil's head permanently.

   Until then, even in the midst of catastrophic tragedy, we can only rest in God, trusting Him alone as the source of our peace.


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