Why Do Some Hate Christians and Love Violence?

10317743_771537672880948_3872526485278285030_oAs the story of the Umpqua Community College shooting unfolded it became evident that the shooter Chris Harper Mercer intensely hated Christians yet loved violence and murder. How is it that we see more and more hatred resulting in destruction of human life? And more and more violence? Is this new?

CNN October 1, 2015, “Roseburg, Oregon: The gunman who opened fire at Oregon’s Umpqua Community College singles out Christians, according to the father [Stacy Boylan] of a wounded student.”

Americans were shocked in 1999 when two young men at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado murdered twelve of their classmates.

On May 13 1999, I testified before the House Judiciary Committee on the horrific school shooting in Littleton, Colorado. I was the lone teacher. Here is some of what I said over sixteen years ago:

“Two worlds collided in the library of Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. They are best described by two quotes from a newspaper.

  1. Executioner Eric Harris said, ‘My belief is if I say something, it goes. I am the law.’
  2. Martyr Cassie Bernall, when asked if she believed in God and with a gun pointed to her head, declared, ‘’Yes, I believe in God.’ …”

When I was in the Department of Education, I had the opportunity to go over to the library and look at our historic textbooks, some 400 years old.

You could see played out in those textbooks the same collisions of those same two worlds. On the one hand, early colonial children were taught from the New England Primer and the alphabet based on biblical teachings. McGuffey’s Readers likewise incorporated moral teachings and instructions. … Yet on the other hand, textbooks that promoted another worldview were also there. By looking at the number of copies printed, one found that up until this century, this other philosophy was not popular, nor widely used in the classroom.

What is this other philosophy? It can best be described as a philosophy of no moral absolutes; no historic truth to be taught and that man deciding for himself what is right or wrong.

Harris wrote in his philosophy class, ‘My belief is that if I say something, it goes. I am the law, and if you don’t like it, you die … Feel no remorse, no sense of shame.”

My ten pages of testimony go on to describe the schools expunging of Christian morals and being replaced with situation ethics while at the same time, classrooms focusing of the culture of death and violence.

What would I testify about Roseburg, Oregon today? Sixteen years later I would probably go more into the actual status of the current culture.

I would point out that after forty-two years of abortion on demand we have relegated human life to the trash bin of personal choice with little thought that this was a human life endowed by its Creator with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Life has become expendable and cheap, so why should we be in anguish over shootings? Because shootings reveal the faces? Perhaps if enough Americans see the videos of the live babies being cut up for “research” our seared consciences will melt with understanding of the preciousness of life?

I would also point out that in the sixteen years since I testified two tsunamis have occurred in America.

  • First, we have muzzled the first amendment with the mantra of multiculturalism and diversity. No longer can neighbor sit down with neighbor and disagree politely. Fear has replaced open discussion and with that comes totalitarianism.
  • Second, Americans have lost their understanding of their foundational principles of freedom. “Endowed by their Creator” clearly states man was created by God, obtained his rights from God, not government, and ultimately was accountable for his actions to the God of the Old and New Testament. This allowed for a self-governing individual with a moral compass to live an orderly and prosperous life.

How has this happened, and in particular, without a huge outcry? Looking to President Obama’s latest Executive Order September 15th on “Using Behavior Science Insights …” one has to wonder for how long has big government and big media been working together to create a “libertarian paternalism” where we have become so conditioned to not questioning why life should be sacred and why freedom of speech and religion are critical to a free society. Is it as Edward Bernay said in his 1928 book Propaganda, “We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of”?


Also published
at The Conservative Pundit