WHY? Couldn't God have stopped this senseless murder? Good News editor Scott Ashley helps us come to grips with some of the tough questions.
"Turn on the TV" said my wife Connie over the phone. "There's been a shooting at one of the high schools." Her anxiety came through loud and clear. All the Denver stations here were broadcasting reports from near Columbine High School in Littleton, a local suburb. Over the following hours a parade of surreal images painted a ghastly and horrifying story: Two students, aged 17 and 18, brought an arsenal of four guns and more than 60 homemade bombs to the school at lunchtime, then indiscriminately opened fire on students and faculty who crossed their paths.
A final tally wasn't available until the next day. The gunmen had killed 12 of their fellow students and a teacher/coach and wounded 23 others before taking their own lives. Authorities hadn't been able to give a definite count of casualties--initial estimates ranged as high as 25--simply because the carnage was so great. Victims had to be dispersed among six different hospitals.
In a parting touch of madness, the teenage gunmen scattered bombs around the school and among the bodies, some with timers set to go off several hours after the shooting stopped. Some grief-stricken families had to wait more than a day for their children's bodies to be removed while officers painstakingly searched for and disarmed unexploded bombs.
One of the dead was the girls' volleyball team captain, a senior who many thought would be the class valedictorian at graduation a few weeks later.
Media and memorials
When I visited the area the next day, black-uniformed SWAT teams and other officers were keeping visitors and the press several hundred yards from the battered school. One told me it would takeat least several days toinvestigate and clear the building before visitors would be allowed in; they feared other unexploded bombs might have been stashed in other students' cars in the school parking lot. (The following day authorities found a powerful bomb in the school kitchen; apparently the pair intended to blow up the cafeteria and burn down the 2,000-student school.)
Members of the news media, unable to get near the school, swarmed over the huge adjacent public park. The tragedy had entranced the whole world. A forest of satellite dishes and antennas sprouted from a growing thicket of news vans and trucks. Technicians strung cables and phone lines. Several carpenters hammered away, building a small sound stage for one of the major news networks. Around me I heard reporters speaking in Spanish, German, French and other languages.
And everywhere there were students. Some crying, some sobbing, many simply dazed. Hundreds brought flowers, cards and the occasional stuffed animal for the several makeshift memorials springing up in the park. Many students embraced, holding hands and clinging to each other as though afraid of losing another friend. Students from other area schools, reaching out in the only way they knew how, added cards and posters to the growing mounds of flowers.
From baseball to bombs
Slowly details of the background of the suspected killers began to leak out. Both were from outwardly stable homes; one family was noticeably wealthy. The boys, both seniors, were described as bright and intelligent. One had played baseball in Little League. The other had been a Boy Scout. But somewhere along the way something happened. Their interests changed from baseball and Boy Scouts to homemade bombs and Adolf Hitler. They became part of a school clique known as the "trench coat mafia," whose members wore long black coats and sometimes exchanged stiff-armed salutes and decorated their clothing with Nazi symbols.
Some of the group's members prided themselves on being social outcasts. In the 1998 school yearbook, the caption accompanying a photo of the black-garbed group reads: "Who says we're different? Insanity's healthy!"
Other warning signs were evident. The pair developed a passion for violent video and computer games. One reportedly created his own Web site on which he discussed how to formulate napalm, construct pipe bombs and store explosives. A hand-drawn image on the site showed a gun-and-sword-wielding figure atop a mound of burning skulls and another figure gunning down a bloody victim. The duo had juvenile criminal records for having broken into and stolen electronic equipment from a van. One had been suspended from school for hacking into a school computer. One had been reported to authorities for threatening to kill another student. A classmate in a video-production class reported that the pair made a video in which they fantasized about walking down the school's hallways firing weapons at other students.
A neighbor heard the two breaking glass in the garage on the morning before the massacre. "I assumed it was some weird art project," he said. Police later told him the two were likely creating deadly glass shrapnel for their bombs.
Why such horror?
When confronted with such horror, we naturally wonder what could lead to two teenage boys cold-heartedly and calculatingly inflicting such pain and suffering on others.
It's also natural that we wonder why a God who claims to be both almighty and all-loving could allow such a tragedy to take place.
Both questions have the same answer. But our thinking is so far from our Creator's mind that we have difficulty understanding the answer, much less accepting it. His perspective is much different from ours. "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways." (Isaiah 55:8). The problem is that we simply fail to understand God's purpose, plan, method and timetable for dealing with humanity. Without that understanding, we are at a loss to understand why such horror exists and why God seems unwilling to stop it. Many have been so bewildered by such seeming contradictions that they completely lose faith in God.
The horror of two world wars, in which two generations of European manhood and countless civilians were slaughtered in the trenches, killing fields and death camps, greatly eroded religious faith throughout Europe. Belief in God perished along with millions of young fighting men. To this day much of that continent is agnostic, unsure whether God exists or whether He cares what happens among His human children.
A matter of choice
Could God intervene to prevent such tragedies? Certainly. "The Lord's arm is not too short to save nor his ear too dull to hear," He tells us (Isaiah 59:1, Revised English Bible). Why, then, doesn't He intervene to put an end to suffering? In the next verse He points out the reason: There is a wall between humans and God. He didn't create the barrier. We did--individually and collectively. We've been adding to it, brick by brick, for thousands of years.
God, you see, gives us all freedom of choice. He has dealt with mankind this way from the beginning. He offered Adam and Eve a paradise in which to live and an opportunity to build a relationship with Him that would lead to eternal life. But He didn't force them to make that choice.
Given this opportunity, what decision did they make? Rejecting God's explicit instruction regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they opted to do things their own way. They believed they could find a better way--that they could, through their own experimentation and human reasoning, choose for themselves the best way to live. They set a pattern that all but a handful have chosen to follow ever since.
A history of wrong choices
Within a few generations after Adam and Eve, conditions had grown so bad that God chose to start over again with Noah and his family. For a time the world experienced peace through this righteous man. But it was not to last. Man again descended into barbarity. Later God chose an entire nation, the Israelites, and brought them out of slavery to establish them as a role model for the nations around them. Concerning the laws God gave them, Moses told them: "Observe them carefully, for thereby you will display your wisdom and understanding to other peoples. When they hear about all these statutes, they will say, ‘What a wise and understanding people this great nation is!'…
"What great nation is there whose statutes and laws are so just, as is all this code of laws which I am setting before you today? …do not let them pass from your minds as long as you live, but teach them to your children and to your children's children" (Deuteronomy 4:6-9, Revised English Bible).
God urged Israel to make the right choice, to "choose life, that both you and your descendants may live" (Deuteronomy 30:19). But like Adam and Eve, and like Noah's descendants, Israel also chose their own way.
God tells us: "...I gave them my rules and made clear to them my orders, which, if a man keeps them, will be life to him... But the children would not be controlled by me; they were not guided by my rules, and they did not keep and do my orders" (Ezekiel 20:11, 21, REB). They brought on themselves devastating consequences: foreign invaders, massacres and exile into faraway lands.
Later God sent His own Son, Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah. What did those who heard Him choose to do? They murdered not only Him, but many of His followers. Christ warned the disciples that the world would hate them because it hated Him (John 15:18-19). God's way would never be easy or popular (Matthew 7:13-14).
The Bible shows that God rarely interferes with man's ability to make choices. And mankind has a long history of making bad decisions. Truly, as God's Word tells us, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death" (Proverbs 14:12; 16:25).
Choices bring consequences
Tragically, humanity has lost sight of the connection between actions and their consequences. God warned ancient Israel--and by extension, all nations--of the consequences that result from obeying or disobeying His laws (Leviticus 26; Deuteronomy 28). He tells us plainly, "Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap" (Galatians 6:7).
What kind of seed have we as a society been sowing?
The entertainment industry glorifies guns and gore in movies such as Natural Born Killers and The Basketball Diaries--the latter in which a black-coated teen brutally shotguns students in a classroom. Studies indicate that by the time the average American teen graduates from high school, he or she will have seen some 16,000 violent deaths and thousands more illicit sexual relationships on television. The music industry chips in with songs that glorify masochism, violence, premarital and perverted sex and, at times, even the murder of policemen.
The teenage gunmen reportedly were enthralled with Doom, a computer game. Notice how Doom and its variations are advertised on the company's Internet Web page: "The ever addictive and frighteningly realistic world of Doom is back. It's bloodier. And it's deadlier than ever… You're a space marine armed with a mere pistol. Your mission is to locate more substantial firepower [and] blow your way through an onslaught of undead marines and mutant demons from hell…"
When teens--and those even younger--are fed such a diet of violence and filth, what should we expect? Why should we think they will react differently when trying to deal with conflicts with others?
We find it convenient to blame youth for bad decisions and choices they make. But adults--even national leaders--shoulder a big share of the blame. After all, it is often leaders--including our legislators and judges--who have initiated and upheld such actions as banning prayer from schools and firing teachers for keeping a Bible openly displayed in the classroom.
We are the ones who have set the moral tone and direction of modern societies. And then we wonder why things can go so horribly wrong at a quiet suburban school.
An end to sorrow and suffering
God allows us to choose--and to make decisions that often are an affront to Him. He has allowed us to build our own societies and civilizations, choose our leaders, write our own laws and choose for ourselves what we consider to be good and what we think is evil. And He allows us to suffer the consequences when those choices turn out to be horribly wrong. Regrettably, bad decisions have a way of often devastating innocent bystanders, as happened to the dozens of victims and hundreds of family members and friends affected by the Columbine High School shooting.
But the world will not always be this way. The time is drawing nearer when human choices and decisions will bring mankind to the brink of annihilation (Matthew 24:21-22). Like the teenage gunmen who shattered the lives of dozens of families, world leaders will seek to solve their problems through a chain of events that will bring unparalleled anguish, violence and destruction on humanity (Revelation 9, 13, 17). Not until then will Jesus Christ intervene to save us from ourselves (Revelation 19:11-16; Matthew 24:21-33).
Regrettably, God's Word makes it plain that it will take such earth-shattering events to humble humans to the point that they will turn to God. Mankind will repent only when forced to admit that thousands of years of going our own way has only brought us face to face with human extinction.
Jesus Christ will usher in a new world, the Kingdom of God. Then, and only then, will mankind find lasting peace and safety. "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain," God promises, "for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11:9).
In that transformed world, the grief and pain of tragedies such as the events at Columbine High will become a distant and fading memory. No wonder Christ tells us to earnestly pray for the time when that kingdom will become a reality (Matthew 6:9-10).
Recommended reading
What is God's overall timetable for dealing with humanity? Does He tell us what lies ahead for our troubled world? You'll find many eye-opening answers in The Gospel of the Kingdom and You Can Understand Bible Prophecy. [Click on the titles to order]. Be sure to also request your free copy of What Happens After Death? In it you'll discover the reassuring truth of what God has in store both for the two troubled gunmen as well as their victims in this tragedy. You'll be amazed at what the Bible really says.
Parenting and Social Responsibility
"Am I my brother's keeper?"
Cain's age-old response to God has long had major ramifications for our societies and civilizations. When we reject the notion of any concern for our fellowman, we return to savagery and the survival of the fittest. When we accept a shared responsibility with and for one another, we sink or swim together.
In spite of the number of serious warning signs in the behavior of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold--including an obsession with violent video games, strange music, black clothing, Adolf Hitler and guns and explosives--the pair marched unimpeded toward their personal Armageddon.
The two were able to obtain a small arsenal of guns and ammunition and to acquire materials for and construct more than 30 bombs--some of them extremely sophisticated--apparently without their families' knowledge or intervention.
Fifteen people lost their lives and 23 others were wounded because no one would put a stop to a tragedy in the making.
What does this say about the state of modern families?
Dave DeForest-Stalls, executive director of an activity center for Denver teens and older youth, expressed the problem this way: "What it all comes down to is, ‘Who's listening to these kids? Who is spending enough time to listen to them? Who knows them?' This is a school of 1,900 kids. Is that place too big to listen?"
Research studies have shown the links between broken homes and the increased likelihood of future criminal behavior. Yet the Columbine High catastrophe is a dramatic wake-up call to all families. These two students came from stable, middle-class-to-wealthy families. But in a society in which the norm is that both parents hold down one or more jobs outside the home, as was the case here, there isn't enough time to go around.
"We don't spend enough time with kids and we've taught them they're not valued," DeForest-Stalls said. "We'll give them a check, a credit card, a car before we give them our time." Material goods--cars, computers, electronic gadgets and a healthy allowance--are no substitute for the priceless gift of time spent with our children.
"We have to focus on our own behavior and neglect rather than on what's so wrong with kids these days," he continued. "We have to let them know their lives have value..."
God expects parents to instill proper values in their children. When He gave His laws to ancient Israel, He knew that the family would be the basic building block for a safe and decent society. Immediately after God repeated the Ten Commandments, notice what He instructed parents to do:
"Keep these words, which I say to you this day, deep in your hearts; teaching them to your children with all care, talking of them when you are at rest in your house or walking by the way, when you go to sleep and when you get up" (Deuteronomy 6:6-7, Bible in Basic English).
Several fundamental principles to an orderly society are revealed in these verses.
First, parents are to learn God's laws and allow His Word to guide their thoughts and conduct. Parental example is always the most effective teacher in instilling proper values.
Second, parents are to teach those laws to their children "with all care"--to make this one of their highest priorities in life. No parent should absolve himself of this God-given responsibility.
Third, parents are to regularly discuss God's laws and ways with their children. Parents should teach their children, through real-life examples we see in the news and all around us, how obedience to God's laws brings blessings and disobedience brings pain and sorrow. The tragedy at Columbine High School is a dramatic and powerful example of how obsession with evil leads to indescribable anguish and suffering to all around.
Fourth, this passage shows that parents should regularly spend time with their children--to converse with them, know what they are thinking and let them know that they are loved, valued and appreciated, both by their parents and by their Creator.
