Thread by @bjgingerich

Pastor of the church the suspect attended speaks out
cnn.com/us/live-news/c…

This event is made all the more frightful by the fact that the shooter didn't even seem to be on the fringes of the congregation--apparently he was the son of an elder.

I say frightful because it makes you worry, as a pastor, what kind of corrupted, perverse views congregants may hold unknown to you--especially if they keep them secreted away in some form or fashion.

And that still leaves unaddressed the willingness to commit such a sin. I'm sure the whole congregation will be asking, "How could we have missed this?"

But I have a nagging fear that just about any congregation could.

Probing more deeply, what other errors held and sins being committed by church members (clergymen and laymen) could we be missing or ignorant of? I think we've seen a lot of darkness revealed to the light of day recently, in many sorts of communities (regardless of convictions).

It's unusual, I think, for those of us living in comfort and relative luxury to suddenly find ourselves feeling powerless--in this case, in the face of evil.

I can preach the love of God and neighbor all day in the pulpit, but that is no guarantee that one of my parishioners (and even myself!) won't heed that in some horrific way or incident. Cf. Romans 7.

Strangely, I think there is a comfort to be found in the truths of the Christian faith in the face of all of this: original sin, human depravity, the righteous judgment/wrath of God (often expressed in Scripture as fiery), imprecatory psalms.

A lot of these doctrines have come on hard times, but what else am I suppose to believe? Humanity isn't that bad? God doesn't care about evil? Even if He does care, He can't do anything about it or stop it, at some time or another?

That we can't cry out for Him to destroy evil completely, at the root (which either entails changing the human heart or otherwise exiling those that choose to refuse that)?

That doesn't offer a solution. We're Americans, so we're Mr. Fix-Its, and thus we want one and think one is out there. I know there are plenty of security measures we can address, as well as concerns with error and discourse in the public square.

But when I think about what can be done preventatively (so that something like this would never happen again), at least as a pastor or even a family member (again, especially since it seems the perpetrator kept this hidden) or even if I were a magistrate,

I can't help noticing a certain helplessness or powerlessness in the face of evil, especially when someone takes a lot of time, effort, planning, resources, and so forth to carry out wicked intentions.

Followup thoughts from others:

1. Yet again we find a quiet, unassuming young man who is absolutely brimming with anger, simmering below the calm surface. Did he have any friends, crazy ones, or ones made on internet complaint sites/groups? So, tech/socialization.

2. Homilectical/catechetical inoculation (or, rather, the failure to accomplish the same). Let me quote from someone else to think about this:

Man, the sentiments that boil over into vile acts like these are rampant in conservative churches, particularly in southern-centric denominations. "

Any church where resentment over loss of Christianity’s cultural capital is stoked from the pulpit, and where assessment of Christianity’s health is measured in terms of its cultural sway rather than in its commitment to Christ’s commandments,

is fertile ground for identarian extremism. Particularly when those resentments are paired with bluster about “masculinity” and gun fetishism.
***

It becomes particularly woeful when otherwise good parents don’t recognize their teenage sons’ slide into internet-based extremism because their rhetoric aligns with the parents’ own cultural grudges."

Now, let me add this: I think it is right for Christian people to lament the abandonment of good for evil in their culture, regardless of how imperfectly they see it

(obviously, they can be blind to a lot of injustices that patristic, medieval, and Reformation era Christians would've immediately found repugnant). I think the Psalms speak pretty directly to that frustration and the expression of the same.

But I think you are right that Christian parents can observe what are actually warning signs to be perfectly fine, because the jeremiads you can find in Christian circles become histrionic and the dominant outlook.

Such grief (and expressions of grievance) could even become a mark of faithfulness--"My kids are mad about the same things I am, which is a good sign."

And it's not like the rest of the culture is helpful in how to rightly address and handle grievances of a social/moral/cultural nature.
I can see what pastors can do in terms of focus and preaching. So, how do we teach Christian parents to discern such warning signs?

Also, with the social/tech side, do we need to be addressing discipline with regard to the Internet more specifically--"legalistically"--since it's becoming such a problem for young men in particular?

I mean, these are guys who are independent or getting there--parental limits on internet usage becomes impossible at a certain point once these guys leave the house.

It's not like a priest or someone else can just be over their shoulder saying, "Nope, don't hope onto 4chan or that conspiracy blog--it's bad for your soul." Which again leaves me with a sense of helplessness.

I also don't know how helpful the regional identifier that other commentator noted is all that helpful. The OPC is a historically northern congregation, and the church of the shooter was in California.

I sense a similar helplessness with, say, consumption of pornography in the Church. Unless someone 1) gets caught or 2) comes forward to repent, get help, and reconcile, you can't do much about it. We're not just talking about things related to violence, tho those make headlines.

This isn't about blame. As @DZRishmawy observed, it's observing that "sin is crouching." "And it's crouching from all directions (extreme right, left, etc.) in all sorts of ways (online, class, friends, etc.), some blatant, some more insidious and secretive."

chaser via Steven Wedgeworth: wedgewords.wordpress.com/2011/08/22/par…