The Problem of a Religious Shooter in a Secular Society

This past Sunday Morning while most of the nation slept, another mass shooter unleashed a reign of death.   This time the players were a Muslim Terrorist and the patrons of a gay bar hosting Hispanic night.  Within hours the usual talking points were being released from almost all points on the political spectrum.  In President Obama’s Sunday afternoon news conference he mentioned that this was an act of terror and hate, while failing to mention any reference to the Islamic faith of the shooter.  He expressed his opinion that this demonstrates the problem of guns in society.  Candidate Trump called for the President to identify this as an act of Islamic terrorism or resign from the Presidency.  The left and the right will all be trying to make the most of this event and leverage it for power to advance their agenda.

The problem is that a secular society is utterly and totally ill equipped to deal with a mass shooter or, for that matter, any act of evil.  The fact that the shooter reportedly identified himself with I.S.I.S. and was attacking a protected minority leaves our nation asking more question than ever, but demonstrates that complete lack of the ability of a secular society to deal with the mass shooter.

As a secular society, we can’t say something is “wrong” because such a declaration presumes that right and wrong are real categories.  The irony of an attack on a gay bar should not be lost on us.  The individual is sovereign and that sovereignty must be respected, indeed, almost worshiped.   We have, for a very long time, been told to identify what is right individually. What is right for one person is right for them and we must not impose any moral categories on anyone.  We now find that two diametrically opposed positions are in a head on collision.  What was right for the gay men at the bar demanded that the right thing for the Muslim shooter was to kill them.

We cannot define right and wrong without a transcendent authority.  But that is exactly what a secular society wants to do.  I expect that we will be told that it was wrong for the Muslim shooter to kill gay men.  I also expect that any condemnation of homosexuality is equally wrong.  But without a transcendent authority to define right and wrong how can a secular society impose its values on a committed Muslim man?  Any attempt to define behavior as right or wrong without an appeal to some kind of absolute is self-defeating.  Right and wrong, good and evil are moral terms and morality has no place in a secular society. 

There is no way a secular society can say mass shooters are bad and maintain a coherent and logical position.  The best or most that a secular society can say is mass shooters are; that they exist.  A secular society can count the number of dead bodies, the number of rounds fired, and the number of responders involved.  It can only measure things that can be quantified mathematically.  A secular society cannot measure anything of the heart, soul or conscience.  It can speak of violence, but never offer a moral judgment of violence.  Every secular opinion of evil dashes itself to pieces on the opinions of others. 

What a secular society, and more specifically what a politically correct society wants, is a Christian civility without Christian morality.  A tolerant, just, and civil society grows from the worldview that understands we are all evil and guilty and can only be rescued by a merciful God.  We are therefore obligated to treat others with mercy.  Such is the foundation for a society in which widely divergent people can treat each other with civil respect and courtesy while disagreeing passionately. 

We want Christian civility, summed up in the Golden Rule.  Over the next few days pay witness to the many expressions of and appeals for Christian civility.  We are already being asked to pray for the families of those murdered.  A secular society wants a Christian civil society, but it does not want a Christian morality.  A secular society cannot dare say that homosexual behavior is wrong, but it will ask for Christian civility. 

A secular society is free in the same way a car under full throttle with no drive is free or an airplane with no pilot is free or a skydiver with no parachute is free.  A secular society is utterly incapable of dealing with evil.  Into such a world, the light of the gospel shines brightest.  The horrors of these days may be our greatest opportunity.