“Let not your heart faint, and be not fearful at the report heard in the land, when a report comes in one year and afterward a report in another year, and violence is in the land, and ruler is against ruler.” – Jeremiah 51:46 ESV
Wednesday’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, CA has taken over the news cycle for the last two days and rightly so as it is a horrific tragedy. On the same day there was a lesser reported mass shooting in Savannah, GA. While perhaps there were not enough people killed to make Savannah a ‘big’ story, as the Washington Post noted, “The local news barely acknowledged the murder: One local television station covered it in three paragraphs.
The same article also points out that mass shootings have ‘become normal,’ 355 of them in 2015.
In a seemingly unrelated chain of events, last week’s shooting at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs brought on a firestorm of blame at pro-lifers.
Rev. Frank Pavone writes: “Vicki Cowart, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains, wrote, ‘We share the concerns of many Americans that extremists are creating a poisonous environment that feeds domestic terrorism in this country.’”
“Vicki Saporta, President and CEO of the National Abortion Federation (NAF), was more explicit in her statement to blame the pro-life movement for Friday’s incident, stating, ‘Although anti-abortion groups may condemn this type of violence when it happens, the way that they target and demonize providers contributes to a culture where some feel it is justifiable to murder doctors.’”
Let’s keep in mind that these women deliberately omit to admit that millions of babies have been legally violently dismembered or chemically killed in America by abortion. And many mothers have been maimed or killed in the process.
There’s more. Lest we forget, the “Black Lives Matter” cries remain as part of the bigger picture. Yes, Black lives matter, all black lives matter [including aborted babies, black on black crime victims, incarcerated youths, etc.]. Indeed all lives matter because John 3:16 says God loves the whole world and that means everybody. We, as one human race (Acts 17:26), are in this thing together whether we like it or not.
What we are missing here is the not so subtle connection to what on the surface seems to be random violent outbreaks in the atmosphere. Yet as Rev. Pavone points out, the problems with the Colorado Springs shooting is not the pro-lifers referring to abortion as murder but rather the abortion industry’s utter lack of respect for life and choosing its solution to solving someone’s problem by killing their child.
Although the Colorado Springs shooting was abortion related, we should consider that there is a common denominator; an utter lack of respect for life. Whether there are various underlying causes for the lack of disregard of the rights of others, consequent actions lead to outcomes such as these mass shootings, high abortion rates, high levels of incarceration, suicide and many other threats to the human family.
Terrorism, be it in the womb, from distant shores, behind the domestic walls of our homes, or wherever it occurs, terrorism by any other name is still the same.
Killing has been a part of humanity since Cain killed Abel. Throughout history humans have been killing for greed, convenience, emotional pain, and the like in order to acquire what others have; whether it be land, money, power, or [and we can fill in the blanks here].
Human life has long been devalued to the point that life has often become disposable as long as we can’t see the danger to our own. Herein lies the Catch 22: we disregard others to save ourselves – sadly not realizing that we are universally connected to our human family.
With the passage of time America has joined the rest of the world in rubber stamping the killing of our babies in the womb, as well as the sick, the elderly and in alarmingly increasing numbers, the poor.
With this acceptance of devaluation of humanity, the consciences of men, women and children have been numbed. The answer to one’s problem becomes the dehumanization and elimination of those who would interfere with what someone wants.
Is there any wonder that mass killings are occurring on a regular, almost daily, basis?
Let’s connect some dots.
Have an unplanned pregnancy? Illness? Getting too old? Other problems? Eliminate your problems with abortion or euthanasia.
Killing is fast becoming the choice many people are “choosing” in order to fix their problems. Killing of another or of self both devalue and destroy life.
We must wake up and recognize that the taking of any life, born, unborn, sick, handicapped, elderly, those of faith outside of ours — is wrong.
“The people who know their God shall [must] stand firm and take action.” Daniel 11:32 ESV
Contrary to what others are saying, that “God will not fix this,” it should be obvious that only God can change hearts and fix broken lives. Pray for America, and the world.