In Peter Jackson’s movie adaption of the book Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, one of the characters, King Theoden questions the impending warfare he must encounter to protect his people. He remarks, “So much death. What can men do against such reckless hate?” As I heard the news break of the shooting in Isla Vista, this question popped into my mind. I hope to address this question from a biblical worldview.
First of all, I’d just like to say that hate breeds hate. When one person acts out of hate, the retaliation towards that person is out of hatred of that first person. It’s a never-ending spiral if it is allowed to continue.
The shootings in Isla Vista shocked me. The manifesto and the video of the man responsible deeply disturbed and saddened me. People immediately started to speculate to the factors and causes of this event. People pinned it on misogyny, others on mental illness, and still others contend it was Asperger’s. Regardless of what it really was, I think people across the board can agree that this was the result of a deep-rooted hatred. This was reckless hate. And then the response came in. In this age where technology enables us to instantly share our opinions and attitudes, our society takes too much freedom in expressing our emotional whims before we have time to think about it. That is the sad downside of technology. Some people attacked the man, some sympathized, and some supported. Again, I ask this question, “How can [we] respond to such reckless hate?”
Personally, when I first heard of the shooting, I was enraged. It hurt my heart to read the angry words he had written and that he fully believed enough to enact his beliefs against others. I cried and I cried out to God. I was disgusted with how he acted, but I did not (and will not) hate that man. He had a name, Elliot Rodger. He had parents and a sister. He had friends. He was a human being, a broken and hurt human being. He was a human being with flaws. I am not saying his flaws justify his actions, I am just acknowledging he was like every other human walking this earth. He was a human being seeking completion, but he sought it from the wrong place. He was a human being who was fed up with the shallowness of the laws of attraction. He was a human being too caught up in how others accepted him and not enough with how God did. He was a human being who sinned. To think yourself entitled enough to take another person’s life is in direct rebellion of God. To act on the belief that you are owed something out of this life by someone is not true. That may sound harsh, but it is truth. He was a human being and therefore worthy of love because God declared him so. So…what should our response be?
Romans 12:17-21 says,
“Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord. On the contrary:
‘If your enemy is hungry, feed him;
if he is thirsty, give him something to drink.
In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.’Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
This is our response. We love. This doesn’t mean we accept the actions as godly, and it certainly doesn’t mean we condone it. It means we recognize this man as God’s child, and we seek to be the Lord’s hands and feet on earth. We seek to heal and comfort and point people to God and the Bible for answers. We seek to serve and love. We may never truly understand why people do the hateful things that they do, but there is one thing we can be sure of: God’s love (lived out on this earth by the followers of Jesus Christ) has already overcome the world. When Christ died on the cross, he defeated sin and death and modeled a life fully surrendered to God and the service and love of His people. That is the example we live out on earth. Will it be easy? No. Will people attack us and make fun of us? Expect it. Yet, we can hold onto the hope that because Christ has defeated evil, we can as well.
I love how Martin Luther King Jr. put it:
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy.
Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it.
Through violence you may murder the liar,
but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth.
Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder hate.
In fact, violence merely increases hate.
So it goes.
Returning violence for violence multiplies violence,
adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness:
only light can do that.
Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that
Lysh Out!
wanderlysh 