Virginia Tech - Our Home for Six Years

Well said Reid. Did you happen to see the convocation today? I thought that the Gov. of Virginia offered more inspiration than the Lutheran Chaplin that spoke.

It's quite difficult to imagine something like this happening in Blacksburg, yet I know that what you said rings true. I also know that God has a plan in the midst of this tragedy and to this end we strive.

Your Brother in Christ, Joshua

thinking about you and yours reid. i love the insights in your blog. unless we all repent and own our depravity, these horrific events will continue to be labeled "isolated" and "sick" and not "us" "evil" and "human".

Matthew and I have been praying and wondering about you and Kasey since the news broke. Praying for strength, grace and peace.

Josh, yes, I heard this from a friend...that the Chaplin did not even mention Jesus. For those of us who spent time in the burg it is difficult to imagine. I pray you are well and thankful for you.

Carly and Jessica - thanks so much for your encouragement and comments.

Reid and Kasey,

Bill and I have been thinking about you both as we follow the story at Virginia Tech. Our hearts ache for you and the many others who feel so close to the tragedy. Thank you for your words and how clearly you spoke God's truth. We know that God can use any situation, even as horrific as this one, to change lives and that is our prayer.

Know we are praying for you.

Love,
The Underwoods

I've been waiting to to hear the thoughts that you would put on the screen for us. You lead me Reid. Praying for you and all those devastated by the "evil" at VT yesterday. And wrestling in my own soul about the "evil" in my own heart.

Partners,
Swain

I am disheartened. As you know, pounding the earth for five or so years as one walks from point to point leaves a little bit of Blacksburg in the soul; I'm disheartened that this could occur in my home. Even though I see the world through a calvinistic perspective, I have a hard time dealing with the fact that the victims did not receive justice on this earth. Beyond that I can only pray for Peace in this fallen and shaken world, but sometimes it all just doesn't make much sense.

There is no sense Ben to make of evil...we have hope that it is not senseless to the divine mind...but to ours it is not the way the world should be. We all know this - and it makes us want to scream.

All the sons of Adam and daughters of eve will have perfect justice. We do not give this or know the outcomes - we know the one who holds the universe and know that he will do right. Other than that we must place our hands over our mouths and not speak about that which we do not know.

Love all you guys

Reid,

I appreciated your insights regarding this incident. Today we will attend the funeral for a friend’s 9-month-old baby who crawled into a swimming pool and drowned last week. Sunday night I’ll address the problem of evil. May I use some of your insights?

Your brother in Christ,

Aaron Werner
Bakersfield, CA

Reid,

As you can imagine I felt many of the same feelings as you the other day. Your thoughts are well spoken as usual - thanks for stating them.

Jeff Rendell

Aaron - you may always use anything we write. Blessings as you walk amidst the shipwreck in the hope of the gospel.

We are sorry about the severe loss of the baby in your congregation. We have a 9 month old - we cannot imagine.

Reid:

I found your blog through Tim Challies' link. I am a 1984 VT grad and lived in East Ambler-Johnston as a freshman. You expressed many of my thoughts when you said, "So many good, right, and true things took place in my soul on that campus, and in the lives of many students there." I have always looked back very fondly on Blacksburg, especially in the fall. Now a cloud hangs over those fond memories because I see clearly what was always true--there is evil in the best of places in this fallen world. I'm longing for a better country more keenly this week.

Greg Bailey

Greg, longing with you brother - groaning towards the city whose architect and builder is God.

Reid,

You don't know this but I returned to VT this fall to work at the library. You would be proud of the "hokie nation". We are trying to keep our cool down here with all of the press and most of us have. Hopefully the press will leave soon and give us time to grieve.

Question Marks
-------------------

"This didn't have to happen", Cho Seung-Hui said, after murdering thirty-two people at Virginia Tech University.

And this terrible tragedy of sons, daughters, mothers and fathers didn't have to happen, if we'd only listened.

But we never listen.

We never listen to those that are different from us- the outcasts, the lonely, the homeless, the ones that are unspoken for. We don't try to understand. We shun them and put them out of our minds because of our fear that we will become like them.

And these people become more and more lonely and alienated in their isolation.

Words like "creep", "deranged misfit" and "psycho" devalue this killer's humanity so we don't have to face how similar he is to us. Cries of "how could he have been stopped" are uttered by media quick to sensationalize and gain market share, when the words "how could he have been listened to" are never considered.

Because we don't want to listen.

We don't want to hear about loneliness and alienation when we're all so busy with our lives, making money and making friends. And the unpopular, the ones that don't fit in, the lonely ones are ignored or made fun of because we don't care to understand anything about them.

This man who clearly needed help, Cho Seung-Hui, devalued himself so much that he called himself "Question Mark".

There are more "Question Marks" out there. There are millions of them. And if we don't listen to them, they will follow the same path again and again, because people are not connecting. We are becoming more and more disconnected from each other, creating more and more "Question Marks" every day.

Most "Question Marks" don't become murderers. Some just kill themselves. Most harm no one and live just as we do, needing antidepressants to appear what we call "normal". They may be someone you know, someone you love.

This "Question Mark" was once a little boy, who cried, and smiled and loved, He wanted to fit in just like you and I. But that desire to fit in transformed itself into anger towards a society that shunned and ignored him.

How many more times will we shun and ignore the one that doesn't fit in, the one in the corner, the one that's different? When all we have to do is listen, before it's too late.

But we won't.

Thirty-two human beings who did not know Cho Seung-Hui were murdered.
They were sons, daughters, fathers and mothers, with dreams of futures that will never come and children that will never be born. The thirty-two leave behind people that love them. People that are now scarred for life by this horrible day of death.

To most of us that have not been directly involved, this tragedy will become a memory and fade like all the others that came before.

And the "Question Marks" will appear with more frequency, again and again, because we don't listen.

We never do.

---------------

http://www.x-thc.com

I feel you X - many times we don't give a rip...

Words like "creep", "deranged misfit" and "psycho" devalue this killer's humanity so we don't have to face how similar he is to us.

Yeah, we want to have "pride in ourselves" and play the blame game...it is much easier for us than looking in the mirror.

Checking out your music

@X: THC: I am going to disagree with our kind site purveyor and say that is very much wrong. Cho, of his own volition, chose to do an unspeakable act. Not because he was picked on or because no one listened. That's garbage. He did something wrong that he knew was wrong. That is simply evil, and trying to blame everyone *else* for his evil act is at best mere error.

You are taking the ravings of an evil man at face value and extrapolating conclusions from those ramblings A number of people tried to get "help" for Cho, to "listen" as you put it. He chose not to take the help.

The only ex ante solution would have been an involuntary committal, which is (justifiably) difficult. How many more times will we shun or ignore the one who doesn't fit in? Well, how many times have we ALREADY done so, without the result of a mass murder? How many times were you made fun of? Me? Reid? How many people have we killed, in the aggregate? That is an excuse and a cop-out, and at best a piece of whiny, self-indulgent rambling to make you feel better, like you're, you know, sensitive man, and in touch.

This is Cho's fault. No one else's. I suppose those of us more religiously inclined would see the hand of the devil, but for you, for me, for any one of us to take on blame is so presumptuous, so preposterous as to be beyond the realm of reason.

Look in the mirror? Yes, do. Look in the mirror, and recognize that this is not something you did, not something you would do, and that events like this are so aberrant that you simply *can not* draw conclusions from them. It does not work. Even if you believe we are inherently sinful and weak, it does not follow that we are to blame for the willful, evil act of another person. It just doesn't work.

We *should* take a just pride in ourselves, for managing to get along every day, endure life's daily grind, find bits of joy where we can, and throughout it all, while not always succeeding at avoiding doing wrong, at least trying not to, and overall managing to do more good than ill. Being weak and being evil are *not* the same, and comparing them this way is not productive

John, there are two extremes in this. One is the side which you hear from XTHC. That it is the bully's fault, the cool kids picking on the other kids. This was the justification that the Columbine killers received. They were outcasts. I did not endorse that view in my short comments - yet I do empathize and understand the influence that other people and society has on us. But you are right - someone being mean to us does not justify jack or shift blame to anyone else. In my tiny comment I did not endorse all of X's post - and I certainly do not take stock from anything that Cho ranted on the videos he mailed out the world. To give credence to his views as valid is worse than ridiculous. Yet there is another problem represented by some of your remarks.

Also skewed is the position that each is an unaffected individual that is not influenced at all by anything other than his own mind and choices. This is patently absurd. We are all influenced. By parents, friends, by ideas, by spiritual realities, by books we read - either for good or ill. Yet we are not neutral players in the matter and we are certainly individually responsible as you rightly stated.

So I agree that the evil doer is Cho. But I also agree that the mirror does show that we are inherently sinful and weak - and only in pride do we tell ourselves otherwise. I do not think that "we" are to blame for "his" actions. But his soul was warped by many things...his own sinful nature, coupled with influences around him, added to by jacked up moral decisions, spiritual/demonic influence, and a debased mind.

Your last paragraph is troubling to me as it seems full of self-righteousness. Think for a moment the implications of your "my good out number my ills" idea. As a person who is educated in the ways of western legality you will understand this. If you were to come before a just judge with a stack of goods and a stack of ills, he is not going to let you off for your crimes because you had done good things. He must rule on the cases where you are guilty, to do otherwise would be unjust. If we read the first three chapters of Romans we see this is precisely Paul's struggle. How can God be just and justify sinners? Hence this leads to the heart of the Christian gospel. We are not righteous in ourselves, and our wrong doing will not be overlooked. Yet it can be paid for and we can be justified. But it is not from stacking up our good deeds and bad and then in pride declaring ourselves "good"

Weakness and evil are not the same - but evil flows from within and in the most heinous crimes it is made highly visible. But here I will only refer back to Jesus in the original post. It is from the heart that all these things flow...and unless we repent we will rightly perish.

Thanks John

Reid,

You're begging the question, at least with regard to me :-) I don't actually believe in God, so I don't care whether there is an existential stack of good and ill that I will be measured against one day. One day, someone might offer a valid theodicy, and I could change my mind, but I sincerely doubt that theodicy will happen, so I don't expect to change my mind.

In any event, my point is that self-flagellation is inapt and we don't reflect Cho, and we have a right to be proud of what we accomplish (and a righteous guilt for things we HAVE done, but not for things we haven't). I would not excuse him, or the Columbine killers, for anything. Let me tell you, I know for being outcast :-).

Also skewed is the position that each is an unaffected individual that is not influenced at all by anything other than his own mind and choices.

That isn't what I said. Many people may have wronged Cho. I have no doubt that is so. Each day we wrong other people, and are wronged ourselves. What I said is that the murder of 32 people lays on Cho's shoulders alone. Not mine, not yours, and not X's. Whatever happened to Cho, he alone reached the decision to kill. millions (billions?) suffer the same stimuli and don't murder people. By his will alone, and not by the will of any other person, he murdered those people. The fact that any number of people in his life had been a jerk to him is irrelevant to his culpability, and does not make them culpable. Cho was no mere robot. To argue otherwise is to deny his humanity, which we should not do at our own peril.

John, one question. Will there be justice for Mr. Cho? Or did he go out in a blaze of glory, gloat and blame the world through airing of his spew on NBC? If you are right in your denials of God, there is simply zero justice for Cho - to deny that his actions have consequences to him is to deny his humanity, which we should not do at our own peril.

I believe full, complete, righteous justice will befall him - his cowardly suicide will not cover him from being held accountable. He is no mere robot and his maker will judge him most severely.

If Cho had lived, we would feel it right for him to go to prison or to his death. Why? Because he would be paying for his crimes. Now, he cannot and will not pay and the whole thing is utterly meaningless. In a universe without God - Cho is simply no more and his victims, their family have no justice. Yet I believe their blood calls out and it will not go unheard.

I think you know this to be true - we deny it at our own peril

Sorry, I just disagree. I don't think there is much in the way of existential justice: Cho did escape his just punishment by taking the coward's way out and he got more than he ever dreamed of by having his garbage broadcast across the world.

Of course, your statement is strangely inconsistent with what I remember of my Christian upbringing. I did *not* respond to carly, above, when I saw that post because I thought I might explode (and what's with the scare quotes?).

You're still overreading. I don't positively deny God's existence (I am not Richard Dawkins), but neither do I positively believe in God's existence (neither am I Dinesh D'souza). Neither position is rational (though I default to the null hypothesis). I hope that you're right and that Cho is suffering for his crime. It would be nice, but so would a lot of other things.

You can't claim justice for Cho without trying to explain how a beneficent, omnipotent God allowed the slaughter of innocents. Since you can't do the second, you can't do the first. (No, this is not inconsistent. Cho's actions were his own, but if someone were standing there at the beginning of the ordeal with a gun and simply let Cho go through with his plans, we would rightly find that person to have done something wrong, your conception of God is in effectively the same position).

John, I assume you mean the peril lines as "scare quotes" - in that I was just using your own line, but expanding the peril involved in life. And I was hoping to get under your skin a bit - because I like messing with you...as I like you pushing on me. If I assumed too much in our friendship, if I offended you with being a jerk, then please forgive me. Is that what is inconsistent with your Christian upbringing? If you did not like me bringing up the concept of "peril" and applying it to us, I don't know that I want to apologize for that.

John, do know that I appreciate your courtesy here on the blog and your honesty. I know you could go off on many a thing read here. Thanks for picking your shots. I really appreciate it. And I hope you did not feel I was coming after you, other than I thought I needed to push in an area I know you want to believe. That Cho ought to be severely held to account.

I am not trying to be pushy or call you Richard Dawkins...you are a much better philosopher than he.
(See the stinging critique of world class Christian philosophers here and here)

I understand your struggle with God permitting evil. Really, I know we have traveled that road before. I believe your analogy is good and makes sense, but it fundamentally breaks down categorically for me. Remember, I believe God is the creator of all things, and gives to all their very being. I believe we have a huge category difference between God and human beings. What we do and what God permits us to do are hugely different deals.

Additionally, I think God many times takes the vilest of deeds and uses them for greater good (the murder of Jesus is the purest example). Now, I cannot imagine good coming from certain things - say the rape of my daughters...but I do not assume that my finite and limited purview of the world to be the final word on all things. Nor do I think tirades like Chos to be the last word on his actions. The mystery of evil is so grievous precisely because of the power and being of benevolent goodness. It forces us to form our objections in moral terms...terms that I find vacuous in a universe devoid of God.

There are a myriad of theodicies offered that make theism rationally defensible. Soul building, natural law, free will defenses, God's decrees, etc. They do not convince or convert people, nor do they make looking at evil any easier for any of us. Yet it is not indefensible...But remember, at the heart of the Christian faith is the suffering and death of God incarnate. He entered this world, endured human evil, took a bullet himself so to speak, and then offers absolution to the repentant.

John, I know I will not convert you with long e-mails on a listserv, with debate, with blog commentary, but I pray for you more than you know...namely that God himself would reveal himself to you. It is more than a nice thought that Cho will receive just recompense. It is true - but the implications for us all are equally staggering for we are in need of mercy.

Thanks John - again, accept my apologies if you felt me less than charitable.

PS - What is D'Souza's worldview? I have not read him...is he a Christian guy?