Virginia Tech Massacre? That Was Wrong!

{This is an oped piece I wrote for a local newspaper. It's reprinted with permission.}

There we stood again, in front of our TV’s shaking our heads. This is just not right. 32 students killed – sons, daughters, friends, fiancés, mommies, daddies – dead, just like that. At least half that many wounded. Not to mention the psychological trauma experienced by more than anyone will ever know. What are you going to do with that? Where does a tragedy like this, the worst school shooting on American soil ever recorded, fit into your moral framework? Do you let it? Was it wrong? Did you feel like it was wrong?

What if your son or daughter, or husband or wife was in that VTech classroom staring down the barrel of a 9 mm Bringer of Death? Hard to imagine. I’m trying not to right now. Do you have a feeling that this is wrong? It is wrong for this guy to take these peoples’ life. Would it be wrong for him to take your daddy’s life? What if he shot you?

This feeling of justice for the victim, especially if you are the victim, has its root in our moral framework. It has been termed the “judicial sentiment” – the involuntary moral judgment that we humans make to hold people accountable for violating our rights. Moral relativists will look at an event like the Virginia Tech Massacre and pass it off as perhaps culturally unacceptable, but not universally deserving of a guilty verdict. But, draw the crosshairs close to home and personal pain yields guilty verdicts.

Darfur. 9/11. Columbine. There is no discussion as to whether this is wrong. The question is, “Why is it wrong?” If you were sitting at Starbucks today, perhaps now, and I stole your mp3 player or PDA, why would you automatically hold me accountable for theft? You don’t have to tell yourself that this is wrong. You know it. You feel it deep inside. You and I may try to deny it, but it’s there. We swing the judge’s gavel when our boss is ungrateful for our hard work in the office. We call for the bailiff to issue the damning verdict of the personal jury when our rights are violated.

An atheistic construction of moral relativity or plurality cannot adequately resolve the tension that lies at the core of our being – guilty verdicts for others upon the violation of our rights. The Christian recognizes that the judicial sentiment is a reliable response grounded in the character of God. If not God, then, where or what?

The Virginia Tech Massacre was wrong and we feel it. The cry of judicial sentiment is the very voice of the Holy triune God speaking loudly and clearly. Why does an event like this bother us? We have to ask ourselves. It will not suffice to leave it in a sterile environment.

The universality of the judicial sentiment is one witness to the objective reality of humanity’s creation in the imago dei, the image of God. Like a chisel aptly guided in a master carver’s hands, the Holy God engraved His perfect, objective, moral standard on our hearts. We can excuse it away denying it’s existence, but it speaks nonetheless. The mouth of the internal critic is never shut.