wfn.org | Conservatives Blame America's "Moral Vacuum" For School Murders

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

23-April-1999 
99164 
 
    Conservatives Blame America's "Moral Vacuum" 
    For School Murders 
 
    by Chris Herlinger 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
NEW YORK-Religious leaders in the United States have expressed horror at 
the shootings at a Colorado high school on April 20 in which two teenage 
gunmen killed 12 fellow students and a teacher before turning their weapons 
on themselves. 
 
    But the crime has not yet prompted church leaders to make any new 
detailed statements about the need for laws on gun-control.  Some 
conservative church officials commented widely not only on the issue of 
guns but also on what they see as the moral decline of American society. 
 
    Other church officials lamented the fact that the safety of children 
could no longer be assured. 
 
    The crime is not the first mass school shooting in the U.S., but it is 
the worst.  Armed with an arsenal of guns and home-made bombs, the 
teenagers - Eric Harris,18, and Dylan Klebold, 17 -  went on a murderous 
rampage at Columbine High School in  Littleton, Colorado, a suburb of 
Denver.  The pair were members of a group of outcast students calling 
themselves the "Trench Coat Mafia." 
 
    In the wake of the tragedy, a long-standing debate is being renewed 
over the role of guns and violence, and their effects on young people. 
That debate will focus particularly on Denver next week when the National 
Rifle Association (NRA), the nation's principal gun lobbying organization, 
holds its national convention in the city.  In the wake of the shootings, 
the NRA has already scaled down some of its plans for the convention. 
 
    In statements issued after the incident, religious leaders generally 
focused on pastoral issues, avoiding specifics about the banning of 
handguns and other weapons, a controversial issue in the U.S. where the 
opponents of gun control argue that the right to own a gun is guaranteed by 
the constitution. 
 
    Speaking on behalf of the National Council of the Churches,  the 
nation's largest ecumenical agency, Staccato Powell, head of the  council's 
National Ministries Unit, said the religious community needed to find ways 
"to prevent guns and other violent weapons and explosives from getting into 
the hands of our children." 
 
    "Schools were once perceived as safe havens, but in recent years they 
have become killing fields.  Even in suburbia there is no hiding place," he 
said. 
 
    United Methodist Bishop Marshall L. Meadors, the head of a 
denominational initiative on 
children and poverty, criticised lax laws on guns, racism and white 
supremacy as symptoms of a troubled society.  "A society that sows violence 
will reap violence," Meadors said. 
 
    "The incidents of children declaring war on society and on their 
friends is escalating, like the violence in the world, as long as seeds of 
violence are  being spread," Meadors said.  "These kinds of incidents are 
symptoms of a deeper problem." 
 
    Richard Land, who heads the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission for 
the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the nation's largest Protestant 
denomination and one of the most conservative, placed the blame not on the 
availability of guns, but on a violence-saturated, media-driven culture. 
 
    "The problem exposed by this terrible tragedy in Colorado is not guns," 
he said.  "We've had guns readily available in our culture for generations, 
and we did not have this kind of insane mayhem and grotesque violence. 
 
    "We must ask ourselves what is different today than a generation ago, 
not what's the same. The things that are different are a lack of parental 
involvement and supervision, an absence of adult and societal 
boundary-setting and the barbaric glorification of violence on the 
Internet,  in video games and the entertainment industry generally," Land 
said.  "You can only imprint so many obscenities on a person before they 
begin to malfunction." 
 
    Another prominent Southern Baptist leader, Morris Chapman of the SBC 
Executive Committee, called the incident "yet another confirmation of the 
spiritual and moral vacuum in America." 
 
    "Obviously, a number of contributing factors will be cited, and the 
causes will be vigorously debated," Chapman said.  "Even an attempt to 
enact new laws will gain momentum, but a vast segment of our society is 
prone to overlook the principal problem and its solution.  We are facing 
a moral meltdown and an emotional emptiness that have been created by an 
unprecedented disregard for the consequences of sin." 
 
    There was no immediate statement on the issue of gun violence from the 
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), whose General Assembly last year called on 
its members to voluntarily remove handguns and assault weapons from their 
homes. 
 
    That spawned a vigorous and vitriolic reaction, with hundreds of phone 
calls and e-mail messages flooding into the denomination's national offices 
in Louisville, Ky., to protest against the non-binding resolution. 
 
    Like a number of other denominations and churches, the Presbyterian 
Church mobilized a team of counsellors and pastors to assist the stricken 
community of Littleton.  Interfaith services were scheduled in the Denver 
suburb, and churches had opened their doors as "safe spaces" for the 
school's students, families and others. 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  This note sent by Office of News Services, 
  Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
  to the World Faith News list <wfn-news@wfn.org>.
  For additional information about this news story,
  call 502-569-5493 or send e-mail to PCUSA.News@pcusa.org

  On the web:  http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/

  If you have a question about this mailing list, 
  send queries to wfn@wfn.org