Leadingchurch.com

In the wake of the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary multiple opinion pieces will be published. Here are a few links I want to record.

• Garry Wills and Moloch (Gun Control)
• Honesty about Fear (Fear)
• I am Adam Lanza’s Mother (mental health) mirror at Anarchist Soccer Mom on Thinking the Unthinkable “But it seems like the United States is using prison as the solution of choice for mentally ill people.” Also mirrored on the Huffington Post.
• Children Die
• A Gun That Only Shoots in Self-Defense John Van Sloten
• FB Picture Why does God allow such violence in schools? Ans. I’m not allowed in schools (prayer in public education)
• Ross Douthat on the Loss of the Innocents, looking for home, the Brothers Karamazov, Christianity and the problem of evil.
• Mother Jones Guide to Mass Shootings
• Remembering also the family of the shooter. Asking the media to stop the sensationalizing giving fuel to a culture that wants to create a “monster”.
• Should also note a lot of comments on Facebook regarding the President’s comments about care for children and national policy on abortion.
• Statistics on American gun ownership
• CBS Morning news moderator speculates that if the shooter had been an Arab the nation would probably be reacting far more strong.
• Grim Catalogue of Child Murder
• The Economist: Gun Control that Works
• Andy Crouch on Media and Massacre
• Religions Exemptions and the Liberal State
• Patrol Mag on Christian Pacifists and Newtown
• Aaron Belz on Capital Commentary (CPJ) on the Newtown Massacre
• Was the Sandy Hook Shooter Sinful or Just Sick?
• The Phil Vischer Podcast episode 31 (Phil is the creator of Veggie Tales). Phil makes a special podcast to explore why people decided to take down Christmas decorations in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings. It illuminates what Christmas means to us culturally and how our cultural Christmas betrays what Advent is about. Our cultural Christmas is escapism via sentimentality and consumerist excess. Advent is about the anticipated coming of a rescuer.
• Charles Krauthammer on the Roots of Mass Murder “Random mass killings were three times more common in the 2000s than in the 1980s, when gun laws were actually weaker. Yet a 2011 University of California at Berkeley study found that states with strong civil-commitment laws have about a one-third lower homicide rate.”
• Michigan Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer “how dare you!” 
• The Callous Theology of James Dobson
• Psych Drugs: The Giant Gaping Hole in Sandy Hook reporting

Older Stuff

• David Bentley Hart on the Tsunami and Theodicy
• What Marilyn Manson Wrote After He was blamed partially for Colombine. 

CRC Sources

• Madison Square CRC Letter of Response to the shooting
• Ron Vanderwell’s blog post: Wrong or Broken
• Rich De Ruiter’s blog post: Response Demonstrates Worldview
• Adrian Helleman’s blog: Pandora’s Box and Gun Control