Ideas have consequences for life

After past tragedies, I’ve written here about a biblical view of suffering; the basic human right to self-defense; and, the foolishness of treating government like a god.

Here we are again, though, after the horror in Florida, with a child killing children at school.

American society responds with a volley of partisan talking points. The best ideas are only of the band-aid sort, to plug holes in existing laws. If we can just tweek the wording of the civil codes, and get it perfect, no one will do bad things anymore.

If you had crippling headaches every day, wouldn’t you get tired of being told to take pain-killers? Wouldn’t you seek a doctor who could uncover the root cause?

Well, these instances of death and destruction keep on happening, and none of our dear leaders are interested in addressing root causes. The reason is that these deeper issues can’t be solved by government, and they feel the pressure to “do something!”

Simply stated, one of the fundamental issues is this: Ideas have consequences. Beliefs do not (and cannot) remain esoteric thoughts bouncing around in our skulls. Ideas breed actions. One preacher has said, the faith you hold in your heart will eventually work its way out to your fingertips.

Jesus taught this. “Out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.” (Matthew 15:19) Murder comes from a place no gun law can touch.

We are bombarded with preaching every single day. Sure, we don’t call it that. But every message you receive, through any media, is preaching ideas at you, demanding that you change your thinking based on what you’re told.

An example is our officially secular school system, where children are taught, for thousands of hours, that they are cosmic accidents. They came into being for no good reason, with no purpose, and to no real end. They are random bags of protoplasm, and, as Richard Dawkins has preached, there is no transcendent power that cares how these bags treat each other. There is only cosmic indifference and silence.

The words of Lennon’s song, “Imagine,” are true after all. There’s nothing to live or die for. Life? Death? Meaning? Meh.

An hour of Sunday school each week is not going to balance that, especially given the paltry content of modern church instruction. Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m not laying the blame on the schools. I have teacher friends who would love to do better than what I’ve described. And, some of them do, at the risk of their employment.

I’m not picking on the schools. The truth is that Christian churches have been in the forefront in our nationwide departure from biblical morality for several generations. We’re frightened by anyone taking a strong stand about anything, and we fall over ourselves in our efforts to make the world love us (so that they’ll also like Jesus, of course.)

Given this, the astonishing thing is not the number of school shootings we’ve seen. It’s that we haven’t had a great deal more. Ideas have consequences.

Here’s one idea we need to return to: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 19:19)

Gordan Runyan is the pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church in Tucumcari. Contact him at:

[email protected]