Let me beat a soapbox for a moment. I fully support the 2nd Amendment. Guns are not the issue. Lack of training isn’t even the issue. As many have said, if guns kill people, then forks make us fat and pencils make mistakes. The issue has always been with the person using the gun, fork, or pencil. What makes the person do what they did? If the gun was removed, they would just find some other way to enact the violence. [Note: Most school shootings are committed by Christians.]
There will be a host of people in the world who will claim “mental illness” is to blame. I’m not denouncing the fact that mental illness is a real thing. However, in many situations like this, it seems to be an internal rage that finally explodes.
Why are people so angry in our world? Why does it seem that the rage is growing to the point where it cannot be contained?
….
When people reject God and His Lordship, they must have something to worship because we are created as worshipping beings. Without God, there must be another god that is worshipped. Whether it be self, nature, or some inanimate statue, those gods are colossal failures, disappointing all who worship them. Disappointment heaped upon disappointment causes people to lash out in anger. Couple that with the fact that the Lord “gave them up” to feel the full brunt of their emptiness without God, and disaster is sure to happen.
Only God can temper the temper and contain the rage that builds in a person.
— John McFarlane, pastor of First Baptist Church in Bryan, Ohio, The Rage of the Unredeeemed
Bruce Gerencser, 68, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 47 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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John McFarlane: “Without God, there must be another god that is worshipped. Whether it be self, nature, or some inanimate statue, those gods are colossal failures, disappointing all who worship them.”
Me: #1 – Dear John McFarlane, I think you have limited the options above (“self”; “nature”; and “some inanimate stature”). I would suggest that there is (at a minimum) a fourth category… that includes categorizing the current leader of the U.S.
John McFarlane: “Disappointment heaped upon disappointment causes people to lash out in anger.”
Me: #2 – John, I agree… since this claim is a succinct summarization of the IFB position, sadly.
John McFarlane: “Only God can temper the temper and contain the rage that builds in a person.”
Zoe: God, the perfect example I suppose. Talk about temper. Let’s (Trinity) drown everyone . . . well almost. I am p***** off. Mostly with Myselves mind you. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t hold this rage in anymore. Let it rain!
Didn’t work for God, John.