The tragic loss of life, and the many injured at Umpqua Community
College in Roseburg, Oregon, fills us with sympathy for the families of the
deceased who were actually martyrs for their faith. According to eye-witness
accounts the perpetrator demanded to know their religious affiliation. If they
answered “Christian” they were gunned down within seconds.
Immediately, some politicians seized the moment as political opportunists
to prostitute a tragedy to empower their political agenda. The reactionary cry
of “stricter gun laws” and the berating of law-abiding citizens who like their
freedom became the talking points of the day. People need leadership to speak
comfort, healing, and express condolences in that moment of heartache.
Leadership should know the importance of timing and tact. They also should
exercise patience and demonstrate a level headedness and be the anchor in these
moments of national pain.
Some say we need to have more gun laws, and this will end the
violence. Yet, the same principle of thought is used with drug laws, and yet
drug use is as rampant today as it’s ever been. The other side says to legalize
drugs, and usage goes down. Using that principle, if we want murder to go down
we should legalize it.
Then what is the root problem and what would really work?
We deal with the externals and forget the underlying issues no
one wants to talk about. Things like the breakup of the family, absent fathers,
and the lack of morals and ethics. Instead of lampooning the family structure
we should teach through instruction and example which is the necessity of this
bedrock of civilization. Society reaps what it sows. When the family falls into
dysfunction and disarray then disorder and confusion will be reaped. Mothers
and fathers were commanded by God to train and educate their children in the
things of God. That simultaneously means they will be disciplined to look
through the eyes of God in valuing and having respect for their fellow man.
The family is the place where children first receive training
in conversation, general knowledge, understanding of God, respect for the rights of
others, and their social responsibilities. In the home, it is the family that cultivates
and nurtures lessons in obedience, patience, self-sacrifice, self-control, and responsibility. By sharing the pains of life together, they will learn
and experience compassion, gratitude, and faithfulness. It is in the family
that the incontrovertible value of each human life is realized and respected.
When the home is in order the society will come into order
because society is made up of families. Society reflects the family’s
condition. Leave it to Beaver is a lot different than Will and Grace and Modern
Family. Not to mention the movies from then and now and the hundredfold
increase in violence and its graphic depiction. Seemingly, the more gore the
more the lure it seems in attracting the audience.
The promotion of strong, wholesome families is the best
antidote and cure to the increasingly violent and selfish nature of our modern culture.
It will not be transformed by plunging ourselves into more selfishness and
being accepting to every immoral suggestion. It will be transformed by citizens
who have been created and nurtured in a God-structured home. Parents need to
recommit themselves immediately to the responsibilities of marriage and parenting.
It takes time, sacrifice, and love in the form of action to strengthen this
institution so utterly vital to the survival of a nation.
Let’s pray for America and then let us contribute our part in
making it strong again.
- Reuben Egolf
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