There have been so many mass killings that I can’t keep track. I started to revise this article several times and each time realized the listing I had of killings was outdated after only a couple of days. Months ago, I was shocked to hear of the killings in Atlanta, Georgia. Eight women were killed by a single gunman, a 21-year-old man. More recently there were three people killed by another 21-year-old, this time in Florida. His only reason for killing them was he hated Black people. There is little doubt that there is ongoing hatred toward racialized groups simply because they are different from the attacker. Unfortunately, many, not all, of these mass killings have been by men who look like me.
Hate comes out of a perceived need to defend oneself or one’s beliefs or values. If someone is seen as threatening, it’s easy to put them into a category that makes them less human than someone else and thereby allows for their destruction.
The problem is in those “perceptions” which see other people as the enemy. The way we look at people who are different from us is what needs to change. As long as we believe anyone who is different is a danger, hate will grow and be manifested in the killings which have become so prevalent.
Many times, there is no relationship between the murderer and the victims. There is some other source that fuels a person’s hatred. It could be as simple as hating everyone because the killer’s life was less fulfilling or enjoyable than he wanted.
In every case, there are attempts to assign a motive. If there is a motive, unless we are a part of the hated group, we can have some sense of safety in our own daily lives. If we feel safe, then we can ignore, or at least put to the back of our minds what happened to someone who is not part of our immediate circle of acquaintances.
It is pretty common to claim the shooter was mentally ill. Personally, I have no doubt that someone who kills other people indiscriminately is mentally ill. However, that doesn’t change the fact that we need to be dealing with mental illness as a part of the problem and not just dismissing it as some aberrant behavior.
The church has failed the Lord Jesus in that we haven’t been able to get people, people who are like us, to understand that loving God and loving one’s neighbor is of paramount importance for living. If we really understood what it means to love someone, then hate would fade away. We would insist on getting help for those who need it and limit access to weapons for those who don’t change.
It is tempting to excuse ourselves and think it’s the “other person” who is guilty of hate. By doing that we ignore our own hate and go about living as if everything were just fine. We who are in the church need to understand that we also hate without even realizing it. When we don’t examine ourselves, we are actually perpetuating the hate that is in us as well as the hate that is in others.
To look at hate crimes against any group is essential to making changes in our society. However, we must go beyond the hate of a particular group to understand what drives the hate. I believe the church should be leading the effort to transform hate to understanding and to love of one’s neighbor, regardless of who that neighbor is. This will call for careful soul searching on the part of us as individuals.
Self-examination is never fun. Also, it’s very hard to examine ourselves by ourselves. We are always blind to things in ourselves that we don’t really like. I think it is helpful for one to connect with a group of people who can help a person understand that he or she sees from only one perspective and that there are other perspectives to be considered.
Ross T Lucas 