Wow! This article was clear and Biblical...very helpful. I wept with the mother who was crying out for help and apparrently no one heard...God help us all who consider ourselves to be followers of Christ to be more sensitive to the Voice of the Holy Spirit and thus be led to people all around us who are "crying out for help"... God help us to take the opportunity to heal the way Jesus did...in His power.

The Bible read: Psalms 127 verse 1: if the Lord does not protect the city, it is useless for the sentries to stand guard. With this bible verse I can say, the police, gun control, doctors, psychologist, and whatever the society and government put in action to prevent these tragedies will not succeed if God in not involve in people lives. If God does not protect our schools and our children, is useless anything else we do, it just would not work. God was taken out of the government, He was taken out of schools and universities, the reading of the Bible has pass on to just another book of lecture like anything else, not a book of instruction and direction. The bible says: 1 Timothy 3.16-17: All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching the truth, rebuking error, correcting faults, and giving instruction for right living, 17so that the person who serves God may be fully qualified and equipped to do every kind of good deed. Rebuking error, correcting faults, and giving instruction for RIGHT LIVING. How it is possible that this is replaced by carnal intelligence, when God has spoken through His word and this word will give you the proper direction? The modern times and the new world order have decided to live without God, so the world will pay suffer the consequence for neglecting our creator. American government and its lifestyle began centuries ago on the foundation of real Christianity. Christ himself spoke about building your house on sand or the rock. America began its foundation on the Rock, but somewhere along history wrong and foolish decisions were made to change the foundation and rebuild America on sand. I hate to say this but she will crumble and fall. Crimes, drugs, gangs, homicide, inflation, and we can go on, is the consequence of a society with no God, God removed from homes, schools, institutions even some churches and government. And any country in the world that is under this condition is on the same tract, society is on deranged. When we look at the billions of dollars that a economical inflated society is spending on drugs consumption, a billions of dollars to fight it, and has not able to put God into the fight, so it has become a war with no end. Now there is a plan, to remove God from the economy: “In God we trust” is about to disappear. It does not require a real prophet to vision what is going to be the consequence of this action. Do not blame other countries when America economy crumbles to the ground, then violence, hate and vengeance fill the heart of empty stomachs, the last inflation or the fall of the economy in 1930 will look like a child play. When the president spoke and said that America is a multi religion country, it was a false statement millions of miles from reality. America is a Christian country that has accepted because of those same Christian principles of “free will” other religions and forms of worship to anything. But now has become emotionally and spiritually drawn away from her roots and has lost her Christian identity. The bible say: in Deuteronomy 8.11: Make certain that you do not forget the Lord your God; God told his people not to follow the practices and behavior of who do not believe in Him nor serve Him, the question is what America is doing? The only way is through Jesus, he has to return to our schools, our workplace, our government, our universities and our society, or if not with all the intellectuals, doctors, law enforcement officers, they will just form a group or useless people with no power and the country will have no future.

In Jesus' day, He spent much of His time casting out demons. Demons, or evil angels, don't die, so where are all of them now? Look at the gunman's eyes ~ they're dead as a shark's. People invite demons to take over their bodies by dabbling in the occult; Harry Potter, vampire/slasher or scary/evil movies, tv shows about witches, the supernatural and haunted houses, tarot cards, Ouija boards, psychics, etc. Media report the gunman had a shrine to satan. If we did acknowledge demonic possession as the real problem, what type of practitioner would one consult? The Catholic church has done exorcisms but non-Catholics would have no one to go to. Someone once predicted that due to the influence of the Harry Potter books and movies, we will soon have an entire generation of demon possessed people whose only recourse to help is counseling, which is totally clueless as to how to fix the problem. Just as Jesus demonstrated, the solution is a Spirit-filled Christian commanding the demon to leave, followed by administration of the Gospel message.

Mark.... but what about Paul in the New Testament? Is he the exception? I do not think so or God would not have used him mightily! He killed Christians - he was a killer, a murderer - but God met him and showed him the truth. Changed him. And then Paul did great works for God! He was not given the death penalty. So where is the chance to change for any murderer who has murdered? The grace? The mercy? The love. Does not everyone deserve the most time on earth as possible so that they can accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and for their life to not be ended quickly by human "laws" ? Did not Jesus also die for them? Or did He die to only forgive some sins? Does Jesus love them less than you? Does Jesus love them less than anyone else? I am not advocating that they should roam society freely - but to end a God given life on our human terms is not in my opinion a biblical action, moral or belief we should have as Christians. The Old Testament laws were there for a reason in a society that God needed to keep as pure as possible. But do not also forget Moses who killed a man. And now we have Jesus - there is a way to move forward without having to keep all the laws simply through His sacrifice on the cross. It is now about grace and mercy and second chances because Jesus has made a way - no longer have the laws made a way.

Well said Amy Julia. I think we all are "looking for answers", when they are complex. The world has rejected the idea of the depravity of man, so they have to look for answers in mental illness and gun control (all important conversations to have). Parents want the assurance that , "I did the right things, so my child or myself will not become an Adam Lanza or a Ted Bundy". We try to live in "safe" neighborhoods, and protect them from violent images, feed them the right food, go to the right schools--- we believe they are "good". When something like this happens, it shatters our security. We demand answers. But we fail to look inward and realize our own capacity for sin, because it is too frightening. We are all sinners in need of a Savior.

To me, it does not matter whether he was mentally ill, demon possessed, or demon oppressed. He committed a horrible crime that had he lived deserved the death penalty. I do not agree with giving criminals an out due to mental insanity. When it comes to premeditated murder in the Old Testament. There was no discretion allowed in changing the penalty due to one's mental state. Whoever sheds man's blood by man shall his blood be shed was the rule. If this penalty were to be swiftly and consistently carried out I believe there would be a lot less murders occurring in the US.

This was really interesting, partly because I just laid out a good bit of Augustine's approach in this post over at my own blog. I think this is a good post, but it's also worth noting that sin is itself a kind of disease. If we were not metaphysically "sick" we would have the strength of character to make good We all are affected by sin and that requires forgiveness, but it also requires acknowledging that we are damaged, some of us more than others by this. There's still room for responsibility, but it needs to be tempered by the understanding that we are all working with a damaged will. i think a big part of the problem is we all talk too much in terms of either/or. Sickness may limit culpability, but it doesn't take it away entirely. As an aside, I was surprised by the way you define illness. Mental illness is a sickness even if it doesn't affect the body. I would have liked for you to find a better way of talking about this issue that didn't minimize the effect of psychological trauma.

If you are going to comment on "Assault" weapons, Gun Laws & the Second Amendment at least educate yourself first so one can take your arguments seriously. Common Sense & Reason demands waiting for ALL the facts (not feelings) to be revealed before anyone can make a reasonable assessment. In the meantime pray.

"Fallen world" and "sinful nature" are interesting in that their primary focus is on blaming and demanding change in others. I ran the numbers instead. Are more Christian countries less likely to have deaths by firearms? No. Is rate of abortion related to firearm deaths? No. Is ownership rate a good predictive measure? Yes! Yet many here suggest that arming even more people will have a protective effect. That is contrary to what we see in easily available statistics. We should ask ourselves why Evangelicals want to believe that guns make us safer or even more directly, why do Evangelicals don't look for measures of what they claim to be true and fight it when it is revealed? These children were our sacrifice for the Second Amendment.

Cami, yes--prayer. If not in the schools anymore, then why not surrounding them? What if Christian parents met to pray for their kids' school, not only for safety from violent acts, but for the teachers, for right teaching, for the Holy Ghost to be present in each room to block all error and to bring peace? Wouldn't have to be long--15 minutes, even. Just a coming together in a regular way--maybe just as they're dropping off their kids at school--to agree together about the importance of God's shielding power. Wouldn't it be interesting to see how that changed the whole picture?