We’re compelled to figure out why Matthew Murray shot and killed five Christians in two separate shootings this past Sunday. Bloggers and pundits have already begun exploring his Christian homeschool upbringing and the zealous nature of Youth With a Mission, a group he was involved with in 2002 — implying that extreme religiosity was a contributing factor. (All that rigid legalism and judgmentalism — no wonder he got mad!)
Others are satisfied that the explanation goes no further than mental instability — that Murray was clearly and simply deranged.
(An exploration of this issue might bring us to an assault on high-powered weapons, which this writer hopes will be successful. I’m no anti-gun crusader; as unchristian as it may sound, I was glad that Jeanne Assam, the New Life volunteer security guard, owned a handgun and used it to take Murray down. Still, I can’t imagine why our country allows private citizens to own weapons whose primary purpose is not the defense of human life, but the taking of many lives as efficiently as possible.)
At any rate, while we ponder the families, schools, volunteer organizations, and other institutions that shape individuals to do what they do, we should also think about the larger social structure in which these institutions exist. While we wish to unlock the key to the mystery of Matthew Murray (and we should never deny his own responsibility for his actions) we should also try to understand the system — the principalities and powers, as the apostle Paul calls them — that helped create an order that made it relatively easy for Murray to commit murder. We should think, then, about advanced democratic capitalism.
By that I mean the order that most of us believe has been a huge step forward in history and one of the most effective engines of social justice. By democratic, I mean an order that seeks to protect all the freedoms we cherish. By capitalist, I mean an order that makes possible a dynamic economic system with unprecedented opportunity and wealth.
But this order has created the wealth an average person uses to buy high-powered weapons. And the order that makes it possible to manufacture lots of these weapons at a low cost, and an order that enables their efficient distribution in the marketplace. And the order that so upholds freedom that it makes it legal to own weapons.
It is also the order that encourages freedom of movement — and builds an infrastructure to support it — so that a gunman can drive 70 miles without any hassle and commit a similar crime.
It is an order that’s has helped create the megachurch, a voluntary association that for various reasons (size, anonymity of attendees, inherent trust) is especially vulnerable to random acts of violence. The megachurch is not possible without the machinery and techniques of bureaucratic, managerial capitalism.
It is also an order that has created the Western free press. The media not only rightly believes we have a right to know all the details of mass murders like this, but also has an economic incentive to get the story first. Media coverage can entice deranged people to do terrible things because, as Robert Hawkins, the teenager who killed eight in an Omaha mall recently said, “Now I’ll be famous.”
This is not a call to overthrow the present cultural order. If I were writing a column on the blessings of democratic capitalism, I could go on for volumes. Many people still want to immigrate to the U.S. because of the freedoms and opportunities this system offers.
The tension I feel is this: I find it impossible to conceive of a solution to the mass murder phenomenon, especially when churches are targeted, that doesn’t entail a severe restriction in freedom, thus sabotaging the very system we cherish in so many ways. As Fyodor Dostoyevsky suggested, perhaps we will eventually give up freedom for security. In the short run, I think we’re not likely to make any fundamental changes to this order.
This is sobering. It suggests that no easy solutions wait in the wings. It means we once again find ourselves caught in the tensions of history. It reminds us that while we strive diligently to create a more just and secure social order, we must also continue to pray the Advent prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus,” looking to the one whose will it is to establish an order in which the contradictions of human existence melt into justice and love.
Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today, and author of Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untamable God (Baker 2006). You are invited to comment below or on his blog.
Copyright © 2007 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.
Related Elsewhere:
Christianity Today covered the recent shootings in CT Liveblog.
Previous SoulWork columns are available on our site.
