- Opinion -
As the smoke clears surrounding the Uvalde Texas elementary school shooting, many things that went wrong should stand out to us. One of these things is the fact that the shooter, who shall remain nameless, was only 18-years old.
Only 18-years old? A poor excuse for such demented and unthinkably evil actions. No, this boy was indeed a man. Yet it is an undeniable fact that we, as a society, treat men of such an age as boys. This, in and of itself, is not the sole cause of such happenings as the recent bloody acts of violence which have darkened the news cycle. But it is a contributor to them, and that is an understatement.
Samuel D. James, an associate editor for Crossway Books, recently wrote in the prestigious First Things Magazine,
"Young American men are adrift: jobless, friendless, sexless, creedless. For many of them, the only color to their days is the blue light that emanates from the computer, smartphone, or video game TV. It is said that some of these adolescent terrorists have mental illnesses. This could very well be clinically true. But in another sense, couldn’t that kind of lifestyle itself be a source of disorder and anguish?"
Mr. James is right on the money. I would simply like to add that the reason for this lack of responsibility is that our expectations for America's young men are far too low. Maybe if our young men spent more time studying for future careers, starting businesses, revolutionizing technology, creating wealth, and evangelizing to the faithless, they would be too busy--not to mention too happy--to focus on the lesser, if not occasionally the evil, things in life.
And what is the one and the only thing that can motivate an individual to pursue this kind of forgotten purity? The also forgotten--but no less important--desire to serve someone other than oneself, namely the God who created life and sustains it through even the darkest times.
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From the editor's desk,
Al K. Scott
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