What is Mass Murder Doing to America Spiritually?

Another two mass murders have recently happened. The first was in Canada. A pair of brothers stabbed thirteen indigenous people to death on two different first nation reservations. This mass murder spree is said to have been a racist hate attack on the indigenous peoples’ population in Canada. The second mass murder occurred in Norfolk, Virginia at a college house party where seven students were shot, two of which were killed.

What is this doing to our faith in God? There have been 30 mass shootings since the elementary school attack in Uvalde, Texas in May. What kind of spiritual damage is this doing to the people of America? If you’re a minister or rabbi, what are you going to say when it happens to your community - when children get killed in elementary schools and on college campuses? How can you tell them they should still believe in a good God? How can you tell them to still believe in humankind, inclusion, diversity, equity, self-determination and person-centered planning? How can we still believe in those things in a world that seems to be collapsing? What’s going to happen if we don’t stop these mass murders? I think people will start accepting an authoritarian regime. Some political candidates have openly stated that men and women are not equal. Maybe they believe women are a delicacy and should be treated well, but for every man who feels that way, there are about a hundred others who want to see women barefoot, hungry and dependent on men. What are women going to do if they find themselves living in an authoritarian country where men have all the power? How are they going to be able to fight back? They won’t; they’ll be helpless and they’ll be reduced to mere slavery and suffering. My fear is that if these shootings continue, women will be willing to accept even that kind of lifestyle. If this kind of spiritual damage continues, people will be willing to accept anything that stops the slaughter.

While I am in favor of gun control, I don’t believe that in itself is going to solve the problem. The mass killing spree up in Canada wasn’t done with a gun; it was done with a knife. Taking guns away isn’t going to solve the whole issue. It will make some difference and save some lives and I do think assault weapons should be banned, but that by itself isn’t going to solve everything. Taking action on weapons is important, but murder begins in the minds of human beings; that’s what we need to work on changing. We need to improve peoples’ social skills, have public service announcements, implement self-determination programs and person-centered planning, and call a nationwide conference so we can talk about what needs to be done to stop this violence.

Above all, I’m concerned about the spiritual damage all of this is causing. There’s a big difference between being religious and being spiritual. You can be religious and go to church every Sunday, but that doesn’t mean you’re spiritual or that you have a high degree of spiritual consciousness. We need a high degree of spiritual consciousness and awareness, not just religion. If you have a high degree of spiritual consciousness, you’re going to be filled with love and compassion for your fellow human beings; you’re not going to want to hurt them. Unfortunately, I don’t think we are a high spiritual consciousness people. If we had the kind of high spiritual consciousness like Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Dalai Lama, a majority of people wouldn’t have to worry because mass shootings wouldn’t be happening. However, this is not the case. We need to start talking about this and seeing what kind of spiritual damage and devastation this is doing to our people because I think it’s doing a lot. It may not be visible, but it’s there.