A report on how the terrible events unfolded can be found here:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14254705
Anyone who has been following this story will be very confused by these events. What kind of person could do this? Was he mentally ill? Where does the motivation to perform such an act come from? I don’t think we’ll ever know exactly what was happening in this man’s mind but I’m certain that we will hear plenty more over the coming days, weeks and months. Unlike other similar attacks, he did not turn the gun on himself and so perhaps we will be able to get some answers to the questions we all have. Whether Christian, atheist or whatever else, I think we all share in the complete shock that this event has caused. This will be a more difficult time for all those involved than any of us can really imagine and we all hope and pray that they will get through it.
As a Christian however, I feel it necessary to comment on these events as the suspect’s claim to be a Christian has been used in certain (thankfully small) quarters of atheism as another reason to attack religion and as another explicit case as to why religion is bad despite the attack seemingly being politically motivated.
My first reaction on hearing that he was a Christian was simply to deny it; “he can’t be a Christian because Christian’s don’t do this kind of thing.” But the more I’ve thought about this response, the more uncomfortably it sits with; could the same accusation not have been thrown towards Peter when he denied Jesus? How many times in our own life could a similar accusation have been thrown towards us? So if it is wrong to judge this man's faith and relationship to God, how can we react to these claims against Christianity?
First of all, it should be pointed out that the act of a man committing such an heinous act, whether atheist or religious had no bearing on the validity of the thing which he professes to be. If a self-proclaimed atheist or as can seen in recent times Muslim had committed this act of violence, it would be equally absurd to say that because the man was atheist or Muslim that that means that atheism or Islam is wrong or evil. There is no correlation between this man committing such an act and the validity of Christianity. It would be more prudent to discuss what Christianity actually has to say on non-violence rather than what one man who professes to be Christian actually did.
So what does Christianity teach about violence?
As we know Christianity is all about following the life of Jesus and we are called to imitate him in our own lives. One of the core components of Jesus’ message was that of complete non-violence, even in the face of persecution and violence against you. This is why not once in the New Testament can we find any instances of Jesus' disciples killing other people, yet we read much of Christians being persecuted and killed and more importantly not resisting this. Jesus himself walked willingly to the cross (see bottom for details of how brutal the torture was that he endured). He was an innocent man and yet he let this happen to him without fighting back, Jesus did not turn to violence, he simply accepted it with love and prayed for his persecutors.
Jesus’ message was one of non-violence, loving thy neighbour as thyself, even under persecution. Indeed the only case where a disciple of Jesus attempts to fight back in the New Testament is when Peter attempts to stop Jesus being arrested (surely a noble cause to protect the most innocent man who has ever lived?) and yet Jesus rebukes this seemingly "worthy" act of violence!
Let all those who believe in God pray for all involved including the suspect that they can find peace and healing even in this most difficult time and that all may follow the example of Christ in their lives, Our Lord and Prince of Peace.
(To read just how brutal an act of torture it was, Jesus’ passion can be followed here by clicking through the sections of the link below.)
