Paul Derengowski, Ph.D.
In case you missed it, another rash of violence broke out in a Pittsburgh synagogue the other day and another round of finger-pointing has commenced.
What is truly ridiculous, though, is all the moralizing taking place, none of which has any basis in reality.
We must do this or we need to do that to stop all the carnage. One person whom I briefly encountered online emphatically wrote, “WE AS A PEOPLE MUST find some common ground and come together.”
When I asked him upon what objective basis do we fulfill his moral mandate, the best he could come up with was “maturity,” and “RESPECT/BALANCE 4 ALL.”
It is that kind of vacuous response that will only lead to more carnage in the future—and rightly so.
Because apart from God’s revelation on human conduct, there is no real, objective reason why what took place in Pittsburgh should not be taking place everywhere and we should embrace it.
“You shall not murder”—Exodus 20:13; 21:12-14; Lev. 24:17
“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever shall say to his brother, ‘Raca,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever shall say, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.'” (Matt. 5:21-22).
What we have done, as a nation, is swallowed centuries-old nonsense about the Bible, taught it to successive generations, and now we are reaping what we have sowed.
“Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this even he will reap” (Gal. 6:7).
To many the Bible is just a book about myths and fairy tales, when the reality is, it is God’s revelation of Himself and the created order.
Within its pages are the moral prescriptions that, if humans are to treat each other right, then they must be obeyed.
Otherwise, the result is to incur the curses and judgments consistent with our rebellion.
But, you see, since so many have swallowed the nonsense of Bultmann, Ritschl, Harnack, Schleiermacher, Spinoza, and a whole host of other German philosophers and critics of the Bible of yester-century, the Bible has becoming a laughing-stock and another 11 people have been mercilessly murdered in Pittsburgh.
Instead of living by a biblical morality, we have chosen to create our own, specious, subjective, fly by the seat of our pants morality, and then
when something tragic happens, that really catches our attention, then we have another knee-jerk moment and place the blame everywhere but squarely upon our own shoulders.
Unless we wake up to the reality that God has spoken, then what happened in Pittsburgh or anywhere else for that matter, which is anything but an act of God’s morality, will have to be the “new normal.”
There are no other options, which means we need to quit moralizing and hypocritically pointing fingers, as if there are.
“Where there is no vision [of God’s law], the people are unrestrained, but happy is he who keeps the law” (Prov. 29:19).
