A litany of disbelief has become the predictable response in the wake of school shootings and murders.  While looking for answers, neighbors, classmates, friends and acquaintances express incredulity that quiet kids from “good families” could commit acts so heinous.  The recent school shootings at Fort Gibson, Oklahoma was no exception.

“Most people in Fort Gibson shook their heads in disbelief when a seventh-grade honor roll student was arrested in the shooting of four classmates.  ‘He’s not that kind of kid,’ many said...  But what kind of child is?”  (Lisa Tatum, “Common Threads Found in School Shooters,” The Sunday Oklahoman, Dec. 19, 1999.

These crimes are the things toward which American society has inexorably journeyed for at least four decades.  They are the evil fruits of a society which exalts self above others and worships at the shrine of Secular Humanism.  Webster defines “humanism” as “...a doctrine or way of life centered on human values: esp.: a philosophy that asserts the dignity and worth of man and his capacity for self realization through reason and that often rejects supernaturalism.” (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary).

When the 1960’s nihilistic philosophy of “Do Your Own Thing” replaced the ancient verities of objective morality, and divine revelation confirmed by the miraculous, (Heb. 2:1-4), it created a moral vacuum into which humanism rushed.  A religion of self-denial was replaced with one of “self-fulfillment” and “self-esteem” as individuals began a quest to “find themselves.”  Nothing short of moral anarchy, that emphasis on “self” has become a narcissistic worldview for much of society including pampered children who kill their classmates.

Casting aside the ancient verities of objective morality, embodied in biblical precepts, society proclaimed the religion of human subjectivity and education moved from an objective foundation of right and wrong to the sands of “self-esteem.”  That be-all and end-all of a state-run education system has now brought a plague of violent death to school children across our land.  Immunized to life’s realities by “sensitivity training” and loosed from moral restraints by the state-sponsored dogma of Darwinian Evolution, it should be no surprise that youngsters from “good homes” are now killing their classmates.  After all, if we are nothing more than glorified apes, why should it be wrong for us to kill one another?  That perspective was chillingly reported in the wake of the Fort Gibson shooting.

“Helen Smith, a forensic psychologist in Knoxville, Tenn., who works with violent children -- many of them murderers, has interviewed nearly 4,000 violent youths from Harlem to rural Tennessee...  She says a distinct personality trait stands out in school shooters: narcissism.  Narcissistic youths are those who do not care about other people’s feelings, Smith said.  They think they are special and entitled to rights others do not have.”  (Tatum).

Narcissism is the fruit of a nihilistic culture.  Nihilism is defined as, “...a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless... a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and esp. of moral truths... that conditions in the social organization are so bad as to make destruction desirable for its own sake, independent of any constructive program or possibility.”  (Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary).

Nihilism was the mantra of the 1960’s, expressed in the cry, “Burn, baby, burn.”  A generation bent on destroying all religious and moral restraints, they offered nothing to replace them but self.  “Do your own thing,” was their catechism and humanism their religion, and after worshipping at that shrine for more than three decades they have produced a generation of narcissistic killers.  Of the 1960s, Robert Bork wrote:

“Nihilism was the order of the decade.  It came in two varieties: hedonism and political rage.  Some students or dropouts exhibited both.  The Hippies rejected middle-class morality for an unprecedented permissiveness.  The incessantly repeated slogans were taken seriously:  ‘If it feels good, do it.’  ‘Do your own thing,’ and ‘It is forbidden to forbid.’”  (Bork, Slouching Towards Gomorrah, Harper Collins Publishers, Inc., NY, 1996, p. 50).

Narcissism is the antithesis of all Jesus taught about self-denial, loving God and loving one’s neighbor, Matt. 10:38-39;  22:37-40).  Secular Humanism is the all-pervading state religion of American society that has produced the fruit of narcissistic nihilism.  It legitimizes the murder of the unborn in the name of “self-choice,” destroys homes in the name of “self-fulfillment,” broadcasts filth on our airwaves in the name of “self-expression,” creates narcissistic youngsters in public schools in the name of “self-esteem,” and constitutes a danger far greater to our nation than any foreign enemy.

“Protests and threatened boycotts caused Calvin Klein to cancel his semipornographic ad campaign showing teenagers in sexually provocative poses -- a girl of 13 or 14 for instance, on her back, skirt lifted to show her panties.  Columnist John Leo of U.S. News & World Report called the ads ‘decadent.’ But a spokesman for Klein said that the ads were perfect for today’s independent generation: ‘people who do only what they want to do.’  ...There are words to describe the Klein attitude.  One, obviously, is narcissism; the other nihilism.  One who is absorbed in himself and his sensations, believing in few or no moral or religious principles, in nothing transcendental, is a nihilist.  A culture that preaches narcissistic nihilism is asking for trouble.”  (Bork, pp. 125, 126).

Sowing the wind in the 1960s, America is reaping the whirlwind on the threshold of a new century.  The nihilism of that decade replaced God with man, self-denial with self-esteem and love of righteousness with narcissism.  It should then come as no surprise that in this age of “heightened sensitivity” we have lost the capacity to love our fellow man that “good kids” kill their classmates.  Having become inured to evil, we no longer have a sense of mortal outrage.  Blithely ignoring the blood of aborted babies that drips from the hands of Supreme Court Justices, we paradoxically cry, “Why?” when school children murder their classmates.  The same secular, state religion that allows the former results in the latter.

Leaving nothing in its place but the vanity of soul expressed by Robert Ingersoll at his brother’s grave when he said, “Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities,” Secular Humanism repudiates Christ’s teaching of self-denial.  Into the ears of the young, it whispers its lie that, “ye shall be as gods,” (Gen. 3:5), while telling them they are mere bits of matter, with no reason for being or a destiny beyond this mundane sphere.  Perhaps Pogo said it best: “We have met the enemy and he is us.” 

--Jerry C. Brewer, via Seibles Road church bulletin, Montgomery, Alabama