News Weakly - 10/7/2017

The Elephant in the Room
I usually present news and commentary on things you may not have considered, but completely ignoring the massive loss of life in Las Vegas this past week would be wrong. What we had was a previously unknown guy who armed himself and went to the 32nd floor of Las Vegas's Mandalay Bay Hotel where he opened up with rapid-fire weapons on concert goers across the street. At last count nearly 60 people died and more than 500 were injured. The gunman killed himself. "The worst mass shooting in American history," they're calling it. Friends and family have been impacted as well as the nation. Aid in the form of blood donations, cash, and anything else you can think of has been poured into the aftermath. Described as "horrific", "evil", "tragedy" -- all valid -- we must remember that only the Christian worldview can provide understanding or comfort here. We want answers. Authorities still don't know why he did it, and "why" is important because it gives us a tool about ideas on how to fix it in the future. They don't know why. We do. Why (Jer 17:9; Eph 2:1-3)? What remedy is there (John 3:5-6; Acts 16:31)? Our world's moral relativism isn't helping. Our "Don't judge" doesn't provide any comfort. And our answers -- better gun control, better laws, "bad things happen", etc. -- don't provide genuine answers. This was evil, and we know the answer to evil -- the person of Jesus Christ.

You Can't Say That
There are words we are not allowed to use and ideas that shouldn't be expressed in polite company. Our plunge from sanity over the last decade or so into "same-sex marriage" and "gender fluidity" and such has created an entirely new taboo. We are not allowed to talk about the transgendered who regret their change and want to go back or the homosexual who no longer wants to be homosexual. To say, "That's wrong" is politically incorrect, even for those who have realized their own error.

Too Little Too Late
In the wake of the Las Vegas tragedy, Australia has offered to help America fix its mass shooting problem. They know about gun control. Following a mass shooting in Port Arthur in 1996, they passed stricter gun laws to fix the problem. Their law included a national firearm registry, a 28-day waiting period, tighter licensing rules, a thorough background check, and a "justifiable reason" for owning a gun. Of course, in America that "justifiable reason" is "because the Bill of Rights says so", but otherwise we can do that. Odd thing. It won't stop murder, even in groups (the definition of "mass murder"). I'm not saying I'm opposed to regulating guns. I'm saying that the problem is sin ... not something Australia can help us solve.

Not Representative
The U.S. Representative for Pennsylvania's 18th congressional district, Tim Murphy, is known as staunchly pro-life ... until the woman with whom he had an affair thought she was pregnant and he recommended abortion. "You have zero issue posting your pro-life stance all over the place," she complained to him and he responded, "I've never written them. Staff does them. I read them and winced. I told staff don't write any more." A member of the House Pro-Life Caucus and endorsed by Family Research Council and LifePAC, clearly this Representative is not a good representative of "pro-life" ... or most other moral values you might wish to affirm.

Postscript: In the wake of this obviously scandalous behavior, Tim Murphy has resigned.

The "S" Word
A San Francisco woman penned a scathing rebuttal of complementarianism for the Huffingon Post, but couldn't bring herself to send it in because it required her to hit a button labeled "Submit." The Huffington Post has apologized for the offensive wording. Must be true; I read it on the Internet.