Erin and Robin seem to have fallen into this, cut from your other post: “The worst thing that can happen to the Church,? Peter Kreeft says, ?is what is happening to the Church now in the West, namely that the Church is deliberately conforming to the world.? … And he adds: ?The imitation of Christ has changed into the imitation of popular culture.?
I think I’m changing the context of this quote, but all the same, imho one of the worst problems of the church is it’s failure to conffront the “might makes right” and “guns solve problems” mentality of the popular culture. If there’s no religion without sacrifice, one thing Christians must sacrifice is reliance on violence for security or power. The church needs to be much, much clearer on its division from the world in this instance. We rely on a God of love whose love overpowers violence.

Diane: When you are raised up in a church culture whose entire message is Prepare Ye the Way for the Coming Tribulation, guns are necessary and violence is just a vehicle for the reign of Christ. And fear is just the fuel that compels the faithful.

Diane and karen,
You just keep those straw men comin’.

Ben,
You wound me!
I was speaking too abstractly in my last post to have set up a strawman. Maybe I’m dealing in “airy notions” but those notions seem to me to be at the core of the Christian worldview.

What makes the story above particularly compelling is that Shirley, the woman who answered, pointing to her chest, “Jesus is right here” was the mother of the young man, Eric, who had ambushed her and her husband in their home, in a delusional and violent attempt to get back custody of his “first-born” son, who was in Shirley’s custody. There are many factors in this story, which make it complicated, not the least of which is that the young man clearly had a screw loose.
Too often in these domestic tragedies, when an abusive husband/father, or in this case son, attacks or kills his family there is some fundamentalist religious aspect to it. A few years ago here a devoutly Fundamentalist Christian father slaughtered his 6 children to punish his abused wife for leaving him. Like the young man is this story he was narcissistic and paranoid. Like this young man he believed his controlling, abusive behavior was his due as the God-directed ?head of the family?. But it begs the question ?was he crazy because of religion or was he religious because he was crazy?? People who are mentally ill will use a variety of things to rationalize their behavior ? including religious beliefs (if you can call them that). In fact, mentally ill people are often attracted to religion either for succor or for justification. . Nevertheless, I don?t know if it is fair to blame these sorts of incidents on fundamentalist religious thinking. This sort of of anti-social behavior linked to religious beliefs is by no means limited to Christianity. Fear-motivated anti-social behavior ? including domestic violence and terrorism – is linked to other fundamentalist faiths, as well as cultural factors as well. Fundamentalist or rigid religious thinking will make it easier for certain kinds of antii-social behavior to be encouraged or tolerated in susceptible individuals., but I am not sure whether it causes it.
This is why so many secularists think religion is dangerous ? because it can be and is used as an excuse for all manner of anti-social behavior. It isn?t just the truly insane who justify their actions by saying that God told them or that God wanted them to do whatever it is that they did. For secularists, who think God is imaginary, the line between crazy and religious is not that clear. ( Look at Todd Bentley, for example.) What seems to be, to an outsider, irrational or insane actions may make sense to individuals within a particular community or culture where there are cultural issues which make rational argument suspect.
In my own experience in dealing with people with mental illness I’ve observed that isolation appears to cause mental illness and it can exacerbate an existing condition. Religious faith can be healing if it brings with it a sense of connection and belonging, but it can make matters worse if it leads to fear and increasing isolation. We shouldn?t be left alone with our own thoughts ? it would cause most of us to become depressed and paranoid. We need to engage our thoughts with others in order to stay in balance. I think a similar thing can be in effect in group situations. That is that isolation from mainstream society is not healthy and leads to group psychosis. We need the give and take of alternative ideas to keep us sane. I would even argue that the same rule applies among nations. Nations who isolate themselves become increasingly unhealthy and paranoid.