Murders happen every day and no doubt more than a few are racially motivated. That's a sad fact.
But the issue in Ferguson, Cleveland and Staten Island have
to do with police officers, men who represent and are meant to enforce the
law... due process... killing suspects in an unwarranted fashion. The issue is
that if we live in a society regulated by law and these law enforcers are
unnecessarily killing (or judicially executing) people without due process...that's
a concern.
And then if they're behaving this way due to racial
motivations...
That's an even larger concern.
All murders, even all deaths are to some degree tragic and
in no way do I mean to suggest the death of white teenagers doesn't matter.
But it is surprising how many ingest the news, some even
heavily imbibe it and yet fail to contextualize. This represents the real
failure of our education system and the news media.
My wife even more than me is struck by the fact that college
students do not seem to have the same academic burden of her generation.
Granted, she attended a fairly serious Christian college. She was the
valedictorian of her high school class... granted a small town school... but
had always done well. She also did well in college but had to work very hard
just to get decent grades.
Presently we're observing relations and acquaintances that
have college aged children. We are struck by the fact that their children are largely
irresponsible, lazy and negligent when it comes to study habits, intellectually
unimpressive and yet these kids are pulling in straight-A's in university.
Something is amiss.
There does seem to be a difference when it comes to private
colleges. We know of a few who are attending these and their experience seems
more traditional. These kids are working hard, putting in the hours and still
struggling to get B's, while the kids at the state colleges are partying and
bored and breezing through the curriculum.
Of course the cost differentials are considerable.
But all of this must be considered when we look at the state
of thinking within the culture and the aims and ability of the news media when
it comes to information dissemination. This coupled with the lack of ability to
assimilate and integrate the news... means we as a society are caught in a
vicious cycle.
While education cannot be equated with wisdom or ethical
integrity, there's something to learning the ability to contextualize,
recognize fallacies, and weigh issues.
That said, education can also poison the mind, fill it with
assumptions and corrupt judgment and morality. There are dangers on all
fronts... for both the intellectual and the ignorant.
As Christians we cannot embrace anti-intellectualism, but
our Scripture-informed intellectualism is of a different quality. We
contextualize differently, or ought to. We judge things not according to the
cultural norms and assumptions, nationalist commitments or cultural identity.
But we constantly seek the renewal of our minds and in so doing (obviously
understanding this to be a work of the Spirit) we can hopefully arrive at some
better ways of thinking and thus form better conclusions, contexts and
hopefully attain some wisdom.
I'm not seeing a great deal of this at present and it is
upsetting to me to see how many foolish things are being promoted by Christians
and the thinkers they admire. I am increasingly concerned that Christians are
not only failing to derive and apply Spiritual wisdom concerning contemporary
events, but they are falling short of even the pagans and their demonstrably
flawed analysis and ethics. If the Lost are able to grasp more in terms of
knowledge and context and if their necessarily flawed wisdom is exceeding that
of the Church and closer to the Truth... then something is terribly amiss.
I'm afraid it can only be Divine Judgment.