The Institute (協会)

I think you mentioned the other day that there was some serious need of grace in these boys' lives. Particularly with Matt here. Reading some of the posts you can tell he's not stupid. I imagine he knew a lot about "holiness" and not much about grace. I'll never excuse the fact that he is a murderer. But how can a family be in devotions for two hours a day and totally miss Jesus? The way he was so worried about his salvation - legalism does this to teenagers especially. I think you have so many other insecurities at that age that you really need to understand grace and the assurance of your standing with God. This stuff is really sad every way you look at it.

Here is what I have just come to figure out... but don't know what to do with the enlightenment... It really doesn't matter where the kid comes from, now a days it seems like parents are just too busy making $$$ to PLAY with their kids. So they give them the TV or the COMPUTER (games)to teach them what is right or important in life. There is no human communication, no hugs, no touchy-feely love in the home... My solution would be TURN OFF the TV and the COMPUTER and play WITH your kids... face to face. Teach them how to laugh and how to love. Teach them respect for others AND for themself.... and the greatest of these is LOVE !

Damn I just read most of the comments on World, seems Anthony you stir the nest each time you write. No problem with that when it is something people are so blind to.

Sounds like to me if nghtmrchld26 is indeed Matt that there was an utter lack of communication between him and his parents or anyone else for that matter. The man was in hell and he could not get out. So instead of trusting Christ he took the matter into his own hands and found a way out. This I understand, what Matt did was wrong, but he is gone what about the upbringing that may have lead to a mental break?

What I hope is this will change his family and church back on to the path of Christ. Sadly I think most people will just turn the other way and say he was crazy, narcissistic, self-focused(as the world commentators state) end of story. No one, I mean no one wants to face the evil in his/her own heart and come to understand what God's grace is. Instead we pretend we do not struggle and people like Matt who see this break are left out condemned because they struggle.

Let's be careful about trying to draw conclusions from anecdotal evidence, K? Not that it's wrong to wonder what went wrong and contemplate it, but we ought to be very cautious about deriving any conclusions.

I agree with Mr. Perry. This is merely the young man's side of the story and, for that matter, he could be lying. No one can judge what happened in this family if they do not have first hand evidence. Clearly, this young man was evil, so on what basis do we believe what he says?

Hey Granny, he could be lying? WHy? No one lies for shivs and giggles... why would this cat be lying? Just curious WHY you think he would be lying, as opposed to just expressing?

Wow. Anthony, man, it looks like your blog has been hit up by a bunch of spam recently (not this thread, of course).

"Clearly, this young man was evil..." Ouch! Selfish, vengeful, wrong, okay; but if we really believe that only "evil" people are capable of sin -even heinous sin then we may have just gained an insight into this kids sense of rejection.

I think reader "amiefamie" makes the point clear. We have missed the mark as evangelicals. Instead of being spiritual, we have become non liturgical religious zealots who have failed in reaching people because of over zealous, fundementalism. We dont demonstrate the Love of God anymore. We have replaced it with a love of hating anything that doesnt fit into our mold. When people are hurting.. .we need to find out why and help them rather than tell them to spend more time at church.
If the pain this young person was feeling was legitimate, then we as evangelicals are responsiblbe for his decision to take his own life. His blood is on our hands. We need to seriously rethink how practice our faith and how we help to apply it to every day issues, including how to help reach people who really need our help.. and Jesus' love.

In Him,
Miles

Church shooter Matthew Murray, like Omaha Mall Shooter Robert Hawkins, Columbine's Eric Harris, Finland's Pekka-Eric Auvinen and virtually every other school/mall/church/college mass murderer had been taking antidepressants which would certainly be a relevant factor as to his state of mind and behavior. Antidepressants all have FDA-mandated Black Box labels now warning that they can cause suicide and violent actions.

Posting under the name "nghtmrchld26" on 10/1/07 titled "Re: Drowning in despair..." Murray says in response to questions like "Have you seen a therapist?" "Have you tried medications?"

"Guess what? Believe it or not.....I'VE TRIED ALL THAT
People then usually assume that I only tried prozac (or some other drug) for two days and got upset that it didn't "work" and they say "oh well, you need to give it more that a couple of days to work"....I don't know how 8 months is only a few days...but maybe you f***ers who can only come up with lame ass answers need a good ass kicking. These lamers will also say "well maybe try a different therapist? or "just......keep trying"

So for eight months of Murray's life before going on a killing spree, by his own words, he was getting counseling and taking "Prozac or some other drug". This isn't about religion or guns. Its about people being driven out of their minds reacting to antidepressants and using the best weapon of choice which is usually a gun. Women reacting to antidepressants seem to like to use a knife or drowning and the target is usually their children. Case in point--Andrea Yates. You have to look well beyond this one case to see a consistent and reoccuring pattern of violence caused by people on SSRI antidepressants. This was first and best covered in the American Journal of Psychiatry in a study of Prozac causing suicidal ideation by Harvard's Dr. Martin Teicher dated Feb, 1990.

Yeah, ErnestR, you've got a really point here that we need to take more seriously. Drugging pain doesn't make it go away and can make matters worse in many places.

I would be reluctant to draw any inference whatsoever between this person's background and his actions. The dictum, "correlation does not imply causality" should be kept in mind, because it's impossible to say one thing causes the other. Maybe he was clinically insane. Maybe his parents beat the crap out of him. Maybe he something had happened to him that set him off. That he went off and killed people doesn't say that there is something wrong with homeschooling in America, conservative Christian churches, or even suburbanization. Finding causality with observational data is very hard, but using a case of one person relying solely on media reports is not hard - it's impossible.

Quick clarification; my comments about anecdotal evidence are just a warning not to generalize hastily, not accusing the man of lying.

Regarding whether he was lying--well, probably on one level, he was. Lots of people do online, no? That's how you all "know" I'm a hunky fashion model, not a middle aged lumpy guy with a Dilbert physique, no? :^)

That conceded (by me at least), I also must note that his actions demonstrate that the "despair" part is real.