The horrendous news from Boston over the past week has reignited another round of national soul searching in America. Commentators are falling over one another to express a view on why two apparently normal young men should wish to wreak such havoc on innocent Americans. It is a valid question. What would motivate an individual to place such a high value on their cause or grievance that it justified in their mind the random killing of strangers on as monumental a scale as they can contrive? For bear in mind it was not through the good planning of these young men that that the death toll was limited to four.
Supposing however that the death toll, rather that four was, to pick a number, 8,853 with a further 136,371 people injured. Suppose for a moment that these individuals died or were injured in a series of coordinated attacks across the USA carried out by 19,392 terrorists who, having completed their ghastly mission then proceeded to commit suicide. If you can hold with this horrible picture for a moment, assume that this action happened every year with only minor variations in the figures. How do you think the public debate might play in America?
You will probably have guessed by now that these are not randomly plucked numbers but are the latest published (and incomplete) data for gun related homicides and firearm related assaults in the USA for 2011 from the FBI and the figure for firearm suicides for 2010 published by the National Centre for Health Statistics.
Now clearly this is a hugely politically sensitive issue in America, not to mention being the basis for a complete cultural impasse between an incredulous rest-of-the-world and an increasingly defensive USA. Although not directly related, the juxtaposition of a decision by the Senate to strike down the most timid of gun control measures in the same week that the devastation in Boston occurred is frankly astonishing, to non-Americans at least.
The purpose of this blog, however, is not really to comment on political issues, so I will leave the figures for my readers to draw their own conclusions. It does, however return me to my original premise, what is the value of a life? Is a murder on the privileged streets of Boston more terrible than a murder in a grimy Chicago alleyway? The actions of press and politicians suggest that this thought might just be a charge that could legitimately be laid at their door.
The Lord Jesus had something to say about the value of a life – both the way I value my own life and the way I value the lives of others. With regard to my own life He said, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Matthew 16.24-26. In other words, my relationship with Jesus Christ must eclipse everything else – and is worth giving up everything else for. One of His most scathing observations, however, came on an occasion when the religious leaders of His time had resisted His healing of a man with a shrivelled arm because it broke with their traditional teaching on the observance of the Sabbath. He said, “What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days.” Matthew 12.11,12.
I can’t help feeling that we have got this out of balance. If my ‘rights’ are impacting on the ‘right to life’ of others, whether I am a terrorist or a gun enthusiast, surely we cannot claim to be following the teaching of Jesus Christ!