As you have probably heard by now, last Friday a horrific shooting unfolded at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, taking the lives of three individuals and wounding others.
While many have taken to ridicule and name-calling on social media in the wake of the shooting, John Stonestreet at the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview released an excellent commentary today on condemning evil while keeping a proper, Christian perspective.
“First, as my friend Kelly Rosati of Focus on the Family so eloquently wrote at Christianity Today, every person involved is made in the image of God. The victims and the shooter, the pro-lifers and abortion advocates, those for and against us on social media, the unborn and Planned Parenthood workers. As Kelly wrote, ‘Recognizing the image of God in everyone is much easier in theory than in reality.’
“Second, habits of violence, when they go unchecked, breed further violence. We are, as Aristotle taught, shaped by those things we habitually choose. Our choices escalate, and if they go unchecked, take us down a slippery slope to their logical ends. This is true of the gunman, and it’s also true of us. . . . .
“Finally, we know that Dear’s evil neither justifies nor alters the fact that on a daily basis, Planned Parenthood and abortion providers across the country and around the world facilitate the evil of taking unborn lives. Robert Dear robbed children of their parents. Abortion robs parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters, and our community of children.”
You can read Stonestreet’s full commentary here or listen to it below.
[audio:http://www.breakpoint.org/images/content/breakpoint/audio/2015/120115_BP.mp3|titles=The Colorado Springs Shooting]