Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church

I Am Still Committed

July 29, 2008

The July 27 shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church has shocked the city of Knoxville, the county of Knox, east Tennessee, and the entire United States. This tragedy has brought hurt, pain, and despair to many persons and raises the age-old questions over the perplexity of evil and random violence.

It has been interesting to watch as the authorities wrestle with the one question: “What happened to push this man to this point of violence?” It is difficult for people to comprehend this kind of anger and evil when we would rather dismiss evil as being present in this world. When we think of the Holocaust, the Killing Fields, mothers killing their babies, child molestation, and the Columbine shootings, it is obvious that tragedies like these occur and we cannot explain why they happen in a way for rational minds to comprehend.

We must face the fact that there is within us the potential to commit awful atrocities when we are disconnected from God. The Apostle Paul described this dilemma when he stated the truth about himself: “The good I would do I find myself unable to do and the evil that I would not do I find myself doing.”

The scriptures say that we are the salt of the earth. In spite of this tragedy and others, I tremble to think what this world would be if it wasn’t for the influence of the Church. I don’t know if we will ever see the end to these horrible events, but I do believe we should do all we can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to rescue people from themselves.

In the face of this tragedy the one thing I am sure of is that we must continue -- no, we must double our efforts -- to reach people with the transforming message of Jesus. We must not allow evil to dominate us and place fear in our hearts to the point that we surrender in despair to evil. If God loves us enough and believes in us enough to sacrifice Jesus for us, then I dare not disappoint God nor disrespect Jesus’ love by giving up on humanity.

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