Your Opinion: Thoughts on killings in Charleston

Dear Editor:

My heart goes out to the families of those who were murdered in Charleston by that young, hate-filled man. What is the answer? Will legislation fix the problem? President Obama is already pushing for a new round of gun-control as a response. If that was the answer, Washington D.C., with its strict controls, would be the safest place on earth. It isn't.

Gun rights advocates (count me generally among them) maintain that the only practical response to a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. That seems to work, up to a point. All the policemen who responded had guns, and it was reassuring that they did. And to my knowledge, everywhere that concealed carry laws have passed, the crime rate has dropped. But guns won't solve the root problem.

So just what is the problem? Dylann Roof (the shooter) was self-absorbed. He felt that blacks were taking over and thereby threatening his rightful place at the very center of the universe. His expression of that self-absorption was extreme, and garners the attention and disgust of the world. But I submit that every one of us, if we take an uncomfortable look inside, have the same basic problem.

Theologians call this preoccupation with self by a very out-of-style term. They call it sin. It is humanly inescapable, but there is a cure found in experiencing the atonement made by Jesus Christ on the cross.

There the justice of God is satisfied substitutionally for us. And those who experience it find themselves then preoccupied with Him rather than themselves. Could you not see that, and hear it, in the interviews of the grieving family members in Charleston? They looked past their own pain and extended forgiveness. That is the kind of grace that only comes from God.

How tragic that Dylann Roof sat in that Bible study for an hour, so close to what he needed most in life, and then killed those who would have loved to help him find it.