Arizona shooting should help us develop healing atmosphere

Our country is mourning for the six people killed in the Arizona shooting and praying for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of this senseless massacre. At a prayer service for the victims and survivors, President Barack Obama asked us to come together as a nation urging all Americans to talk with each other “in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.”

We have entered a very dangerous period in our American history. When I was growing up, we went to polls and voted for the person we believed would do the best job. If our candidate for president lost, we got behind the newly-elected president because we realized that he was the leader of all the people, not just one group.

Canadian columnist William Thomas reminds us, “Four days before President Obama’s inauguration, before he officially took charge of the American government, Rush Limbaugh boasted publicly that he hoped the president would fail. Of course, when the president fails, the country flounders. Wishing harm upon your country to further your own narrow political views is selfish, sinister and a tad treasonous as well.”

What is worse is the atmosphere created in the past few years. It’s an atmosphere of hate, not of love. I am shocked at some e-mails I receive that spread lies and falsehood about various politicians. Some of these are from people who call themselves followers of Christ. They never check the facts but send these false statements to others. This is a direct sin against the commandment: “Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor.”

The shooter in Arizona may be mentally troubled. However, we should not treat this act as an isolated event, having nothing to do with the national climate of hate. Last spring Politico.com reported that threats against members of Congress were up by 300 percent. Some people making those threats had a history of mental illness. However, the current inflammatory rhetoric in America has been causing far more disturbed people than before to act out their illness by threatening, or engaging in, political violence.

Edmund Burke once said, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.” Look at what happened in the pre-World War II Germany. Hitler created an atmosphere of hate and blamed all of Germany’s problems on the Jews. Many people got caught up in his inflammatory rhetoric and rallied around him. Consequently, he was elected the leader of his country. In this climate of hate, good people were afraid to stand up and speak the truth.

In a democratic society ridicule and denouncing those with whom we disagree are part of our system. However in a society where most of its members profess to follow Christ’s teaching of “love your neighbor as yourself,” individuals should never use rhetoric that suggestions that those on the other side of a debate must be removed by whatever means possible.

I think we also need to reexamine our gun control laws. Our founders stated that we had a “right to bear arms.” The courts have interpreted this as a right to defend our nation against invaders and a right to defend ourselves personally against someone who would do us harm.

However, do we really need semiautomatic weapons to defend ourselves? The Tucson Massacre happened because these weapons were legal. How many more innocent people have to die before we restrict these types of weapons? This is not what our forefathers had in mind when they said we had “a right to bear arms.”

If Arizona tragedy can help up get back to our Christian roots of love instead of hate, it could be a great turning point. If it does not, we will have failed as Christians and Americans.