A news article arrested my attention this morning.  It featured a Chicago Funeral Director proclaiming “These Kids Don’t Expect To Live a Full Life” anymore.  In his neighborhood, violence and murder are so common that many kids he talks to expect to die young in a violent death.  It’s just part of their culture.

He cited statistics that were frightening.  In Chicago, there have been 240 violent murders so far this year.  Last weekend, 7 people were killed and 35 were injured, marking the third weekend in a row in which gunfire victims totalled in the double digits in that one city alone.

Of course, it didn’t hit the national news.  A bomb going off in the middle east that kills 7 and injures 35 is big (if routine) news, but the same number of gun deaths and injuries in Chicago is not big news.  It’s the norm.

And that’s the problem.  Violence leading to injury and death is so epidemic in America’s big cities that we hardly notice it.  It’s partly a drug issue, partly a gang issue, partly a family break-up issue, and partly a everyone-is-on-edge-due-to-a-tough-economy issue.  And as the article pointed out, it’s at its heart a spiritual issue.  Church attendance in the hardest hit areas of Chicago (and other big cities) among teens and young adults barely registers above zero percent.

And violence leading to death is also partly a cultural issue.  American culture often promotes war before seeking peace.  We flock to movies that are increasingly violent.  We applaud increasing levels of violence in sports.  We enjoy (to the point of addiction) video games that turn violence and death into entertainment.  We defend a “shoot first” mentality.  And this increasing violence in the lives of our children often escalates into deadly violence later in life.

I wish I had an easy answer, but at the very least I call the church to a deeper level of accountability, for I’m concerned that we don’t always treat violence with Biblical honesty.  Do you remember what sin caused God to send a worldwide flood in Noah’s day?  Most preachers just say “wickedness” and leave it at that, but God was more specific.  The Bible quotes God as saying in Genesis 6:13, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them.”  Psalm 11:5 says, “The LORD examines the righteous,  but the wicked  and those who love violence his soul hates.”  The Bible is clear; God hates violence.  He did not create us to murder and hurt each other.

And if God hates violence, then so must His people.