By Guy Page
Yesterday, our little church in East Montpelier was among thousands across the country lifting up Brown University in prayer. I mentioned that both my nephew and another extended family member were among those sheltering in place in darkness with the cellphones off, like us wondering what had happened, who had done it, and what would happen next.
At a church in Alabama, the scene was far more somber, more tragic. After dismissing the children, Rev. Craig Smalley of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama told his congregation:
“Tragically, one of our parishioners was one of those killed yesterday. He continued to describe what a wonderful young woman Ella Cook was, and about the faithful to God and the church displayed by both her and her parents. Then he quoted – with breaking voice – the words of John the Apostle: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot – and the darkness will not – overcome it.”
You can hear the audio file here:
Ella Cook was also the vice-president of the Brown University College Republicans. So why did this young man – described anyway as a young man by police – shoot and kill her? Why did he kill at least one other person, and wound eight others?
A person of interest has been released. The shooter reportedly shouted something: as of this writing at 9:37 AM Monday, what he uttered is unknown. The motive have been political or religious. Or not. We just don’t know.
What we do know is that another bright light has been brought down. Not a brightness as big as Charlie Kirk’s, but bright in her own sphere. Just this morning I was reading in Revelation chapter 6 the vivid story of the martyrs up in heaven who for some reason are underneath the alter, and they are crying out – “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”
I am comforted that according to this story that the loved ones of the martyrs won’t be doing the judging and the avenging. That’s in the hands of a higher power, as it should be. And this isn’t just about Christians either, we had another mass killing this weekend, this one definitely religiously based, in Australia where dozens of Jews on Bondi beach were gunned down. So what do we do about this? Wring our hands? Naturally but when then? Pray, certainly, if you’re of a mind. By all means ask God how long before it ends.
Government will certainly try to intervene. What it should do is up for debate.
President Trump has just appointed an anti-semitism czar who apparently wants to re-institute social media ‘misinformation’ warnings on statements deemed to be anti-semitic. I didn’t like these warnings when they were about election interference and Covid, and I don’t think I like them much now, either.
Still. There is a rising anti-semitism on both the left and the right. You better believe it’s here in Vermont. So is the “Is He Dead Yet?” movement targeting President Trump and washing over to people like Charlie Kirk. I get a lot of comments and letters and op-eds that cross the line from legitimate criticism of Israel to veiled and even outright hatred of Jews. They may deny that, but I see it. I don’t allow explicit expressions of bigotry of any kind on VDC, and we also support free speech, so there’s a fine line, sometimes so fine it’s hard to find.
I am trying to model tolerant discussion of what to some are intolerable ideas. To say that while some ideas are deplorable, there are no – or at least very few – true deplorables.
Getting back to Brown University, I think about the Light Shining in the Darkness. I think about our Ivy League universities founded by people who believed fervently in objective truth and wanted to train others to think and speak likewise. And how those universities have become in many ways darkened rooms, full of fear. I thnk about my nephew, and my niece’s nephew, and all of those other students confronted perhaps for the first time with the personal threat of true evil and that, sitting there in darkness, maybe some of them found the light of forgiveness, and Truth, that cannot be overcome.