True Faith Never Kills

They don't kill for God. They kill for themselves and call it divine."

Thank you for listening!

Take this reflection into the silence, and I'll see you next time.

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Transcript

I almost stopped at Target on the way home from Goodwill. Two blocks from our house. But they keep the socks locked up now, theft prevention they say, and I didn't want to wait for an employee with a key.

Twenty minutes later, a man opened fire in that same Target parking lot.

First, he shot one of the employees moving the shopping carts outside. Then he forced his way into a car with a grandfather and his four-year-old granddaughter inside. He shot them both.

When they caught him, he was naked, clutching a Bible, claiming to be Jesus. A man who thought he was the Prince of Peace while committing murder. He killed and called it holy. That somehow, claiming Jesus's name justified murder.

This is the ancient poison. People have killed in God's name for millennia. Crusades. Inquisitions. Holy wars. I am not saying religion makes them violent, millions follow God peacefully. I am saying that some use God as a mask for their own sickness. They don't kill for God. They kill for themselves and call it divine.

Jesus healed the sick, loved the outcast, commanded us not to kill. But some people—whether from mental illness, hatred, or pure evil—twist his teachings into something monstrous. They believe that invoking God's name forgives their darkness. That wearing a cross or carrying a Bible transforms murder into righteousness.

It doesn't. This man didn't hear Jesus. This man heard his own madness and gave it a holy name.

My wife is pregnant. We shop at that Target. I think about the employee, the grandfather and his granddaughter constantly now. How do we raise a child in a world where people justify horror with heaven?

Maybe we teach them that following God, any God, doesn't automatically make you good. Churches don't erase evil. Scripture doesn't sanctify violence. True faith shows itself through kindness, not horror.

The locked socks saved my life. Twenty minutes separated me from tragedy. But the deeper tragedy is that some still believe that God's name can wash blood from their hands.