Ed Young: We Need to Get Back to Truth, God's Agenda in Wake of Colo. Shootings
Pastor Ed Young of Grapevine Church in Texas has shared his thoughts on the Colorado movie theater shootings, warning that the tragedy was a sign society has abandoned absolute truth in favor of moral relativism.
"When you have a culture that no longer has any absolute truth, when it bases everything on relativism, the result of that culture is chaos – so I believe it is time for us to get back to the basics, get back to truth, and we will be on God's agenda – both individually and as a nation," Young said on Fox News this past Sunday.
The lone suspect of the Century 16 movie theater shooting in Aurora that killed 12 people and injured dozens of others during the midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises" last week has been identified as student James Holmes. Various reports have come out trying to offer insight into the life and profile of the 24-year-old suspect, with many accounts stating that he was quiet, kept to himself and spent a large amount of time online.
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Less than two weeks ago, Pastor Young warned that relying too much on online communication was bad for society and threatened the intimacy of relationships. In the wake of the Colorado shootings, the pastor has urged people to be careful about how they use their time online.
"I think social media is great, but there is also a definite dark side to it. I think we need to be very careful, whether we are adults or children or students when we go online," the Texas megachurch pastor said.
"What's so interesting is that the Internet has been built around communication, yet so many of us have forgotten how to communicate. When you have someone who has mental faculties that have gone astray, and then you have something like the Internet that helps your fantasy, I think that the result can be chaotic," Young continued.
He added that although it was hard to explain senseless tragedies like the Colorado mass killings, there was always a way forward.
"You really can't make sense out of it," Young remarked. "The Bible is very clear – it tells us we live in a fallen world, and that bad things happen to good people and innocent people. This whole question of pain is one of the most difficult things to grapple with. However, we need to move very rapidly from the 'why' question to the 'what' question. Not just why me – why did this happen, but just what should we do because of this?"
Reflecting on how people can move forward from such a terrible incident, Young offered: "I think that this tragedy, this horrendous event, just shows us the fallen-ness of men, it shows us the difficulties that we are grappling with. The 'why me, what now, why am I here' – I believe that God has answers for that, God wants to forgive and give all of us a purpose even in the midst of pain."
