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MARCH FOR OUR LIVES TOUTED BY MEDIA

TOM LAMPRECHT: Harry, today in the news, I want to talk about the March for Our Lives. Now, this was the march that took place two weekends ago. As we compare the March for Our Lives and the March for Life, commemorating the terrible decision by the Supreme Court of Roe v. Wade, it’s interesting to note that the coverage by the major news networks was 13 times more for March for Our Lives than it was for the March for Life, which took place back in January.

The poster child for the March for Our Lives is a young man named David Hogg, out of the South Florida high school where the terrible shooting took place. It’s sort of a sad commentary that David has decided to have just a profanity-ridden rant every time he goes on the TV.

DR. REEDER: Yeah, and after the avalanche of profanity, the young man was asked, “What policy changes?” and he said, “Well, I don’t know what policy changes. I’m a teenager. You’re an adult. You ought to come up with policy changes.”  Well, actually, the adults that have been funding these things do have a policy change in mind.

WHO ARE THE ADULTS WHO ARE PROMOTING THIS?

Let’s back up just for a minute, Tom, and ask ourselves the question, “Why is it that you have this massive response to this situation of the March for Our Lives?” As you rightly point out, it’s not even comparable to the issue of the March for Life. The March for Our Lives is generated from the horrific shooting. We’re told that the problem is “gun violence”.

Now, what does the March for Life do? Well, it looks at not dozens of lives lost in a schoolroom, but it looks at millions of lives that are being lost in the womb. And so, when you take a look at the overwhelming statistical difference, you would think that the media, just on the basis of any objective reporting standards, would give attention to the March for Life, but they don’t — they pretty well now bury it on the third page and beyond — but they are fascinated with this. Why?

We don’t want to send our kids to school and have to worry about if they’re going to be gunned down. And we ask ourselves, “Is that because of guns or are guns actually a go-to instrument that’s being used in a culture of death?”

This young man has called for a response from “the adult population” with an adolescent fascination with profanity. He is now being promoted or “puffed” by the media and what he’s doing, of course, is somewhat revealing because you see the inability of our culture to discuss issues without resorting to epithets, name-calling and also profanity.

I  still hold pretty much to what I learned growing up where my dad and mom told me that, when people in a conversation or a debate resort to profanity and blasphemy, that reveals one of two things: Either their argument is weak and therefore they have to prop it up with profanity or the one presenting the argument is weak in terms of vocabulary and has to resort to profanity. And I think that’s true in this matter as well if we have a valid discussion on this, Tom.

WHEN DID GUNS BECOME A WEAPON OF VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN?

I went to school in a rural area — I was in a county high school — and a lot of the guys would come with guns in their truck. You actually had target practice classes that you could go to. How did we move in the culture to that place where you didn’t even worry about it because people would not have thought of it? How did we get there?

And, of course, you not only see this violence with the use of guns, but you also see the depression that is taking place among our young people. They are now reaching out for the answer to their significance in life with these horrific acts and their “15 minutes” — and, in this case, of course, stretches into days and months of weeks — of fame and notoriety. Why is that happening?

It’s not the presence of guns. With all due respect, guns don’t do violence — guns are instruments that can do violence. The question is, “Why are guns now being used in such a violent manner and they’re being used at places that would have been unthinkable such as churches and schools, etc.? Why is that happening?”

CULTURAL PASTIMES HOLD CLUE TO MINDSET CHANGE

Could we, perhaps, take a look at our culture that the adults are now foisting upon the young people such as video games where violence is objectified and video games where you’re rewarded for killing faceless people with horrific acts and pornography that objectifies women?

Should we be so amazed that people who spend hours in front of pornography walk into a business environment and objectify women in their comments? What is it that is filling the minds and hearts of the people in the culture? That’s what’s producing people who then do what would previously be unthinkable acts within the culture.

IS THIS A LARGER SECOND AMENDMENT ISSUE?

Tom, those are the questions we ought to be asking ourselves but then we’re back to why is this movement so publicized? Well, I think, very clearly, the Second Amendment is the target and, therefore, there has to be a discussion of why is there the Second Amendment? Well, the simple fact is the Second Amendment is there because the founding fathers believed in the sanctity of self-protection and the protection of the states from a runaway government so that they would be able to arm their citizens and could respond to any tyrannical move of the government.

What we need to ask ourselves is why is the valid provision of the Second Amendment now being used as a mechanism to access a weapon to be used for violence that objectifies people at targets to carry out my despair and depression in life? What is causing the despair and depression in the culture and what is it that is causing people to think in that direction?

That’s really what the adults ought to bring to the conversation but, instead, the adults are using the First Amendment right of assembly and free speech — which was exercised in the March for Our Lives — which we must preserve that First Amendment right but, yet, those with an agenda to remove the Second Amendment funded and are now using the valid concerns of these students in order to promote their own agenda. And then they also fasten themselves on a spokesperson who then brings the passion of profanity to bear upon the entire exercise.

CHRIST’S MESSAGE OF HOPE IS THE ONLY REMEDY TO OUR CULTURE

Let’s realize the dynamic of what’s happening in the coarsening of our culture but I think there’s something even more fundamental for believers and that’s this: let’s bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ to bear upon the culture and the glorious statement of life and what it means to live life and that life is not hiding away in a room playing video games that objectify violence and people as faceless targets for violence that creates this environment of despair and this environment of depression in which aggressive behavior against others becomes the route of affirming myself from faceless notoriety to being somebody in the culture.

Let’s bring the truth of the Gospel in the dignity of humanity, the glory of the love of Christ for sinners, and the reclamation that you are made and saved for a distinct purpose in life, and that there is dignity to life, and there is dignity to being made in the image of God and there is hope in being restored  by the glorious presence of Christ who died for our sins and again that we might have life and that we might have life abundantly filled with hope.

Therefore, while I want to speak to the constitutional issues and I want to challenge people to think of the culture that is producing these acts of violence whereby the adults have affirmed violence against children in the womb, then why are we amazed when the children grow up and decide to bring violence against other children, not in the womb but in a classroom? What is it in our culture that’s doing that?

What we’ve got to bring is the hope of the Gospel to the culture, recognizing all of those factors and the death spiral of the culture that’s producing it. What is it that we can bring that will elevate people to hope and life? And I believe it’s the glorious news that Jesus Christ is the Redeemer of sinners and takes us from hopelessness to a blessed hope that is unconquerable and that makes men and women walk in the hope of new life and eternal life in Christ.

Dr. Harry L. Reeder III is the Senior Pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham.

This podcast was transcribed by Jessica Havin, editorial assistant for Yellowhammer News, who transcribed some of the top podcasts in the country and whose work has been featured in a New York Times Bestseller.