Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share #127 The Christian Economics of School Shootings
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
#127 The Christian Economics of School Shootings
#127 The Christian Economics of School Shootings
America is rich in part because we have built an economy that is based on trust that springs from the Judeo-Christian value system. In a post-Christian era, we can expect the cost of everything to go up: More cops requires more taxes and steals labor from productive sectors of the economy.
Someone posted a question on Facebook that asked, “Can’t we get beyond politics and find a solution to school shootings?” Oh, it’s a political problem? Because I thought it was a spiritual problem. We live in a broken, fallen world. We expect bad things to happen. The killing of 19 innocent victims at a school in Uvalde, Texas is abhorrent. It is a reminder that we live in an evil world. God loves us so he gives us freedom. Some evil people use that freedom to perform heinous acts of violence. We are saddened, but we should not be surprised. Where did this evil come from?
The Fall
We live in a fallen world. The Christian worldview says that God created a perfect world. Fallen humans have messed it up. We believe there is redemption in that fallen world by accepting Jesus Christ as our personal savior. That’s sometimes called the “Three Chapter Gospel.” The four-chapter gospel includes restoration, when Christ returns. I unpack more on that subject in podcast #112 titled The Great Reset.
For now, we live in a fallen world, where bad people perform evil acts. It’s only that we live in such a peaceful time that school shootings shock us. If 46,000 died of auto accidents in 1920, there would have been an outrage and automobiles would not have been allowed. But, 100 years later, 46,000 are killed and no one notices. That’s because what we gain – the ability to move about – is greater than what we lose – 46,000 people each year. Don’t get me started on smoking. Try introducing a product that costs $300 billion in healthcare and lost labor, and takes 480,000 lives each year. That would not happen. But, since we’re about 450 years since Sir Walter Raleigh grew the industry, we continue to let tobacco products be sold.
Calling for gun control won’t work. Taking away guns won’t limit evil. Because guns are simply the tool that evil human beings use. Calls for gun control are mostly a mistaken call for a utopian society, which the Judeo-Christian belief system does not recognize. We can make a BETTER world, which we should do by controlling weapons as much as practically possible. But we can’t make a utopian world, because those calling for the collection of guns, and those collecting the guns, are fallen also.
Comparative Statistics
This is a story I tell in the classroom at Dallas Baptist University every semester. Each fall, a couple of Texas High School football players die of heat prostration, and someone calls for the end of high school football. But, I extend one long arm and say, “There’s never been a one-armed economist, because…..On the other hand…” And what is on THE OTHER HAND? Deaths among the category of high school boys would go UP if you eliminated football, because they wouldn’t just go sit in the library. They would be out drinking, driving fast cars, and chasing women. Sometimes all three at the same time. And the death rate would go UP, not down.
View all episodes
By The Christian Economist | Dave Arnott
4.9
7373 ratings
#127 The Christian Economics of School Shootings
America is rich in part because we have built an economy that is based on trust that springs from the Judeo-Christian value system. In a post-Christian era, we can expect the cost of everything to go up: More cops requires more taxes and steals labor from productive sectors of the economy.
Someone posted a question on Facebook that asked, “Can’t we get beyond politics and find a solution to school shootings?” Oh, it’s a political problem? Because I thought it was a spiritual problem. We live in a broken, fallen world. We expect bad things to happen. The killing of 19 innocent victims at a school in Uvalde, Texas is abhorrent. It is a reminder that we live in an evil world. God loves us so he gives us freedom. Some evil people use that freedom to perform heinous acts of violence. We are saddened, but we should not be surprised. Where did this evil come from?
The Fall
We live in a fallen world. The Christian worldview says that God created a perfect world. Fallen humans have messed it up. We believe there is redemption in that fallen world by accepting Jesus Christ as our personal savior. That’s sometimes called the “Three Chapter Gospel.” The four-chapter gospel includes restoration, when Christ returns. I unpack more on that subject in podcast #112 titled The Great Reset.
For now, we live in a fallen world, where bad people perform evil acts. It’s only that we live in such a peaceful time that school shootings shock us. If 46,000 died of auto accidents in 1920, there would have been an outrage and automobiles would not have been allowed. But, 100 years later, 46,000 are killed and no one notices. That’s because what we gain – the ability to move about – is greater than what we lose – 46,000 people each year. Don’t get me started on smoking. Try introducing a product that costs $300 billion in healthcare and lost labor, and takes 480,000 lives each year. That would not happen. But, since we’re about 450 years since Sir Walter Raleigh grew the industry, we continue to let tobacco products be sold.
Calling for gun control won’t work. Taking away guns won’t limit evil. Because guns are simply the tool that evil human beings use. Calls for gun control are mostly a mistaken call for a utopian society, which the Judeo-Christian belief system does not recognize. We can make a BETTER world, which we should do by controlling weapons as much as practically possible. But we can’t make a utopian world, because those calling for the collection of guns, and those collecting the guns, are fallen also.
Comparative Statistics
This is a story I tell in the classroom at Dallas Baptist University every semester. Each fall, a couple of Texas High School football players die of heat prostration, and someone calls for the end of high school football. But, I extend one long arm and say, “There’s never been a one-armed economist, because…..On the other hand…” And what is on THE OTHER HAND? Deaths among the category of high school boys would go UP if you eliminated football, because they wouldn’t just go sit in the library. They would be out drinking, driving fast cars, and chasing women. Sometimes all three at the same time. And the death rate would go UP, not down.