A Marvelous Prospect

I confess. I watched Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine (2002) ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0310793/ ) last night. But only because a friend advised me that there were things in it that I needed to know, some truths. Here 20-someodd hours later, I’m still trying to figure out what that might be.

The movie is loosely about, of course, the senseless shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton Colorado in 1999. By any sane measure, this was a tragic event – for the young people who lost their lives, for their families, for the community, for our nation, and for the perpetrators.

I could write for several hours critiquing Mr. Moore’s soup de jour (made of odd bits from yesterday’s leftovers), but I won’t. I’ve already been worn out enough watching the movie. At its core, the movie tries to answer the question, “Why are there so many gun-related deaths in the USA, compared with other cultures?” (We do have the highest death rate by far.)

Consider this pot full of ingredients:

• he pans the NRA (who aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed, that’s for sure),
• considers briefly the links between the Michigan Militia and Timothy McVeigh (the executed Oklahoma City bomber),
• explores fear-mongering amongst the media (snakes, killer bees, …),
• exposes an apparent bias toward “black males” as suspects and in shows such as “Cops,”
• attempts to relate somehow the armaments of war that Lockheed Martin makes (a principal employer in Littleton) and the violence of the school shooting,
• shows how carefree our Canadian neighbors are – with their unlocked doors, even in Toronto, and
• alleges the work-for-welfare program as the root cause of a six-year old’s accidental shooting of his classmate in Flint Michigan – http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/apr2000/welf-a28.shtml.  Nobody ever asks where the child’s father is; but I digress.

I’m still trying to figure out what the message of the movie was. I truly am not sure. He didn’t seem to be calling for gun control per se. Bullet control seems closer to the mark. He takes two of the Columbine shooting victims to KMart’s world headquarters in Troy, Michigan, and inanely films some exchanges. But then KMart announces that they will quit selling handgun ammunition, and Mr. Moore declares victory. (Google “kmart bullet sales” for some interesting takes on this announcement.)

My point? The word “evil” was never mentioned in the movie. Jerry Falwell was quoted as saying Satan was the root cause in a flash-by of folks citing possible reasons. The movie paints the quick collage of reasons as all being equally stupid, and yet it never offers its own answer.  Mr. Moore adheres to a worldview that does not recognize humans as moral agents, but machine-like respondents to circumstances (like amoebae) – Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are not to blame; bullets are to blame. Change the circumstances, and we will behave better. You know this is not reality. It is subterfuge for implementing statism, for destroying our humanness.

So what is the answer? Simply, we live in a fallen world. There is an enemy wandering about seeking to steal, kill, and destroy. He has a plethora of tools at his disposal, not least of which is convincing a culture that he doesn’t exist. If there is no such thing as evil, then there can be no root cause of evil, right? This is Michael Moore’s worldview. Unfortunately, it is the prevailing world view among many of our elite ruling class, the media, the academy, and too much of the US church. It is beyond me how any rational person can look at the world and at history and believe that man can make things better by engineering some utopia, in this case a world without bullets. To defeat an enemy, we must acknowledge his presence, understand his methods, and arm ourselves for battle. For this battle, the only hope for victory is by acknowledging God’s existence and presence and his love for us, and then demonstrating our love for him by loving our neighbor. It’s that simple, and that hard – here in the USA, where every voice but the quiet voice of Truth is shouting at us non-stop. But – there is A Mighty Fortress, and his name is Jesus!

Oh, and where did the movie’s name come from? It seems that Eric and Dylan went bowling early on the morning of their fatal rampage. And the only discussion of who they were, what they were like, was with a pair of classmates who were in their bowling class – an elective PE.

1. Chris says:

   October 30, 2009 at 9:09 PM

   If I remember my Bible studies correctly…Satan was that angel who said no thanks, I think I’ll do it my way. In AA we say ‘self will run riot’. We heal thru helpfulness. I think Micheal was trying to be helpful making us think. It’s not about self. In the Great scheme of things we cannot kill, only think we can, therefore we have ‘self will run riot’. If we keep killing the bad guys…no wonder our kids want to kill the percieved bad guy.