Full disclosure - what follows is from the New York Times, so those who believe nothing worthwhile can ever be published by that newspaper should not bother reading further. Since there is a pay wall, I'll summarize.
There was an interesting perspective from Esau McCaulley, Professor of the New Testament at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Wheaton College is an Evangelical liberal arts college founded in 1860.
His essay had to do with what conservatives mean when they talk about evil in the aftermath of a mass shooting, such as Greg Abbott saying that "evil swept uvalde" or when Wayne LaPierre says it is impossible to legislate evil out of the minds of criminals. At one level, this language is an attempt to individualize the problem of mass shootings, to frame the issue as one of individuals who choose to perform a criminal act, and so avoid any discussion of societal approaches to the problem of mass shootings.
The obvious rejoinder - that if that is the case, then the United States would appear to have a LOT more evil people than any other nation in the world, based on the number of mass shootings - is almost trivial. Those making the assertion of evil hearts being behind the carnage never explain why the United States alone has such a superabundance of people with evil hearts.
A closer look at the assertion of evil being the reason for the mass shootings, though, shows that for at least Christians who are making this argument, there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Bible teaches about the sources of evil. Evil arises, according to Christian theology, from three interlocking realities: flesh, the devil, and the world (shout out to Greta Garbo fans - her best film was Flesh and the Devil).
Flesh is our innate capacity to sin and it is typically what Christian gun rights advocates mean when they speak of "evil". It is our propensity to lie, cheat, steal, the seven deadlies, etc. The Devil is the spiritual reality of evil, though Christians do not assert that this is behind every act of malice (we can sin all by ourselves, thank you very much!). The world is society at large giving us the means to sin and commit evil. McCaulley references Isaiah 58 to illustrate the Bible's call for us to tear down structures that cause evil to flourish and it is this facet that Christians are leaving out when they individualize evil in the gun control argument. Christians have a duty to try to alter society to try to contain evil or diminish the capacity of people to commit evil acts.
Granted, killing children is the result of an evil heart but politicians that seek to provide easy access to the means for evil hearts to commit evil acts bear responsibility for the outcomes. Giving evil room to operate means one is part of the problem, not the solution.
He ends the essay by quoting James: If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesnt do it, it is sin for them (James 4:17). We have the means to make it harder for those with evil hearts to commit their evil acts. When we choose not to, we as Christians commit sin.
In the end, he believes that Christians who categorize these mass shootings as solely the work of an individual evil act, arising solely from an evil heart, do not understand their own theology. A fuller understanding of the duty we as Christians have to try to order our society to diminish the capability to commit evil acts would lead to greater support for gun control measures at the societal level instead of the individual level (mental health investigations, background checks) - in other words, we would do things such as make especially lethal weapons harder to obtain for all. Or make such weapons less lethal.
And it dovetails with my own theory, that responsibility is a larger concept involving more people and actions than just the end result of a series of decisions by a mass shooter. It involves those that gave him the means to commit that act as well.
I enjoy finding good theological discussions and hope The NY Times carries more of them.
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