Massacre

The other day I took my kids to see The Amazing Spiderman at our local movie theater. It was a good film packed with action and a weak moral message about responsibility vs. violence for the sake of revenge.

The previews leading up to this movie however, were packed with violence.

                LOADED with it.

Images of weapons, destruction, blood and vengeance assaulted us, along with the noise of explosions and "light" expletive. It was all very glamorous.

As I watch the aftermath of the Colorado movie massacre this morning I think, this was inevitable.
Do we really think if we allow Hollywood and the media to assault our minds with this stuff, that it's not going to play out in real life?

My kids laugh at me for being overprotective. For keeping them in the dark and not exposing them to sex and violence in their early years. They laugh at me and are embarrassed because they didn't realize there was anything other than The Disney Channel and Disney Radio up until 6th grade.

Now they're fully exposed to "The Real World" (and boy are we dealing with the terror of living in that.) How do I explain to my children that there are "safe places" when not even our schools and movie theaters are safe anymore?

    Sorry kids, it's back to sanitized children's channels for you! Except no, wait. That's not even safe anymore.

Last week I saw a show called "My Babysitter's A Vampire" on The Disney Channel. It's about ordinary teenagers whose parents unwittingly hired a vampire for a babysitter. She's good but there are bad ones and she and her mortal charges fight against them. In this recent episode, the bad ones waited for the premiere of a new vampire movie. They dressed in costume as - you guessed it - vampires, as did many of the audience members. Then they locked the theater doors and got up front in their costumes and taunted the movie goers before they attacked them, killed them and sucked out their souls. Later, the good guys were able to resurrect their souls and they were left with a bad headache.

The series' original slogan was:  No Parents. No Rules. No Pulse.

We need to wake up, start training our children in the ways of good and not breed a generation of people desensitized to violence (and bad tv). We need to take a stand for God and for good and not create our own homegrown terrorists, because that's exactly what we're doing.

Peace begins in the heart and in the home.

"O righteous God, who searches minds and hearts, bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure." Psalm 7:9

Heavenly Father, I pray for the many families victimized by the Colorado movie massacre. Send them your peace. Send them people of peace to be with them during their time of grief. Help us in our own grief Lord, and give us the strength to stand and fight for the generation of people behind us. Amen.