Excellent points all. The danger of Dunn’s arguments is the naive (dare I say blasphemous) belief that human nature can be changed, even over “decades” of legislation. Fr Jensen is right: we don’t need to do tikkun ‘olam (Hebrew for “heal the world) but the Eschaton.

The individuals who perpetrated these mass murders are anomalies of human behavior. In the context of epidemiology, this behaviour is not on the increase, it does not constitute a “trend,” a pattern, or an epidemic of behaviour. Despite the feeding frenzy as to the “common cause.” these isolated events of atrocity are so anomalistic and random that attempts to draw inference or project their “meaning” as “bellwether” or metaphor of social or societal state is foolish, unfounded, and diminishes perspective. An editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine the week after the shootings in CT pointed out that the combined total of shooting victims in Oak Creek, Aurora, Virginia Tech, Columbine, and Newtown was 95, while the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report for 2011 showed an average of 88 murders and more than 200 serious firearm injuries by firearm per day in the US.

I will say that I do not agree with Dr. Dunn’s choice of the use of the theology of oikonomia in this circumstance – and while I would guess that most, if not all, have not followed his personal blog – I appreciate the need of a father who delivered his three small children to school on the morning of the Newtown tragedy to put his thoughts to writing, tentatively, speculatively, and without the intention of necessarily being dogmatic. The commentary that he has done “a disservice to the Church’s moral witness” strikes me as rich rhetoric, but fool’s gold. The consistent theme of this particular site has been to champion the fact that “moral witness,” “moral leadership,” and “moral authority” are precisely what is missing in the church!

To conclude, It seems to me that everyone has settled on the “necessary first step” of repentance and the a return to the ascetic struggle. Yes, yes, who can disagree, who can take issue with this? And the corollary is, in the event nothing changes, it is easy enough to say, “YOU are not really committed to repenting and/or the ascetic ideal.” This is a circular symbiosis that keeps everybody busy, nobody encouraged, and indeed it will take the Eschaton to disrupt. But somewhere in my heart, I suspect the Lord will pity the servant who honestly says “No one taught me. No one showed me the way. There was no leader” while charging those He anointed, “You knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed.” (Matt 25:26)

In Christ,

+FrG