In the days following the Uvalde, Texas, massacre, there were hundreds of additional shooting incidents in the U.S. Thirty-three of these qualified as mass shootings, but all of these shootings were tragedies, nonetheless. One of the reasons these senseless incidents continue to occur is the refusal of the left to consider an important causal factor that figures into all of them: the absence of God the Father in American culture and the lives of the perpetrators.

If pushed, the left will discuss the negative effects of human fathers missing from the lives of mass shooters. Like Salvador Ramos — the Uvalde murderer — most of the mass shooters over the past several years grew up in fatherless homes. Even with this well-documented statistic, the left prefers to avoid the subject because so many of their polices encourage fatherless families. Further, try to engage the left in discussing the even more negative effects of God the Father missing from the lives of mass shooters, and you will be ridiculed.

We warn of the debilitating consequence the lack of God is having on American society in our new book, “Tragic Consequences: The Price America is Paying for Rejecting God and How to Reclaim Our Culture for Christ” (available from all major booksellers). Following the Uvalde tragedy, comedian Jamie Foxx posted this note on social media: “Never thought I would live in a ‘Christian Society’ where they would let little children die over and over again.”

Wake up, Mr. Foxx. You don’t live in a Christian society. That is the problem. It is why these abominable tragedies continue to occur. You live in a society that for decades has done its best to drive God out of the culture. You live in a society where children are not allowed to pray in school. You live in a society branding people who quote Holy Scripture as purveyors of hate speech. You live in a society responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by closing churches but allowing bars to remain open. You live in a society where the number of professing Christians is declining rapidly. You live in a society where the church once influenced the culture, but increasingly, the culture influences the church.

One of the inevitable effects of secularization is it encourages the darker side of human nature, and the darker side of human nature shows through in the gun violence plaguing our country. Ramos did not slaughter innocent little children at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde because he is a Christian filled with the love of God. He committed his unthinkable act because he grew up without the God of Holy Scripture — the God who commands His followers to love their neighbors as themselves and whose Sixth Commandment is you shall not murder.

Criminal profilers know young men — the average age of mass shooters in America is 18 and, so far, they have all been men — who grow up without human fathers are at risk of developing feelings of hate, anger and self-loathing. However, even without an earthly father, if these boys grew up with God the Father, they could have overcome destructive feelings and their negative self-images. Instead, these young men have given themselves to the father of lies, Satan.

Because no one placed much value on their lives, they learned to place no value on the lives of others. This kind of deep-seated bitterness is causing young men to commit the unthinkable acts we now associate with Robb Elementary School, Columbine High School and Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School — acts that could have been prevented if we could have a rational discussion of their root causes.

COPYRIGHT 2022 OLIVER L. NORTH AND DAVID GOETSCH