Who made the monster? Published in ProgressiveChristianity.org This is something I have been wondering about a great deal. Is Mr. Long, the monster who brought suffering and sorrow to Atlanta, simply the product of a racist, misogynistic socio-political environment; the victim of mental illness, the prisoner of a defective personal genome he has no control over? The sheriff seems to think he’s just a “kid” who “had a really bad day.” On a more abstract, esoteric level we seem to be in a period of very bad “metaphysical weather.” Indeed, since I began writing this article a week ago, other mass shootings have already occurred and by the time it finds a publisher, I expect there will be more… Dream “Again, and again people attribute the dark things that happen in the world to historical motivation, to political or socio-economic causes, to the impact of psychological disease. Again, and again they persist in denying the reality of the soul, of God, of the metaphysical plane, of the evil forces which dwell in each.” In other words, even in a world where none of the temporal forces mentioned in the dream were active, bad things would still happen because as the dream voice instructs, “Evil is part of the whole ballgame.” That being said, the physical and the metaphysical world influence each other and are connected, whereat it may be helpful to trace as best we can, the temporal origins of what happened in Atlanta in the hope that in the days to come, at least some of the conditions which contributed to a truly unforgivable crime can be altered. As quoted in the NY Times, “State Rep. Bee Nguyen, the first Vietnamese American to serve in the Georgia House affirms the following, “The shootings appear to be at the “intersection of gender-based violence, misogyny and xenophobia.” I would add one more intersection to this list. Hatred of one’s own sexuality per the conditioning of conservative religion. Indeed, while the impacts are usually not as tragic or sensational, this is not the first time a disturbed individual suffering from sexual guilt related to religion took it upon themselves to rid the world of temptation (just google religiously motivated serial killers). The church that brought him up says of Mr. Long “He alone is responsible for his evil actions and desires” and in so doing absolves itself of any and all culpability. The church that brought him up says the “extreme and wicked” attacks perpetrated by Mr. Long were “the result of a sinful heart and depraved mind” while announcing that it has “begun the process of removing him from its membership.” Indeed, it will be as if he never existed. It will be as if he came out of nowhere. It will be as if the church in which he learned to hate a part of himself that comes from God, in which he learned that the proper role for women is to dress modestly and, (as stated in 1 Timothy) to “learn in quietness and full submission,” had nothing to do with the making of the monster. “He alone is responsible for his evil actions and desires” Perhaps. But this is coming from a church that strictly prohibits sex outside of marriage, a church whose bylaws condemn “adultery, fornication (I’m doomed), homosexuality, bisexual conduct, bestiality, incest, polygamy, pedophilia, pornography, or any attempt to change one’s sex.” As if they are all equally condemnable, equally wrong, equally sin. As if, when it comes to bestiality and bisexuality, you might as well just screw the cat because either way you’re going to hell.