The debate spurred by the tragedy in Arizona has many people saying “Nobody CAUSED this shooting; Loughner was obviously crazy”,   often leading to a stance which rejects the call to civility.  The Tuscon sherrif has been criticized by the right for “blaming them”  (when he actually blamed “voices on the radio and TV”)

All of this seems to ignore that society is very much an ecosystem.  Those of us in the church are often heard talking about the church as “formative” and providing us with a community that enables resistance to much of that “ecosystem” which is forming us in various ways with instilled values that very often run counter to that of those values implicit in The Kingdom of God.  If the church is not a place for us of acceptance, support,  and formation,  then we are deprived of a support that is intended to be an immune system to counteract those unhealthy elements to which we are exposed in the ecosystem which is our culture.

So I do not believe there is a real “out” for us in declaring Loughner “crazy”;  and he is obviously a very unstable individual.  The question should be,  what has been provided to us (or to Jared)  as an effective enabler of our immune system that would help us to fight these “outbreaks”?  Perhaps rhetoric may be not be said to be “causal”,  but it is nevertheless an element in the environment that requires us to fight as a community.  One one level,  there is the community of the citizens as Americans to seek healthier environments,  and there is,  hopefully,  a church or theological community that envisions a world as God would have  it,  and supports one another in the resistance to that which besieges that vision. 

As usual,  the “conservative” voice reacts by taking offense to any hint of criticism of the status quo,  or further,  to cling ever more tightly to the “right to bear arms” as if this is some additional government plot to game the environment for political advantage.   I have the  distinct impression that what they are suggesting by their taking offense  is that they insist on their right to hold back nothing in their rhetoric.  Some  on the left are also making the same argument re: THEIR “right to rhetoric” and are resisting any suggestions to “tone it down”.  What both sides are doing is over-simplifying the social environment.  I don’t think we can argue simply on “cause –effect”.  Environment matters.  One item in the environment  does not exist as a sole “cause” ;  we are all being “brought up” as children of a culture,  and hopefully,  we are also developing an identity as children of God within the subculture or counter-culture of the church, synagogue,  or mosque.