The school will soon be silent. All the investigations will be over. The children and teachers will be absent. Families, staff, and the community will mourn. It was another school shooting. Bend, Oregon, will never be the same. How can we begin to understand such evil? Where does it come from?
Is it the result of living in this fallen, sinful, damaged, disordered, afflicted, beleaguered, and only partially redeemed world? Does it begin in the human heart? Or does it grow in the digital worlds of Discord, Reddit, 4Chan, TikTok, and countless other online spaces? As some young people become immersed in these environments, they may be radicalized, dehumanized, and increasingly disconnected from the real people around them. What begins as isolation or anger can become something far more dangerous.
What do we know about those who commit these terrible acts? School shootings are a subset of the broader category of mass shootings. The Violence Project identified four commonalities among mass shooters, which include a history of trauma, mental health issues, a fascination with violence, and a pattern of concerning behavior prior to the attack. These insights aim to help in understanding and preventing future incidents of mass violence.
These findings do not explain every shooting, nor do they excuse the choices of those who commit such violence. However, they remind us that there may be warning signs, painful experiences, and opportunities for intervention long before a tragedy occurs. We must take those signs seriously and work together to protect vulnerable children.
But how do we protect our children in an increasingly dangerous world? We may need to invest less in the assumption that schools can remain open and welcoming without additional safeguards, and more in alarms, cameras, security measures, and thoughtful planning. Parents may face difficult decisions about where and how their children should be educated. If violence continues to threaten our schools, will we eventually find ourselves trying to protect children inside bulletproof capsules or other forms of extreme security? It is heartbreaking to imagine a world in which such measures seem necessary.
Yet security systems alone cannot heal wounded hearts or remove the evil that leads someone to harm others. We need to care for children who experience trauma, recognize signs of crisis, teach responsible use of technology, and help young people develop meaningful connections with others. Families, schools, communities, and churches all have a role to play.
Can the "evil one" be defeated? We cannot overcome such darkness through human wisdom and strength alone. God can give us the wisdom to recognize danger, the courage to act, and the compassion to care for those who are hurting. Through prayer, we seek His guidance and strength. But prayer must also move us to action—to protect the vulnerable, comfort grieving families, and reach out to those who are struggling before despair turns into destruction.
As Christians, we know that this world is broken, but we also know that evil does not have the final word. Jesus Christ offers hope in the midst of sorrow and light in the darkest places. We may not understand why another school has become a place of mourning, and we cannot promise that tragedy will never happen again. But we can pray, we can act, and we can faithfully teach our children to love their neighbors and value every human life. May God give comfort to the families of Bend, wisdom to those responsible for protecting our children, and healing to a world so desperately in need of Him.
