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Growing numb to tragedy is a natural instinct—and one we should resist as Christians.
This piece was adapted from Russell Moore’s newsletter. Subscribe here.
Even after several years of unpredicted chaos and suffering, the last three weeks have hit hard.
A white nationalist terrorist gunned down nearly a dozen Black shoppers in a Buffalo supermarket. Another shooter attacked a Taiwanese congregation during a Sunday luncheon. And then another brutally murdered 19 children and two adults at a school in Uvalde, Texas.
After each of these horrors, people often ask, “How long until something is done?” And yet, the sad truth in light of all these atrocities is the declining attention span of the American people.
Axios points to research on the sustained attention of the public—showing that horrors like the Sandy Creek shooting or the Parkland school shooting do not rally the nation’s attention beyond a matter of days. Some might suggest that the country is numb to such tragedies since they happen with such frequency compared to the rest of the world.
But Axios argues that what we are seeing is a people not necessarily numb to horror but overwhelmed by it. The sheer weight of all these incidents can lead to a shutdown in many people, in which they simply give up trying to comprehend it all and move on to something else.
In some ways, the country’s response is similar to how individuals sometimes respond to trauma in their own lives. One reason the book The Body Keeps the Score sells so many copies is because it explains a reality that many people experience. Even after we try to forget an awful event—or numb ourselves with alcohol or drugs or career advancement or something else—our response often shows up in other physical or neurological ways. ...
from Christianity Today Magazine
Umn ministry
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