The One Discussion Missing In The Elliot Rodgers Saga?

Yes, everyone is talking about the Santa Barbara Massacre and the young man behind it, who ended up killing himself.
His name was Elliot Rodgers.
Mr. Rodgers was clearly one very, very troubled young man. He pretty much hated himself and took that out on the women that he claimed rejected him when he believed himself to be God's gift to the fair sex.
Mr. Rodgers said so himself in a rambling, 140 page "manifesto". And if that was not enough, he went on You Tube to talk about the "Day Of Retribution" in which Mr. Rodgers essentially lays out his case as to why his deluded delusions have to take place.
I will admit that I have not and will not read the "manifesto" nor watched any of the videos he uploaded. If you choose to, I have linked them for your perusal.
There have been a lot of reasons bandied about as to why it happened. Misogyny. Bad family background. Parents divorced. Spoiled brat. And many more.
One thing that is missing in the conversation is this.
What was Elliot Rodgers' relationship with God?
From all that I have tried to read on the internets, it appears that Mr. Rodgers did not have a relationship with a monotheistic God. Nor of the gods of Eastern religions such as Buddhism or Hinduism.
He was a young man that did not have a relationship with God.
I am not saying that a relationship with God, particularly in the Christian sense and idea, would have absolutely stopped Mr. Rodgers from carrying out his evil act. And make no mistake. It was evil.

But all the secular therapy did not help. His parents did not help by attempting to spoil him to probably ease his pain. Yes, they knew Mr. Rodgers was probably going to do something and alerted the police in Isla Vista, California. But the police seemed to not be exactly overly concerned and did a minimal welfare check on Mr. Rodgers.
I want to focus on the God aspect of this saga.
I hate to give it any credit that appears to be giving any publicity one way or the other, but there is no choice. We can not have the conversation without discussing the event.
From all that I have read on and about Mr. Rodgers, he was thoroughly obsessed with and about himself. Me, me, me. I. I. I. You get the idea.
For the sake of discussion, I will stipulate that God is the general Christian understanding and write about it from that perspective.
Having a relationship with God, through accepting Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, has been the most wonderful period of my life. As I near 50 years on God's green earth, I became a card-carrying Christian when I was 27 years old. Having that relationship has seen me through some rough patches in my life. In fact, it is why I have not consumed adult beverage in 22 years. Yeah, I know, a big revelation. But I am only writing about it to show that because I asked God in my life in a bad time, my life turned around.
Now, back to Mr. Rodgers.
From all accounts that I have read, Mr. Rodgers did not have a relationship with God nor did his parents, who divorced when he was still a child. In fact, according to The Blaze, Mr. Rodgers resented his father, a Hollywood director, Peter Rodgers, for producing a movie about God called Oh My God. Peter Rodgers basically hawked their home to make it and young Mr. Rodgers was none to pleased about it and wrote this in his infamous "manifesto":

“If only my failure of a father had made better decisions with his directing career instead wasting his money on that stupid documentary.”

And if you read the link, Peter Rodgers did have a bug in his rear end about organized religion.
Peter saw negativity and thus Elliot was even more negative about religion.
Yet it appeared that thousands of dollars were spent with psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists and he Elliot only got worse. Because Peter saw nothing good about organized religion.
But think about this for a moment.
What if dad was open to the possibility of Elliot going to church? Being involved with a good youth group and a good youth pastor? What if instead of throwing away money on doctors and drugs, Elliot could have had a chance to make a connection in that church? In that youth group? Or with a good youth pastor?
Let's face it, Elliot Rodgers had a lot of problems and one of them was something that almost all American high school males do through at some point in their life.
Alienation.
The issue for Elliot is that he was in the throws of puberty and, to be blunt, a horny guy. Yet he did not connect with the fairer sex. I guess that he thought his background would make the gals just fall over each other to be with him. And have sex. Sex was constantly on his mind. Again, most American high school males have that as well. puberty and alienation are a toxic combo.
So how would God fit into this picture?
Because God takes us as we are. Broken. Confused. Scared. Wanting answers. Once a person wants a relationship with God, as a Christian, they can accept Jesus. And that combined with studying the Holy Bible and being able to share openly, people in the same boat (and there are many) could have helped him have better worth of himself. And had he had better worth of self, his rather bizarre outlook about girls, then women, and sex might have not gotten worse. It might not have gotten to the point that he would write a 140 page "manifesto" and make You Tube videos essentially telling the world what he was going to do.
My thought is what harm would that have done? It might, and I do stress might, have been better than head shrinkers and drugs. And it might have also been a help that his parents or one of his parents was active in church as well. It would show as it usually does that they are trying to be good, God-fearing people trying to do the right thing. And especially with their children. At the very least, the parents, especially Peter, should not have been so negative about religion. There are so many positive aspects of religion. Even people raised in the church as my friend and fellow blogger Social Extinction, who turn against God and do not believe in him do at least gleam something from all those years in Roman Catholic catechism. At some level there is the knowledge of right and wrong that Mr. Social Extinction knows and believes in and that had to come from his faith.
And organized religion does teach right from wrong.
It teaches that we are all a child of God. We were created in God's image. And God gave us in the Old Testament the Ten Commandments. The best guide there is to life. But of course, even now, we rebel against that. When Jesus Christ came, he did not come to change the law as he noted. But he added another layer to the law:

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment”

And that, that was not enough for there is one more command that Jesus taught:

“And the second [commandment] is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets”

So with that in mind, I just can't help but think that if Elliot had a church relationship and people that were peers he could speak with, how different his life might have been.
Understand that Elliot was raised, intentionally or unintentionally, with a very certain sense of entitlement. That sense of entitlement made Elliot the clear narcissist that he became.
What religion teaches is that there should not be a sense of entitlement and how worship of one's self is a form of evil. And there is no doubt that evil penetrated Elliot's soul and heart.
Now I make this disclaimer, but do not say that it is not possible a different, positive outcome could have happened.
It is very possible that Elliot was so messed up, even a relationship with God might have not changed the course of events. He still may have felt entitled. He may have still been the narcissist that he turned out to be.
But I do not think so.
This saga shows to me that the more we shove God out on the sidelines, to be something vague and out there and not to be shared with all, we will only face more of these situations, not less.
The Elliot Rodgers' saga shows that we need to have God in our lives and open more than ever.

Matthew McConaughey, God And Hollywood

I continued my Academy Award hate and did not watch the 86th installment of the secular bacchanalia.
I am sorry, however, to have missed this speech by the Best Actor, Matthew McConaughey in which he started off by thanking not his agent, not his family, or the adoring fans.
Matthew McConaughey thanked GOD for his achievement.
WOW! WOW! WOW!
Below is the actual short, yet heartfelt acceptance speech.

It's not the first time that an actor or actress has thanked God for the accomplishments he or she has had in their acting career. If memory serves me right, and it is not from watching but reading and watching news reports about it, Denzel Washington was pretty quick to thank God for winning a Best Actor award a few years ago. But Mr. Washington is Black and I guess the secular crowd that is Hollywood thought it was OK. You know, a Black American Christian. Maybe he attends something like the Trinity Church of Christ in Chicago, the former home church of our Dear Leader, President Obama.

But a regular White guy? Not just thanking God but realizing that while he has grown in his profession, the gift of his acting is a gift from Almighty God?

Watch the video because it is striking what gets the biggest cheer from the audience. Let's just stipulate it is not thanking God. Or his daddy. Or his mom. Or his wife. It's only about two minutes and thirty-three seconds long.

Many good people get involved in acting and or entertainment. But there is just something that seems to happen when they make it big.

Some shed the thing that made them pursue acting and or entertaining.

That is their belief in God.

I can only imagine how bad that can be for an actual Christian believer. So many that do spout off about religion in general and Christianity in general show abject ignorance. And downright hatred towards religion.

I suspect that the secular crowd that dominates every aspect of Hollywood are insular enough not to know many, if any, Christian believers. like any thing else, we are not all the same. The talents and gifts that God gives us takes us the time to understand. Some of them are direct spiritual gifts, as Paul addressed here in 1 Corinthians: 12. I'm not sure if Mr. McConaughey's acting falls into particular spiritual gifts, but I must admit I usually enjoy the movies that I see him in. But that he thanked God for where he is shows that he gets the overall Christian message in this respect.

That all we do, good or bad, is from God. Whether we understand that or not is a lifelong journey.

But back to the Hollywood secularists.

My feeling is that their "knowledge" of Christians is probably the Fred Phelps' types and the Westboro Baptist "Church". Or some of the more silly comments made by such evangelists as the Rev. Pat Robertson. In other words, they will look at the extreme, more fundamentalist people in Christianity and think, that is what it's all about.

Too bad that the Hollywood secular crowd does not look at such Christians as the Rev. Billy Graham, his son, the Rev. Franklin Graham, and the wonderful work of Samaritan's Purse. Or how about the Salvation Army and all the good that they have done? Nah, in the closed minds of Hollywood secularists, most Christians are no good and really, they want nothing to do with them.

How sad.

For all the talk of diversity and thought, when it comes to religion in general, and Christianity in particular, the Hollywood secularist mind closes tighter than a vise.

Take the new movie Non Stop starring Liam Neeson.

Skip the next paragraph if you do not want to know anything about the plot. You have been warned!

I wanted to see it until I read this review and how the plot turns out.

See, Hollywood thinks that a family member of a victim of the 9/11 terrorist attacks would get some military dude to essentially hijack a plane, electronically, and that one of the heroes of the flight is an Islamic doctor, dressed in full garb and bearded.

Islam is not Christian and it is picked on and misunderstood. And really, if they do bad things it is probably the fault of the United States and especially Christianity. And don't forget them there Crusades.

So I do believe that when Hollywood is exposed to a person like Matthew McConaughey, they are essentially left speechless. They do not get that people really, really believe that there is something bigger than what is in this world. That God is important enough to thank more than anything shows an amazing thing that Mr. McConaughey probably did not think much about because he spoke from his heart. And his heart is with God.

Hollywood needs to free its secular mind and welcome Christian believers and not seek to change them into soulless secularists. Learn from them. Learn that they are not a threat but a person that believes in God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost (Spirit). And that if they share with you, just be open, not dismissive.

Many Christians, myself and Mrs. RVFTLC, like movies. I am more discriminating than Mrs. RVFTLC. Or in her mind, not so much. We pay money to see movies. We don't like to feel unwelcome but some in Hollywood are so narrow that they comment derisively on what we believe without any real knowledge of us.

I am thankful that Matthew McConaughey spoke so eloquently last night. Hollywood should listen to all that he said.



HAPPY THANKSGIVING 2012

" In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus."

1 Thessalonians 5:18

Today is Thanksgiving day in the United States. A day that has been set aside to give thanks for whatever we want to give thanks for.
I for one am thankful to be living in the greatest nation in the history of the world.
And I am, without question, thankful for Mrs. RVFTLC. She does put up with a lot being Mrs. RVFTLC! And then there is our son. Our dogs, Master Cashew and amazingly Scout the Wonder dog. We thought that last thanksgiving might be the last one. But at 15 1/2 years old, she is alive and kicking.
And of course for other family and friends.
But most important, for me, is to give thanks to God for all that I do have in this life.
We do seem to emphasize what we percieve as falling short. But it is what we have that we should give thanks to. We should strive for what we may not have  but want. It should not consume us.
Yes, there is the wonderful food that is connected with Thanksgiving. Turkey, stuffing, ham, prime rib, mashed potatoes, candied yams, the actually God-forsaken green bean cassarole, pumpkin pie. But rememeber who we will be sharing it with. Yeah, some of the people we may only see once a year. Or even that day is the only time  we will see some people.
What I mean about sharing it with is those that do not have the life that most of us have.
Before we go to our Turkey day festivities, Mrs. RVFTLC will stop off at our mission church in El Monte, California and help serve Thanksgiving to those less fortunate than we are. It is something that gives a real meaning to the day. And solidifies what it means to give thanks.
So, remember that in between the turkey and football, give thanks to God for the life that you have. Not the one that you think that you want.