A reward poster hangs on a light pole outside the New York Hilton Midtown Hotel in New York on Thursday, December 5, 2024, where Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was fatally shot on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)
Twenty-six-year-old Luigi Mangione was charged last night with murder for last week’s deadly shooting of an insurance executive in Midtown Manhattan. The announcement came on the same day a private funeral was held for UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Why did it take so long to find the assassin? One factor is that authorities were contending with an outpouring of popular support for the killer.
From social media to online forums to the streets of Manhattan, people celebrated the shooter as a quasi-folk hero who struck a blow against the nation’s for-profit healthcare system. Several people on X suggested flooding the police with fake tips or dressing like the killer to confuse law enforcement. Online sleuths who have worked to solve crimes in the past withheld their services. A group even held a look-alike contest Saturday in New York’s Washington Square Park.
“Something that must be established as a cornerstone”
Jordan Peterson is a cultural phenomenon. The Canadian psychologist is a bestselling author whose YouTube videos, podcasts, and speaking events have attracted millions of followers.
I’m currently reading his latest book, We Who Wrestle With God: Perceptions of the Divine. In it, he refers to the Genesis “idea of man as an image of God”:
In the absence of that divine proposition, where would we be? How could the common man otherwise be credited with any a priori status whatsoever—particularly in relation to those fully capable of enacting the principle of might that would otherwise definitely make right, and often threatens to, regardless? How could we possibly manage without the tradition of inalienable rights and intrinsic individual responsibility that is the logical consequence of that axiomatic proclamation of our sacred worth?
Peterson calls the concept that humans are created in the image of God “perhaps the greatest idea ever revealed.” In his view, this idea is “an axiom, a proclamation—something that must be established as a cornerstone before any society whatsoever can appear.”
Consequently, our postmodern, post-Christian rejection of this “cornerstone” threatens the entire edifice that stands on it.
Abortion and “a life of my own making”
If humans do not possess intrinsic worth as beings created in the image of God, how is our value to be determined?
One option is utilitarian: we are valuable to the degree that we add value to society.
In this view, if an insurance executive leads an industry that is believed to treat patients unfairly, his life can be seen as expendable and his murder lauded as a means to larger reforms. If a mother considers her preborn baby to be a personal burden, she can abort her child so as to live “a life of my own making.” If an infirm person is considered a burden to their family or society, he or she can be euthanized.
This worldview undermines the very institutions that undergird our nation.
If laws (even those against murder) and authorities (such as police dedicated to our protection) are considered detrimental to society, they can be rejected or “defunded.” Marriage can be redefined or dismissed as outdated; biblical morality can be discarded as irrelevant and even dangerous. And the democratic experiment standing on the biblical truth that “all men are created equal” is jeopardized.
By definition, once sinful humans decide that we know what is best for society, we inevitably forfeit what is best for society.
Teachers convince a girl she is transgender
A second option is existential: we are valuable to the degree that we consider ourselves to be so.
In this view, we can change our gender identity as we see fit regardless of the views of our parents or others. For example, a Florida mother was recently forced to pull her daughter out of school after the girl’s teachers convinced her that she was transgender, refused to notify the parents, and then alleged that they were “harming” their daughter if they did not affirm her new gender identity.
Such a worldview will accelerate the adoption of euthanasia in the secularized West. It will embrace LGBTQ ideology as encouraging us to be whoever we believe ourselves to be. And it will reject the belief that we are fallen people in need of a Savior as puritanical repression of our “best selves,” thereby ignoring our only hope of personal salvation and transformation.
By definition, once sinful humans decide that we know what is best for our personal lives, we inevitably forfeit what is best for our personal lives.
The key to living our best life
Humans are indeed made in God’s image, though this image is marred by the Fall and our sinfulness. However, when we trust in Christ as our Lord, we are remade as his children (John 1:12) through the transforming power of his Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19).
As a result, the key to living our best life is staying submitted to this Spirit (Ephesians 5:18; Galatians 5:22–23). But this can be hard for many of us. We are afraid that if we fully surrender to him, he’ll want us to stop doing things we like and start doing things we don’t. He’ll send us as missionaries where we don’t want to go or otherwise make our lives unhappy.
So, let’s consider the fact that each member of the Holy Trinity is identical to the others in character. This means that the Spirit loves us as much as the Father did when he made us and the Son did when he died for us. The Spirit can only want what is best for us because “God”—Father, Son, and Spirit—“is love” (1 John 4:8).
What the Son of God did for humanity at Christmas—coming from heaven to earth and entering our fallen race—the Spirit of God does for us personally when we trust Christ as Lord. Then, when we trust that his best is our best and live in holistic surrender to him, the Spirit continues the incarnational ministry of Christ by taking Christ into our world through us.
In this way, we reveal the image of God and every day becomes Christmas.
Will you trust that God’s best is your best today?
Tuesday news to know:
- Daniel Penny is acquitted in death of Jordan Neely on subway
- Israel launches over 300 airstrikes in Syria since al-Assad fled, reports say
- Assad’s fall was swift and unexpected. But the signs were always there.
- Kennedy Center Honors: a one-night “church” of soul, blues, jazz and jams
- On this day in 1901: first Nobel Prizes awarded
*Denison Forum does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in these stories.
Quote for the day:
“When we have the Holy Spirit, we have all that is needed to be all that God desires us to be.” —A. W. Tozer
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