Violence in America

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

We awaken on New Year’s Day with violence in New Orleans. A few hours later, a Tesla Cybertruck blows up in Las Vegas. Both vehicles are rented from the same company, the drivers both have a military background.  

Las Vegas and New Orleans are both known as party cities. One driver is killed by the police, the other commits suicide. One was an ISIS “member.” The family of the other says he was “a big Trump Supporter.”  

James Carville says both drivers have “some sort of sexual problem.”

“The Rosary In A Year” Podcast hit No. 1 on Apple’s podcast chart with its first episode on New Year’s Day. This is the third podcast from the Catholic media company Ascension to be in the top 10 on Apple’s podcast chart.

What do we do with all this data? Can we find any linkages between all these seemingly random bits? Can we protect ourselves and our families from harm caused by random acts in the future?

As a society, and I mean a worldwide society, not just the United States, we have a problem all right. That problem may be that we have not yet learned how to handle the speed of modern society.

Consider these matters. The cartridge loaded firearm appeared near the end of the Civil War in 1865. The U.S. Army, as an experiment, drove a convoy across the United States in 1919. It took over 60 days, the majority of which was on dirt trails. This is only 106 years ago. Commercial radio debuted in the 1920s, television in the late 1940s. The interstate highway system construction was started in 1956.  

Until the early 1960s, most business travel was by train. A few mainframe computers debuted in the 1940s. Personal computers debuted in the late 1970s. The public internet became available in 1994.

Perhaps the human brain has not kept up with the rapidity of incoming information. Perhaps the Church has not kept up with the rapidity of incoming information. 
 
If you go back to just 20 years, according to Gallup, “Two decades ago, an average of 42% of U.S. adults attended religious services every week or nearly every week. A decade ago, the figure fell to 38%, and it is currently at 30%. This decline is largely driven by the increase in the percentage of Americans with no religious affiliation – 9% in 2000-03 versus 21% in 2021-23 – almost all of whom do not attend services regularly.”

In Laura’s and my experience, this is true as well. We used to attend churches with 200-300 members. The church we joined in 2019 had 8,000 members and has two services with 2,000 in attendance every week and is online as well (go to YouTube, Perimeter.org). The theology is very traditional, and the church is growing by 300-400 per year. It started with a half dozen people in 1977.

It looks like the Catholics have found podcasts. I hope that is one medium that can help, too.

Be assured, I do not know if religion is the answer. In my heart, I believe it is. But I will strongly suggest that maybe the human brain has just not been able to keep up with the rapid technology changes, leaving people making decisions too rapidly in the modern world, decisions and conclusions that would have had different and better outcomes in slower times. 

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.