A Response to a Year of Shootings: The Madman Realized

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: "I seek God! I seek God!"

Friedrich Nietzsche penned these words before the dawn of the 20th century. These are the words of a “Madman”, who ran about the streets screaming that God was dead, that mankind had killed Him. He was considered insane because he was stating something to be obviously true that was obviously un-apparent to his audience, Western Culture.

“Whither is God?" he [the Madman] cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him---you and I. All of us are his murderers.”

What was he saying? Was he equating us to the religious leaders of the 1st Century who delivered Christ to the cross? Or perhaps he was condemning us as the Roman Imperialists, who carried out the deed of killing the Son of God. Even perhaps more applicably, he may have been criticizing society for the blood of the martyrs. But no – this madman was telling of the death of God in Western thought.

“All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this?”

Western society has flirted with the idea of a God-homicide for a long time. Charles Darwin declared God unnecessary for the origin of life. Henry David Thoreau proposed that man was corrupted by society, not his inherent, God-hating depravity. Friedrich Nietzsche simply put two and two together – if we don’t need God to exist, and we don’t need him to define right and wrong, we must not need Him at all. But unlike most of society at the time, Nietzsche foresaw that Western Society could not continue on as it had – things would change.

"Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing?"

Without God, mankind had no foundation for reality. Why is murder wrong? For centuries, the Western World believed life was valuable because humans were created imago dei, and therefore, life was valuable. Why ought we to consider one race to be just as valuable as another? Because we all descended from Adam, and therefore were all one race anyways – just with different external, trivial characteristics. Why did we respect and obey our governing authorities? Because we believed authorities originated from God, and we were to respect and obey them.

The madman saw that we now had no definition. What was up and down? What was right and wrong? Could right even exist? What was good? What was wrong? It was left up to personal or cultural interpretation.

When a man, for no apparent reason, walked into a university classroom and kills ten people, why is it wrong? This was simply survival of the fittest in action. The shooter was fit; the victims were not. Why fight natural law?

When a racist man walked into a church and murdered people of a “lesser race”, who was to say he was wrong? Given the achievements of the white society over black, why should he have valued them?

When radical Muslim terrorists coordinated an attack that killed over a hundred people in Paris, how did they know they could get away with it? They knew the politically correct West would “talk” and “negotiate” and not launch another full-out Crusade, because that was no longer acceptable in Western society.

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet.”

When Nietzsche wrote this in the 1890’s, this statement was true, but friends, the madman’s time is now. The West is realizing what it means to have no God. It means there is nothing “wrong” with killing somebody in the womb or the room, because who’s to say what’s “wrong” anyways? Wars fought over race are perfectly acceptable, because we are one species fighting another, survival of the fittest in action, and nature is a force more powerful than any of us. Why not assume that a radical terrorist is basically “good” and negotiable, when we have no solid definition of “good” anyways? Chaos and pandemonium are all that can exist, because we have no infinite, greater-than-man reference point. How can anything be true?

“Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.”


How then, do we bring this God back to life? In the midst of this chaos and darkness we are seeing more and more often around us, how can we not only save ourselves, but those around us?

“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matt. 5:14-16)

Stand strong. Living like a Christian is to be a light, but don’t put your light under a basket. Don’t let peer pressure, reputation, or “sanity” be an inhibitor to standing out. This is a bigger problem than apprehending criminals or controlling guns – this is a culture-wide problem. How do we answer the culture’s plight? Answer the tough questions unashamedly from Christ’s point of view, because we are quickly entering an era where people are searching for answers and foundations, for they have none. But Christ is our answer, our foundation, our direction. So while the madman frets about having no reference point, remember that we have one – Christ Jesus. His words, His life, and His truth stand the test of time; He is sanity in the Age of Madmen.