The role of religion in talking about tragedy
March 24th, 2008
by Jaime Sabel
The Iowa City community has been hit pretty hard today by the news of the death of an entire family. The father of the family had been recently charged with embezzling money from a local bank where he had worked and, allegedly, killed his wife and four kids at home and then himself by crashing his van into a cement pillar on the interstate this morning.
I have been reading the news updates with sadness and have started thinking more and more about how people turn to religion to help explain tragedy. One of the articles written today talked about how the entire family was very involved in their church and had been to Easter services just yesterday. I fail to see how their church activities have anything to do with the events that happened today except that they are being used to explain how much of a disconnect people feel between this particular man, who they imply must have been a good person because he went to church, and the news of today.
Instead of taking the facts as they are and seriously considering what might have led this man to this terrible end, the media turns only to describing his character as they see it superficially through his religion rather than having a serious discussion about mental health. I wonder how things might be portrayed differently if the family had not been church-going. I wonder if religion would be left out of the discussion or if the person committing the crime would have been characterized in terms of his atheism. Would it make it easier for people to justify what they see as God’s inaction to save an innocent family if the family had not been religious? I am sad to say that I think it would make a difference in how the story would be told.
March 25th, 2008 at 12:35 am
I agree that he would be portrayed negatively if he had been an open atheist. No doubt there is a very serious double standard when it comes to the religious versus the irreligious when committing heinous acts.
March 25th, 2008 at 12:38 am
If he had been an atheist, people would be saying “no wonder” instead of “I wonder”
March 26th, 2008 at 6:19 am
I watched the press conference this afternoon and the lead investigator indicated that this guy left messages on his family’s answering machine saying he was sure his family was in heaven now. The question is would he have killed his family in the first place if he was an atheist? I say probably not.
June 6th, 2008 at 4:17 am
I thought the same as Kyle. He believed like many of those who kill family members, that they would go to heaven. But he may still believe that he would go to hell. I can remember a woman who killed several of her children before they would have a chance to sin and be heid accoutable, but accepted that she would go to hell. People are capable of an amazing variety of beliefs.