What we find in Christopher Dorner is the tragic attempt to furiously protect that which gives one meaning and identity. What we find in Dorner is the terror of full bred idolatry.
All of us seek meaning. Philosopher's, scientists, and Theologians have been bred out of this timeless venture to define who we are, why we are here, and what we are to do with the time we have been given. Many people will attempt to define themselves by their family or their ethnicity, others by an education or a degree, and still more by their career. Dorner seems to fit into the latter category. In his manifest he claims that he died long ago when he was wrongfully terminated from his position as an LAPD officer and his name was tarnished. What has proceeded from the "death" is a violent and mortal scramble for retribution and restoration of the thing which gave him meaning; his hame, his identity.
I don't sit here condemning Dorner. I do believe that his actions are immoral and irrrational, but that said, I am forced to ask myself the question, what would I kill for? My family? My faith? My God? As a Christian, is there anything that I should be willing to kill for?
I don't think so... but that doesn't mean that I wouldn't... there's the rub.
In the wake of such an idea I remember passages in scripture where Christ and Paul ask us to begin to give up our attachment to meaning and identity.
Jesus tells me that in order to follow him I must hate my family. Many pastors will say that he merely means that you must love the Lord so much that your feelings for your family will look like hate in comparison... but after things like Dorner I am forced to confront the reality that maybe, just maybe he means that I cannot love them more than anyone. that maybe I shouldn't be willing to even kill for them.
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Paul tells us that in Christ there is no slave or free, no Jew or Greek, etc... I think that this ought to be extended it our modern culture. Peter Rollins outlines this best when he calls Christians to rethink this passage so that it might read, (and here I paraphrase somewhat), "There is no christian/nonchristian, no gay/straight, no conservative/democratic... we are all one in Christ." See, in Christ there is not a new identity, but identity is all at once abolished. So I shouldn't be willing to kill for politics, religion or any belief for that matter.
As Christians, we are not exempt from this idolatry of meaning. In fact, I would say we are just as enslaved to it, if not more. Why? because we think we have found the end-all in "meaning." We have total certainty that we have found the truth and that is what unites us...Our shared beliefs...but is this correct?
I don't think so. When we talk about God as if we have total certainty of who he is, when we define him within our orthodoxy and condemn those outside of these beliefs as heretics, we are not worshiping God, but an intellectual idol that represents him. We treat our beliefs as if they are God, and we get all stirred up and love-lost when they are challenged or contradicted. It is the same as a man who builds a statue of what he supposes God looks like in order to worship God better, and then over time the man finds himself worshiping the statue as a perfect representation of God forgetting that there is an inconceivably greater God behind it.
These intellectual idols act as a security blanket for us, helping us to avoid the truth that God is greater than anything we can possible conceive, for if we can conceive him, then he is not what He claims to be.
What stands opposite of these idols is Love. When we try to define God, we objectify him. Like any object, we say where he begins and ends, his parameters, his function, etc... Objects can be defined, and that's it... Lust is bred out of such a process when it is applied to a human. We see them for their parameters and their use, and our definitions of them end there.
When we love God, we subjectify Him. We treat our relationship with Him as a mysterious, never ending pioneering of his persona. When you love someone, you don't want to use them or define them, but spend time with them, give yourself to them, and seek out the mysterious ever shifting universe of their personality.
This is not to say that we cannot have beliefs about God. That would be impossible. But we can realize that these beliefs are mere imitations of what is true and we are all "intentional heretics" as we seek to define the undefinable God. In this process our beings will cry out in fear and love for our creator and for his creation.
When we allow ourselves to submit to the incomprehensible and inexpressible (I use limited words even now) nature and persona of YHWH (the unpronounceable name of God), you open yourself up to transformation that goes beyond holding on to a meaningful set of beliefs. This transformation becomes you and it cannot be threatened for your life cannot be separated from you in Christ. There is no belief to threaten, no relationship to threaten (for your unity with God is eternal). You will have nothing worth killing for, for you will have nothing to protect having already given your life to Christ.
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