Here’s one of the least wholesome and most shocking experiences in 21st century life: one is scrolling unknowingly, perhaps even unthinkingly, on one’s phone, and suddenly sees an act of murderous violence as a video plays automatically.
Particularly in the last few weeks, with footage of the murder of Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, North Carolina, recently released; and then with the assassination of Charlie Kirk - political activist and committed Christian - while speaking at a campus event in Utah. We may be an ocean away, but we're connected enough for these tragedies to feature in our cultural conversation, not least when they are played and replayed on our screens.
What happens to our souls when we are forced to witness these horrors, and to do so on the same screens which normally show us all kinds of trivialities? We’re left with a deep sense of helplessness and irreparable loss: we are appalled by what we see, but are left passive and can never intervene. We feel an instinctive human solidarity with the victim, made in God’s image, their life so callously taken away - and horror at the perpetrator, as we reflect on the potential of a human life turned towards doing such evil. But most immediately, we find ourselves stunned. Violence always has that effect - and those who wield it, especially in public acts of violence, want it to have that effect on as many people as possible.
'An angular Messiah is our only hope'
Having devoured Jonathan Freedland’s The Escape Artist (2022) with fascination, I wasn’t going to miss reading his latest, The Traitors …