I’m reticent to admit to this outright, but, in recent weeks I have experienced a slightly morbid fascination with serial killers. I mean "morbid" in the strictest and most literal sense of the word, since the subject deals with some of the most grisly and senseless methods of killing that history has ever recorded. I say this with some degree of trepidation, since I know that bringing up these atrocities in some way gives them credence. Writing about such actions, even in a condemning way, can still inspire others to more dastardly crimes. If that were not enough, to bring the human element into it, it’s surely not healthy to think extensively upon such terror without a real reason to do so. It’s also quite blatantly go against the council of the Apostle Paul in Philippians IV:VI which states "whatever is true... honorable... just... pure... etc.... think about these things."
To be sure, I don’t want to in anyway glorify the crimes that murderers and other people of their ilk commit. After looking over the lives of some of the most infamous convicted serial killers*—Harold Shipman, Gary Ridgway, Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Jack the Ripper, etc.—I am completely unable to sympathize with these individuals. I don’t see any justification for their actions, no matter how wretched their upbringing was or how imbalanced their genetic makeup may be. In short, for better or for worse, I see some of the most despicable excuses for life that mankind has to offer.
The two serial murders I have been most sickened by are John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer. The reason for this, in part, is based on the timing of the events (mostly in the 1980s and 1990s) and my own geographic location in relation to where the murders occurred in (Chicago, Illinois and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, respectively).
Of all the serial murderers, Jeffrey Dahmer’s life seems to me to be the most peculiar. He was a shy, soft-spoken young man who had an obsession with dead bodies. He committed his first murder at the age of 18. He was a closeted homosexual and severe alcoholic. Dahmer picked up many of his victims in gay bars in downtown Milwaukee where he coaxed men into his apartment. He then upon multiple occasions drugged, raped, killed, dismembered, and even sometime ate his victims before disposing of them. He was finally caught when a would-be victim escaped from his apartment and flagged down two police officers. When the officers came into his apartment they found the remains of humans littered throughout his home. Dahmer confessed to killing 17 individuals, and was convicted as a sane individual.
Whilst Dahmer was in prison serving one of his multiple life sentences his father recommended him some books that focused on absolute truth and the created order. Dahmer would later become a born-again Christian; he was baptized in a pool at the facility just months before he was bludgeoned to death by a fellow inmate. Though some have debated the authenticity of his conversion, by all accounts from his father and his pastor, Dahmer was sincere. The prospect of such eternal forgiveness taken at face value was illuminated by a record appropriately titled Rats in Heaven**.
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Is this not the most frustrating part of G_d’s gospel? That forgiveness even extends to the vilest creatures borne unto the earth. In all humility, my only response is simply this: Is this not the most beautiful aspect of G_d’s gospel?
Why must we think the G_d extends grace to even those who selfishly take others’ lives? I can think of three reasons: Moses, David and Paul. All of these men were murderers to various degrees and yet each was heralded as pivotal to the Judeo-Christian faith. Each man put an end to their murderous ways and was used mightily in G_d’s redemptive purposes.
The cruelest irony of a serial murder is that they so willing to kill others’ sin but not their own. The object of their wrath is blind to their own proclivities. And so they feel the urge to kill again and again and again. Lest I need to bring Exodus XX:XIII into our consciousness—“Thou shalt not murder”—or Jesus’s expansion on this idea in Matthew V:XXI-XXVI***, we should rest assured that G_d is just and there is consequences and judgment for such actions.
The only Biblical mandate for murder is to one’s own sin. The thesis of influential Puritan John Owen’s book The Mortification of Sin is this phrase: “Always be killing sin or it will be killing you."
As it turns out, the phrase was co-opted by Romans VIII:XIII****: Put to death your old self. When you're not at war with your own capricious bent—or in fact do not know there is war at hand—you are in serious danger. That is the message that extends to murders and monks; pedophiles and priests; sinners and saints. No one said it is easy. But it must be done,
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*A serial killer is defined as someone who murders on multiple occasions with a significant “cooling off” period between acts.
**Discogs: Suffering & the Hideous Thieves; Rats in Heaven; 2004.
*** "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.' But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, 'You fool!' will be liable to the hell of fire.”
****“For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
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Matthew Siefert is a writer currently located in Arlington Heights. He has written for a number of publications and companies in the Chicagoland area. He fancies himself a theocentrist, but be sure he fails to live up to that title on a daily basis.