Slain Student

“Slain Student’s Act of Faith Inspires Nation’s Christians” (May 4), on the mythologizing of Cassie Bernall’s death, is exemplary of the entire history of Christianity. What started as the simple life of a Jew who wanted to spread a message of love and forgiveness to a people subjugated by the Romans became, over several decades and through the centuries, a mythology of the son of God as healer and forgiver of sins. Great acts of goodness and evil have been committed in the name of a simple man who would have shunned such treatment.

One wonders what Bernall would be saying, if she knew how her death has been mythologized.

JIM COOK

Santa Barbara

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Thank you very much for Larry Stammer’s fine article on Cassie Bernall, the Christian teen who was killed for professing belief in God. It is getting more and more difficult for Christians to say correctly that the media have an anti-Christian bias. Articles like these prove that the media do sometimes pay attention to the things that matter to Christians.

MARK JAMES CHRISTIAN

Los Angeles

* There will always be social aberrants like the assassins in Colorado, and we need to worry about them and help or punish them, whatever is right. But I believe the following clarifies our true national posture on this tragedy: While we are sorry for the parents of the children in Colorado, we accept and implicitly endorse the children’s deaths as a price well worth paying for the right to bear arms.

We are content to anticipate the deaths of more innocent children and adults, because those deaths pay for something far more precious than their lives: The ease with which firearms are obtained in the U.S. This is obviously how we feel as a country. Why can’t we be more honest with ourselves?

ROBERT N. TREUHAFT

Altadena

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Those who bemoan “values relativism” as a contributing factor in the Littleton shootings (James Pinkerton, Column Right, May 4) completely ignore the relativism of their own position. “Thou shall not kill” is about as absolute a statement about values to be found anywhere in the Bible. No qualifying statements, no asterisks. Given this, the use of weapons in our society is categorically unjustifiable, for whether used offensively or defensively, guns (and bombs) serve one purpose: They are designed to kill.

In a world supposedly composed of absolute rights and wrongs, how can we therefore possibly accept the ubiquitous presence of these tools of death? A confused and misguided society needs direction. How can it be found if we continue to hear mixed messages like this one?

EDGAR KASKLA

Long Beach

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I have some questions for those who are so quick to blame pop culture for the ills of society.

Which violent TV shows influenced Hitler? Did Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge listen to rap music? Was Attila the Hun a fan of video games? And what book did Torquemada use as the basis for his bloody Inquisition?

Oh, yeah . . . that one.

MITCH SILVERMAN

Santa Monica