Rise in School Shootings Reflects Both ‘Mental Health and Spiritual Crisis’: Expert

Only a day after the full publication of the Covenant School shooter’s diary, yet another school shooting devastated Apalachee High School in Georgia on Wednesday. This “heavy and sad subject … has become tragically common,” said Joseph Backholm, senior fellow for Biblical Worldview and Strategic Engagement at Family Research Council, but the diary’s contents, describing the shooter’s “disturbing inner thoughts,” may point to some answers.

“We’re both having a mental health and a spiritual crisis, and there’s just not one factor that contributes to this problem” identified former trauma counselor Dr. Jennifer Bauwens, director of the Center for Family Studies at Family Research Council, on “Washington Watch.”

Both crises contribute to the rise of school shootings. Both crises are on display in the tragic case of Audrey Elizabeth Hale, the 28-year-old, trans-identifying female who killed six people at Covenant Christian School in Nashville last spring.

“From the age [of] six, she [had] been in some kind of psychological counseling,” explained Bauwens. “This young woman had all kinds of self-hatred. From early on, she had eating disorders.” As her diary revealed, “this young woman was very oppressed and had a lot of spiritual ideas,” said Bauwens. “You do see sort of a typical profile of someone who is identifying as transgender, where there’s all this other host of mental health issues.”

“A terrible feeling to know I am nothing of the gender I was born of. I am the most unhappy boy alive. I wish to be dead. I hate society [because] society ignores to see me. I’m a queer; I’m meant to die,” Hale wrote. “It does seem to be a recitation of some kind of like, cultural talking points,” Backholm observed, “but it’s clear that this is something she has internalized.”

This profound unhappiness is not unique to trans-identifying individuals, nor necessarily a product of transgender ideology. “We can look at attachment research and learn that the number of people who have good, secure connections over time has, over the last few decades … gone down,” said Bauwens. This is “the fruit of the breakdown in families and the rise in electronics, the rise of social media use. … We were made for connection with both our Creator and with each other, and we are living in a society where that is not happening.”

Sociologist Robert Putnam observed the trend towards loneliness in an influential 1995 article, “Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital.” He noticed that more Americans were bowling than ever before — but no longer in local leagues. Such social interaction between fellow citizens, he argued, was essential to healthy societies, economies, and governments.

If America’s loneliness was evident in 1995, it can only be much more severe after three more decades of dissolution — not to mention a summer of pandemic lockdowns!

Compounding the fallout from America’s loneliness epidemic are “radical ideologies that are sort of filling in the gap,” said Bauwens. Radical ideologies attract young people who feel alienated from society by offering them a purpose or identity, even if what they offer is false or harmful. Radical ideologies can also serve to paper over the true problem for a young person struggling with mental health. “When you have an ideology like that at play, you have an easy sort of [excuse], ‘All of my problems are from this issue,’” Bauwens elaborated. “It becomes this catchall. And it’s really not even the primary issue. … It’s certainly complicating the issues that are the real, behind-the-scenes issues.”

Transgenderism is one such faddish ideology, to which Hale and other recent mass shooters adhered. New reports suggest the Georgia shooter may also have identified as gay or queer and may have expressed frustration over LGBT acceptance, based on a transcript from the FBI investigation last year, as well as a Discord account linked to him.

Research has shown that children who identify as transgender are more likely to have endured psychological trauma like abuse or to have underlying mental conditions like autism — as Hale reportedly did. Unfortunately, health care professionals following the “[trans]gender-affirming” model of care often place young people on puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones rather than address their underlying conditions. “We don’t know if this young woman was actually on testosterone,” said Bauwens. But, if she were, it “certainly would” have “had an impact on her emotions.”

This is not to say — or imply — that “everyone who identifies as transgender is going to carry out something horrific like this [a school shooting],” Bauwens added. One does not cause the other. Rather, these Venn diagrams overlap because both people who identify as transgender and people who contemplate acts of mass violence are highly correlated with a third group that is causally related: people with mental health issues.

“People who carry these things [school shootings] out have a lot of mental health issues, and that is certainly the case with people who are identifying as trans[gender],” said Bauwens. People who identify as transgender are “not getting the proper care because there’s this sort of catchall diagnosis that is not the real issue. … It’s masking the real issue.” In tragic cases like Hale’s, Bauwens urged, “What if those helping her had other means [besides condoning an attempted gender transition] to help her through that pain?”

Another often overlooked but crucial factor in the discussion is spiritual issues. The recent rises in loneliness, mental health issues, and transgenderism have all coincided with an increasing rejection of Christianity, both individually and in the public square.

Christians know that “we are constantly living in a spiritual battle,” said Backholm. “We talk about mental health, and we understand that that’s a real thing. And there is physical health, and we have physical bodies that live in a sinful world. … But we also know that we live in a world where evil exists … and Satan prowls about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour [1 Peter 5:8]. And he wants to destroy God’s image bearers [Genesis 1:26].”

“Mental health very much overlaps with spiritual issues,” Bauwens agreed. “Certainly, in this case, we’re talking about someone who carried out murder. And we know that the enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy [John 10:10].”

In her diary, Hale described the profound distress she felt whenever someone referred to her according to her biological sex. “When I’m called a lady and ma’am, [profanity] it makes me not want to exist. The [male] body in me only exists only to me. I’m just [profanity] tired of being called and identified by a gender I am not at all,” she wrote.

Such a response suggests the existence of a spiritual struggle as well as a mental one, Bauwens said. “People who are identifying as transgender get … triggered. … There’s so much insecurity about what their identity is that [they think], ‘If you call me something different than what I’m trying to believe that I am, you’re threatening to my very existence,’” she said. “But, if we’re all responding to life based on what other people do or don’t do, we’re going to have a very miserable life. Because we all have circumstances, or people call us things, that we don’t like.”

Bauwens added that such mental fragility is “never what mental health practices were devised to help with.” Speaking for herself and other trained counselors, “we were intended to help people deal with the circumstances that are at hand” and “to manage ourselves regardless of what we face.”

I suggest that such mental insecurity is evidence that everyone has a conscience. Paul writes that even those without access to God’s revealed law “show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them” (Romans 2:15). Even people who are defying God’s natural order by their very self-identity can hardly mute their screaming consciences, so they dread even the slightest external confirmation of their conscience’s message.

This suggests a way that any Christian can help those struggling with mental health issues or spiritual afflictions, whether or not that comes in the form of distorted identity or adherence to a radical ideology. Yes, there are some urgent threats of self-harm or mass harm that require immediate reporting. But, before the crisis arrives, Christians have an opportunity to show people the love of Christ.

“Jesus said that his people will be known by their love [John 13:35],” said Bauwens. “This is an opportunity for us to distinguish ourselves even more by the love and truth that we carry in Christ, and to show the world that there is another way.” Backholm agreed. “People who feel loved don’t do things like [commit a mass school shooting], in general. We do live in a broken world, but love is going to be the solution.”