In the wake of the recent shootings in Colorado, which has sent shockwaves throughout the international Christian community, many leaders are pointing to popular culture in an attempt to understand the driving factors behind violence among young people.
Roberts Peters, president of Morality in Media, said the way violence is presented in the media today could explain some of the recent shootings by young people.
"Today, films and other media glamorise murder and revenge and present it in the most detailed, sadistic manner possible. More often than not, media also portrays religion in a negative light,” said Peters in a recent statement.
On Sunday, Matthew Murray, 24, opened fire at a Youth With a Mission training center, killing two young adults and injuring two others when he was turned down from spending the night at the dormitory.
Later that day, he went to New Life church in Colorado Springs and opened fire with a high-powered rifle, killing two teenage girls and wounding their father. A church security guard fired at Murray, putting him down, but an autopsy performed by the El Paso County coroner ruled Murray died of a self-inflicted shot.
Authorities say Murray, who was a former student of the YWAM Discipleship Training programme, appeared to have acted out of revenge against Christians, according to an online message he posted Sunday.
The shootings came just a few days after a 19-year-old shot and killed nine people, including himself, and wounded five at Westroads Mall in Omaha, Nebraska.
Earlier in April, 23-year-old Seung-Hui Cho killed 32 students and faculty members before committing suicide at Virginia Tech.
While violence in movies and on television is not a new phenomena, according to Peters, the media’s portrayal of murder has drastically changed from several decades ago.
“Murder was to be presented in a way that would not inspire imitation. Brutal killings were not to be presented in detail. Revenge was not to be justified,” said Peters after the Omaha shooting.
Peters attributed the mass murders to the glamorisation of violence in entertainment media, which includes films, TV programmes, rap lyrics and video games.
"Only in the entertainment media is the worst of human behaviour depicted 'non-judgmentally' or even worse, glamorised and promoted,” Peters noted. "There is a saying, 'You reap what you sow,' and the American people are reaping what the entertainment media have sowed and we have bought for more than forty years."
Colorado gunman Murray had shown possible signs of media influence years before the shootings. He posted lyrics by industrial rock band KMFDM on a website designed for people who had left evangelical religious groups.
