God’s will is that we see others as of infinite worth because they are made in His image (Genesis 1:27). Unmoored from that objective standard for human value, we have made gods of ourselves and therefore justify eradicating any who dare to have other gods before us.

The August 27, 2025 mass shooting at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis is revolting for many reasons. The victims were largely children in the midst of praying. The shooter had written a hate-filled manifesto and, chillingly, scrawled his hatred directly onto his weapons. He wanted everyone to know not only what he had done, but why.

While mental illness played a role, political and social agendas were the fuel, making this atrocity the latest expression of what some are now calling an “assassination culture”—a disturbing “level-up” of cancel culture. Where cancel culture sought to erase voices and reputations through social pressure in the digital arena, assassination culture seeks to eradicate adversaries through violence in the physical world.

We’ve already seen this trend take root. Consider Luigi Mangioni, who murdered Brian Thompson, the CEO of a major healthcare insurance company. Instead of universal condemnation, Mangioni achieved macabre celebrity status. Why? Because he murdered the “right” kind of person: the head of a healthcare insurance company. When Thompson’s family needed sympathy for their husband and father’s death, the public instead valorized the killer.

When I first heard the story, my thoughts went immediately to Thompson’s wife and children. A year ago, my father was ripped from our lives by two murderers. It is unimaginably painful. I can’t imagine mourning his loss while others celebrate it. Thankfully I’ve received the love I needed. I wish I could say the same for Thompson’s family.

Or take Elias Rodriguez, who fatally shot two Israeli consulate staff members, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., in May 2025. Witnesses reported that he removed his keffiyeh and shouted, “Free, free Palestine” as he was apprehended. He wrote that “[t]hose of us against the genocide take satisfaction in arguing that the perpetrators and abettors have forfeited their humanity.” For Rodriguez, murder became a megaphone.

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