WHEN BRENT KING, the father of murdered California teen Chelsea King, stood before thousands of people at a candlelight vigil Tuesday night, someone shouted from the crowd, “We love you.” To which King replied, “We love all of you.”

Think of standing before a crowd with a microphone in one’s hands and placing grief that surpasses understanding on the altar of mass sentiment. Presumably not all of these mourners who gathered en masse on the lawn of a church knew Chelsea or the Kings very well; perhaps a significant percentage did not know them at all. They were drawn to this grief rally by their own sadness. They wanted to express solidarity, to publicly weep, to show that good triumphs over evil.

But does it? The problem with these candlelit rallies, almost hysterical in their intensity, is that they become very effective group therapy, a form of mass consolation that has little resemblance to genuine grief. They seem to deliberately obscure the very thing that must be faced: Good does not always triumph over evil.  

It’s strange in a way that this sort of public display of emotion has become so common. It’s ironic because we live in an age of widespread parental neglect, almost a collapse in the vocation itself. The problem isn’t that parents are denying children material things, children have never had more, and parents certainly aren’t begrudging them displays of love and affection. But children need more than love, more than comfort. They need authority, vigilance, moral guidance, and the anchor of meaning. The secret, unspeakable truth of parenthood is this. Children need your love less than you think they do. They need your answers and they are quick to detect the absence of answers.

These grieving crowds seem to swell with self-approval and parental confidence. The murder of a teenager should be an occasion for trembling. No one begrudges the Kings sympathy. But conspicuous compassion is distracting and irreverent, an invasion of privacy, almost a plundering of the relevant emotions. The true shadows are dispelled. Thousands of glittering candles illumine the dark. It all degrades the pain and purpose of grief. And, no matter how many people are present, a mass rally is not in itself proof of genuine community.

                                                                         — Comments —

Sheila C. writes: 

This is just another example of publicizing that which should be private, of sensationalizing that which should be reverential. It is the modern Western equivalent of Arab women and their loud, ululating wails or a traditional Chinese burial procession with hired mourners. It is image over substance. They remind me of college women in the 70s and their “Take Back the Night” campaigns. Sound and fury (or candlelight vigils) signifying nothing – no change in laws, no change in social mores or behavior or standards.The Kings apparently relied on the public at large to somehow keep their daughter safe, in lieu of closer parental control and care for a beloved child. I suppose then, that I should not be surprised to see this public airing of what must be rending grief, this cheapening of emotion, and in place of the frayed parent/child bond, we have love for an anonymous crowd. I’m sure all that’s needed are some professional grief counselors to make it all right. Just as we now seem to automatically associate age or illness with wisdom or moral superiority, so too do we automatically bestow nobility of feeling on those who display tears in public. People rightly castigate reporters for their apparent lack of any sense of decency, but of course the reporters really are merely feeding the public’s insatiable appetite for bread and circuses. How the Kings abase themselves with this display of public solidarity with the very thing that contributed to their daughter’s death: the anonymous mob. As the ancients sacrificed their children to Moloch, so do we sacrifice ours on the altar of “freedom” (license) and “diversity.” This is not the quiet dignity of Amish parents forgiving their childrens’ killer because their deep faith demanded that of them; this instead calls to mind the Army’s Casey mourning the possible harm to diversity more than he mourned the dead soldiers killed by Hasan Malik Nidal, or Amy Biehl’s parents extending their sympathy and assistance to their daughter’s brutal, unrepentant African killers.

I do not doubt the Kings are suffering deeply right now, but this shows neither mourning nor respect for their daughter, her life, or her memory.

Aservant writes:

I don’t have the time to respond in the detail I would like, but this post is exactly the “style” that keeps me reading your site. I have seen this type of self-adulation going on for years in our society, you and Sheila have echoed my thoughts on the matter completely. It is so great to see someone identifying this hypocrisy on a public forum, you are the first person (with Sheila) that has seen through these charades or piety, or at least will vocalize your position on them, that I have encountered. 

I know the following will be “too harsh” for most, but it needs to be said. True love can not be known without knowing God, His law, His love. Anything else is just narcissistic self-adulation. Mourning, true grief at a loss, is never done in public as such. These are public displays to receive the praise of others. It is a continuation of the selfishness that got this young lady killed in the first place. Only selfish, arrogant, human idolaters would ignore and neglect the common sense endowed to us all and not impart it upon their offspring to be able to securely navigate this savage world.

Laura writes:

I recommend further discussion here of Chelsea’s murder.

As Sheila stated, the Kings suffering must be horrific. In circumstances such as this, a parent would be acting in a dream.

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