A disclaimer before I go on:

I am in no way an expert in any behavioral science. Nor have I made a disciplined and thorough, academic study of psychopathic behavior. I’ve read a lot, thought a lot, and engaged smart people in conversations. Here are my thoughts, for whatever they are worth.

*****

Serial killers have strange sounding names. Corrl, Chickatello, Fish, Dahmer, Gacy. Or maybe they have the power to ruin a name, to twist it somehow, so that it sounds off-key in our ears.

Bundy.

See what I mean?

Clearly serial killers have embedded themselves, almost mythically, into our cultural consciousness. We are afraid of them, and even mentioning their names gives some people the shivers.

“They’re psychopaths,” people say. And then, as if you didn’t get it the first time, they repeat the word. “PSYCHOpaths!”

Psychopaths are people who cannot feel for others. They don’t feel pity or compassion. They seem to be missing some precious human component that most of us take for granted. Psychopathy exists on a continuum, as does almost everything. Serial killers are on the far end of that continuum. There are many people in our world who have a hard time feeling compassion. That doesn’t make them bad people or likely to become serial killers. Most of them do the best they can. You have probably known people like this. These are people who seem rather cold and distant. They can be a little selfish or even narcissistic.

I’ve read about psychopathy, but I can’t understand it at a gut level. If the psychopath cannot imagine what it means to feel love or compassion, I can’t imagine what it would be like NOT to feel those things. What I’ve looked for is some explanation of what a psychopath experiences, what life is like for him or her. So far I’ve not found anything that describes the condition emotionally in ways that help me to understand it.

So, like any good writer, I simply made something up. After a number of years of trying to understand the mind of a psychopath, I’ve come up with a way of thinking about how their minds work. I offer this to you for your consideration and with the complete understanding that it is simply my best guess.

I will describe this imaginary person as a man, because almost all serial killers are men.

Imagine that you are in a room full of people. All of them are holding bricks. To your great surprise, these people seem very attached to these bricks. They dress them in little clothes, coo at them, and tell stories about them. They take turns holding each other’s bricks, and they pet the bricks gently with their hands. Everyone seems to be having such a good time with the bricks.

Suddenly, a brick is dropped and broken. The entire room is seized by a collective spasm of grief and horror. Some people run over and desperately try to put the brick back together. Others stand about crying and sobbing uncontrollably. All the while, you stand there, stony-faced, trying to figure out what is going on. You’re a smart person, so you obviously understand that everyone likes these bricks a lot. But you cannot muster any feelings for them, either positive or negative. They are just bricks. So what if one is broken?

People look strangely at you because you aren’t showing emotions. You solemnly nod and try to look sad and concerned because you want to fit it. But it is impossible to make yourself feel something that you do not feel. No one can do that. You can't make yourself feel compassion or sympathy for a brick.

Over time you begin to understand that there is something missing inside you. And you can tell it is something that is very important and wonderful. You pretend to care about other people because you need to get along and because you would like to be a part of the game of love that everyone else seems to be enjoying. You become rather sophisticated at this, saying and doing the right things at the right time.

You do feel something that you call love, but it is only a very selfish and primitive kind of love, though you have no way of knowing that. For you, love feels more like possessing someone, having them for your own. You also have a sex drive. You understand that need. You are fascinated by women and drawn to them sexually, though you aren’t able to care for them as individuals. This causes you a lot of difficulties as you repeatedly try and fail at one relationship after another. Having the sexual drive without the caring component means that all of your attempts at romance have been stilted, awkward, and unsatisfying. You have a few relationships, but certainly not with healthy women. Over time you develop some very unbalanced ideas about women, and your anger grows.

There is one feeling that you have and recognize. It is the wonderful feeling of having your own needs met. When you get something you want, you feel a surge of happiness. Every human experiences happiness, of course, but since you have fewer avenues to find happiness, you cling to this one kind of happiness with an obsessive need that is very dangerous. You will stop at almost nothing to get what you want, because other people don’t really matter, and getting what you want is the greatest feeling in the world.

I don’t know how close to reality this picture is, but I believe it is a better way to think about serial killers than simply calling them monsters or saying, derisively, “They don’t feel anything!” as though they have some control over that. The psychopath is dealing with a limitation that causes extraordinary problems living with other people, and we should recognize that no one ever chooses to be a psychopath.

The psychopathic personality is but one component in the volatile mix that ultimately produces a serial killer. There are at least three components, as far as I can tell.

First, there is the psychopathic person, who is created by a combination of genetic, biological, and environmental factors that are not clearly understood by experts. I'm not sure our experts are even close to understanding these factors.

Second, there is the present environment or situation in which a psychopath finds himself. In the right environment and with some help, perhaps this person finds ways of coping. In other environments, his condition worsens.

And finally, there is the most mysterious component of all – human choice. Most people in the worst circumstances still do not become serial killers. There is the matter of our freedom and our choosing. In all human behavior, one choice leads to another. Choices along a certain path become both easier and harder. It is easier to hurt someone the second time and easier still after that. And it is harder to say no to an addictive need the farther you go along the addictive journey. But at the beginning, somewhere, you had some choices.

At the end of many paths are extreme behaviors that seem insane to most people. There are people who weigh 900 pounds and cannot get out of bed. They are not the only people with eating disorders, and they did not fall into that situation easily. There are men whose entire lives revolve around the acquisition and consumption of hard-core pornography. The end-of-the-line stuff. Any reasonable assessment of the content of that pornography would reveal that it is not beautiful or sensuous in any common definition of those words. Those who crave it might not even enjoy experiencing the acts depicted. But they lust after their pornography with an intensity that is frightening. In most of these cases, there were combinations of emotional and/or mental illness AND personal choice all along the way.

So too, those who lack any recognizable ability to love and feel for others. Some of these find themselves in some unique or tragic environment that feeds their psychopathy. And some of these, in weakness, make a series of choices that lead them down an unthinkable path to the end of the line. By the time they reach the end, they have very little freedom of choice left, if any. But it is this critical choice element that means they are responsible for their actions. To take away their responsibility is another way of dehumanizing them.

Serial killers must be held responsible for hurting others, but our growing understanding of the complex nature of their personalities must guide us as we decide how to deal with them.

Coming next: What we should do with serial killers when they are caught, both from a cultural and a spiritual point of view.

rlp

Well, what would you have titled this?

Because there is really one one fitting title for this piece about the little present I found recently at the communion table. And turd is the only word that works in that title. Because turd is a great word. When you drop turd into a sentence, it shouts its presence with a coarse, rolling resonance that sounds like a springy sound effect in some cheap comedy.

Boi-oi-oi-oing.

My wife and I joined two friends recently in leading a retreat at a lovely retreat center on the Frio River in the Hill Country of Texas. The retreat ended, and we four presided over a communion table to celebrate our final time of worship with the group. I was setting up the communion elements while people were filing into the room for the service. That’s when I noticed a mouse turd sitting right in the middle of the table.

At this point in the story, I’m afraid it’s going to become quite clear that I’m not a normal sort of person. Your average person would have hurriedly disposed of the turd, following this with a thorough cleaning of the table. I, on the other hand, ran to get my camera. I began snapping shots of the turd. Close, far, with the macro function, without, turning the camera this way and that.

“Okay, mouse turd, work the camera. Yes. Beautiful. Give me some attitude. Sweet!”

“Why, why, why?” you ask me, shaking your head in disbelief. “Why would you take a picture of a mouse turd on a communion table?”

The history of Suzanne and Foy is found in "Came Grief and Compassion" and "Captain Crunch." Suzanne also briefly appears at the end of "Cutter."

Foy decided he would like to ask Suzanne to have dinner with him, but the thought of picking her up and driving her home felt too much like high school. He had no idea how adults date, having not been on a date since the early 80s.

Is it like it was in high school? Pick her up, eat, drive her home, then get nervous and wonder if you should try to kiss her? Good God, I hope not.

He dropped by Suzanne’s cubicle and asked her. She agreed to have dinner with him and seemed happy about it. He asked if she would mind meeting him at the restaurant.

“No, that’s fine. I actually prefer that for the first date anyway,” she said.

Her eyes opened wide, and she brought her hand up to her mouth.

“I didn’t mean that there would be other dates or anything. Not that that would be…uh, but what I mean is this is just two people having dinner. We both know that, so…”

Suzanne pulled her shoulders up close to her ears and sucked her breath in audibly between clenched teeth. She lightly clapped her hands a few times and then rubbed them together.

“Okay,” she said.

Foy chuckled. “Don’t worry. I know what you meant.”

Suzanne tightened her lips and nodded slowly and deliberately as a humorous admission that she was embarrassed. She pulled her lips apart with a sucking noise and said, “Yeah.”

They agreed to meet for dinner on Friday night at 7 pm at a local restaurant that was not fancy but was quiet.

*******

Foy arrived at the restaurant first. He liked arriving early. He was seated by 6:45 in a booth where he could see the front door. He tried to read a book he had brought with him, but he kept being distracted by a desire to look and see if Suzanne had arrived.

She entered the restaurant a few minutes after 7:00. She glanced around, looking for him, and when her eyes swept across his part of the restaurant, Foy waved. She moved quickly to the table, looking at the ground in front of her feet as she walked. She slid into the booth across from him and flashed a smile.

“Hi,” she said.

"Hey,” he responded. There was a brief silence. Suzanne looked around the restaurant as if she was sizing the place up. Foy watched her eyes moving around. She returned her eyes to him, noticed he was looking at her, and dropped her gaze to her napkin, which she unfolded and set deliberately in her lap. She then interlaced her fingers and placed her hands on the table as if a meeting were beginning. She looked at him as if to say, “Let’s begin.”

Foy felt as though they had crested a hill together, paused at the top, and were going to hold hands and run to the bottom. He had a momentary sense of discomfort and fear, but he relaxed easily because he knew that talking to Suzanne would be very much like running downhill. It would be hard to stop. And Foy could talk to anyone; there was always that. In that brief moment, Foy understood exactly what part of himself to let out. He slipped on his charming, socially adept persona like an ancient priest putting on a robe for the thousandth time.

“You know, when I first met you I noticed you were carrying around a bunch of printer sheets with numbers and accounting stuff all over them. I know you work in accounting, but I still don’t know exactly what you do. I probably won’t understand it, but I’m curious.”

Suzanne cheerfully told him the story of her professional life. She had gotten a college degree in English, but a natural ability with numbers and math had led her into various accounting jobs. She wasn’t a CPA but had earned many of those kinds of responsibilities over the years. She supposed that she liked her job pretty well. “It’s a living I guess,” she said.

She was fascinated that he was once a priest and asked a number of questions about that. She seemed to grant him a certain wisdom and goodness based on his history. He recognized this in her tone and appreciated it, though he would not have granted as much to someone in his same situation. In particular, she wanted to know what had caused him to leave the ministry.

Foy said he had no idea how to describe his spiritual journey through professional ministry and out of it. Then he proceeded to spend 20 minutes doing just that. He fell into the narrative of his life easily and spoke of his early love of scripture, the joy of his theological education, and his discovery of the beauty of tradition, archetype, and myth. He spoke easily, vulnerably, and with great passion, bringing himself almost to tears several times.

“The story of Christianity is handed down to us in the language of archetype and myth. That doesn’t say anything negative about the story or the history behind it. That kind of story language is understandable to people from every age and from every social and economic level. I mean, the gospels are a beautiful collection of stories that will break your heart if you let them. It’s gorgeous. It’s… And yet somehow being a minister began to feel false to me. You can’t get paid for being spiritual without that damaging you somehow. I don’t think you can, anyway. Maybe it was just me. But I got to where I couldn’t tell the difference between myself and the role, you know?”

She nodded slowly, deeply engaged in listening and thinking.

“I don’t know what it would be like to lose yourself in that role, of course. But I know as a woman what it’s like to have a pretty heavy role laid on you and a lot of expectations. And those expectations are good things that you want to be or do, but also things that you could lose yourself in. So yeah, I think I understand.”

Sometimes he would lean across the table toward her, as if he could bring her into his life by drawing their faces nearer to each other. When she spoke he rested his chin in his hand and alternated between watching the way her mouth moved and looking directly into her eyes. Foy didn’t realize that this conversation was very intimate for a first date. As a minister he had become accustomed to getting intimate with people quickly, enjoying the experience, then moving on. He finished his story with a light and humorous description of the office from his point of view, his confusion in the secular world, and the funny things that had happened to him in his new profession. By the time he was done they were both laughing easily, talking rapidly, and gracefully interrupting each other as though their conversation was a dance.

He had no way of knowing how vulnerable she was to such an encounter. He did not know how disappointing her marriage had been, for she had not spoken of it. Her parents had not had much intimacy together, so she had been ill-equipped to know what it meant to find love. And she had been young when she met her husband. After a few years she realized that she was married to a man who could not look her in the eyes and have a conversation. All attempts to draw him emotionally closer to her had failed. He didn’t have much to talk about beyond television, movies, budgets, or lawn care. In fairness to him, she hadn’t been interested in anything beyond that when they had met. It had surprised him when she suddenly wanted deep and abiding conversations with him about life and love and God and everything. The divorce was finalized about a year before Jeremy got sick, so she had gone through that experience alone.

It was strangely appropriate that they had spoken of myth, for she created her own myth in the space of one evening, molding Foy into her perfect image of a man and deciding that all along the problem had simply been that she had not found her soul mate.

By the end of the evening they had covered so much ground that neither could have mapped where the conversation had taken them. Foy couldn’t help but notice how happy she seemed, and this delighted him. In his mind - which was the mind of a writer - he saw the whole thing as a romantic story. Two lonely souls finding each other one evening. She had grieved the loss of a child while he grieved the loss of the Church. How perfect that they should find each other like this. And yet, in that way that is curiously common to writers, he stood somehow apart from it all, doling out his feelings and his language from a detached place, as if he was standing off to the side.

They hugged when they parted. Not a sideways hug, like the one at the office, but a full-on hug with arms around each other. He felt the soft crush of her body as they pressed together, and the smell of her hair filled his nose and made him feel light-headed. She was shy when they parted, and he saw everything in her eyes. And seeing it, he told himself that it was good. It had to be good because she was so happy and so was he.

The following Monday at the office, when Charlene asked how the date had gone, Suzanne replied with only four words.

“Can I keep him?”

rlp

There are 15 Foy Davis Stories. This is an ongoing project. I have no idea where it is going.

UPDATE: I've shut down the hell@reallivepreacher.com email address. So don't bother composing something and sending it there. I have numerous emails to go through with a good representation of a number of views.

Thanks to all who responded.

I have begun a study of the what the Bible has to say about hell. I’ve read all four gospels and written down every passage that seems relevant. I have looked up every reference to “hell” and “hades” in the New Testament and read them. I’ve read the book of Revelation to see what it has to say. And I’ve looked up some other passages. My intent is to continue studying the rest of the New Testament until I feel I know everything it has to say about hell.

Maybe you can help me. I want to know why you believe what you believe about hell.

Hell was a serious part of the religious tradition I was raised in - evangelical Christianity. It was just part of the deal. You either believed in hell or you were some kind of liberal who was just too much of a boo-hoo crybaby to accept hard Biblical truths. As a liberal, it was said that you trusted your heart and your feelings more than holy scripture. And that was said to be a very bad thing, because once you start letting your own ideas and feelings determine your beliefs, you’ve basically invented your own religion.

Now there are three basic components to what might be called the traditional view of hell. And you have to believe in all three of them to hold that traditional view.

First, and somewhat obviously, you have to believe that hell is real. There has to be a literal hell, a place where certain people go to be punished. There are two schools of thought among those who believe in a literal hell. There are the actual flames and brimstone people, who believe sinners will be burned slowly and excruciatingly in hell. This is an unthinkably horrible notion, but they believe that’s what the Bible says, so they have to accept it no matter how terrible it is. And there are the “it’s probably just some kind of sad and lonely separation from God” people. The people who believe in flames tend to look down on the separation from God people, who seem a little liberal. Not liberal enough to reject the whole idea of hell, but certainly liberal enough to be suspect.

Second, you have to believe that non-Christians are the ones who are headed for hell. It is often a little surprising when people find out that in traditional evangelical theology, it is not bad people who will go to hell. Hell will be filled with people who did not become Christians. And this is true even if they never heard of Christianity. Yes, it is believed that even a young woman raised in a primitive culture in an isolated jungle will go to hell if she dies without becoming a Christian. That’s why we have to get missionaries over there, chop chop. To save her and others like her. True, our arrival will destroy her delicate culture and expose her people to deadly diseases and other Western things that will undoubtedly be harmful, but all other concerns pale when compared to eternal torment, do they not?

Third, to have a traditional belief in hell, you have to believe that hell is eternal. That’s what hell-believing Christians say. Once you go to hell, it’s forever and ever and ever and ever and ever. Forever. And ever. Planets will be born and die while you are in hell. Solar systems will spin into and out of existence. Galaxies will slowly grind through each other and twist outward into the expanding universe. And there you will be, hopefully just bored out of your skull, but if those who believe in literal flames are right...well, I don’t even know how to think about something like that.

Evangelicals have no way around this horror. Catholics invented the idea of Purgatory, which is not found anywhere in the Bible. It is a temporary place of punishment. If, as Robin Williams said, you had to smoke a turd in Purgatory for 1000 years, that would be awful, but at least there would be an end in sight. Evangelicals, who claim to limit themselves to what’s in the Bible, do not have such an easy out.

So that’s hell in a nutshell. That’s what we were taught. It is a literal place where you are sent. You are sent there for not being a Christian. And once you are condemned to hell, it is forever. There are no second chances.

Now let’s make a turn and talk about something else. One thing is for sure - you wouldn’t believe in hell unless the Bible was so clear about it that you were left with no choice. No one really WANTS there to be a hell, right? Please tell me no one wants hell to be real. Because if you are the sort of person who likes the idea of hell, you might be the devil yourself. While conservative seminarians discuss whether or not the devil exists, liberal seminarians are discussing whether or not you really exist.

If you ask me, a person would have to be pretty sure of himself before he would tell people they were going to hell. If you say that hell exists, and it is for non-Christians, and it is fire, and it is forever, you better be sure of yourself. Because I can’t imagine a worse blasphemy if it’s not true. That would really make God angry, wouldn’t you think? You running around and ruining God’s reputation like that.

It’s funny - hell Christians always act like we who don’t think everyone is going to burn in hell are the ones taking a chance. “Uh oh, you’re getting liberal. Aren’t you afraid God is going to be really mad at you for not believing in hell?” Well, maybe. Maybe I’ll smoke a turd in some back closet of heaven for being too nice. But if you’re wrong, you and people like you have trashed God’s reputation for 2,000 years.

I think I’ll take my chances with the liberals.

THE CHALLENGE:

Okay, so here's the deal: if you believe in hell, I want you to help us understand why. I invite anyone who believes that non-Christians are going to an eternal hell to make your case. We’re going to play by your rules too. Bible arguments only. Don’t explain why you think there should be a hell. Don’t tell us that your preacher told you there is a hell. Show us in the scriptures you say you love so dearly.

Because if you’re talking about hell, you better damn well be able to open your holy book and show us why. And if you can’t...well, maybe you shouldn’t be talking so much.

THE GROUND RULES

1. Email only - We’re not going to slug this out in the comments with crazy people dropping in crazy stuff and other people getting pissed off and replying. ANY COMMENT LEFT ON THIS POST THAT MAKES A CASE FOR OR AGAINST HELL WILL BE DELETED OR EDITED. ANY COMMENT THAT IS ABUSIVE OR DISRESPECTFUL OR FLIPPANT WILL BE DELETED OR EDITED. This is a serious inquiry, and I want those who respond, whatever they believe, to be treated with respect.

Make your case and send it to me by email. Send it to hell@RealLivePreacher.com. That email address will function while we’re engaging in this exercise.

2. New Testament only. You can’t drag verses from the Hebrew scriptures about Sheol into this discussion. Sheol isn’t hell. Even conservative scholars agree on that. If you are building a serious Christian theology, you have to use the New Testament.

3. You can’t base your argument on statements like "he will be cast into the outer darkness." You can use those kinds of statements to a certain extent, but you can’t build your whole case with them. You can’t get your ideas about hell from Paradise Lost and bad television, then read those ideas back into an ambiguous phrase that could mean all sorts of things. You need to make a good, solid New Testament case.

4. You may need to answer any opposing scriptures that I send back to you. If you send me one passage that seems to suggest something, and I email back 10 opposing passages that are clear and right from the mouth of Jesus, you have not made a good case.

5. Remember, you need to provide scriptural evidence for all three elements of hell.

a. You have to give scriptural evidence that hell exists.

b. You have to give scriptural evidence that it will be non-Christians who will end up there.

c. You have to give scriptural evidence that hell is forever.

I’ll tell you right now, b and c will be tough for you. And of all three, b is the most critical, in my opinion. Imagine how embarrassed you will be if you show us that your own scriptures say there is a literal hell, but you are the one going there for your lack of love, compassion, and care for the poor.

I’m just saying...

5. The last rule is for me. Serious responses will be treated with respect. I have no desire to laugh at anyone or poke fun. I’m in earnest. I want to know how you justify your beliefs. I will feel free to post anything that is sent to me, but I won’t use your name if you don’t want me to. If I’m not satisfied that you made a good case, I simply won’t post it. You’ll have to trust me on this.

Bring me your scriptures. I want to know the truth. I’ve been reading the New Testament, looking for the truth about hell. I’m still doing my study, but maybe you can help me. Serious cases made by a serious students of the New Testament will be posted here. And I’ll invite you to come by and converse with us in the comments if you like. Or if you wish to remain anonymous, that’s okay too.

I have my reasons for doing this. I think it’s high time we got this whole thing out in the open.

Real Live Preacher