Director, Commonwealth Policy Center

Murder is terrible. Throw a racist into a church pew in the midst of a Bible study and prayer time for an hour only to have him draw a gun and begin shooting indiscriminately is a horror. Our collective conscience has been seared by the unspeakable act of Dylann Roof. Many are looking for answers. Some for something to blame: guns, psychological imbalance, social isolation, etc. But inexplicable acts such as this remind us that there is real evil and it cannot be found where people seem to be looking. "The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart," said Soviet dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in 1973. Equally inexplicable to many in the mainstream media is that several victims’ family members met the confessed murderer in the courtroom and offered their mercy and forgiveness—a new idea introduced into a society that often embraces a bitterness and revenge fueled by secularism.