Saturday marked the end of the longest span between domestic assassination attempts of U.S. presidents and presidential candidates since President Lincoln was killed at Ford’s Theatre in 1865. President Garfield was killed in 1881; Mckinley in 1901. Attempts were made at Theodore Roosevelt in 1912, Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, and Truman in 1950. President JFK was killed in 1963, and candidate RFK in 1968. Candidate George Wallace was shot and survived in 1972, and two attempts were made at President Ford in 1975. The most recent domestic assassination attempt prior to Saturday was over forty years ago when Ronald Reagan was shot and survived, and afterward quipped to his wife Nancy, “Honey, I forgot to duck.”
While the frequency of this violent history may be surprising, it does not diminish the horrific and evil nature of Saturday’s shooting nor the tremendous loss experienced by the family of Corey Comperatore. According to the New York Times, Comperatore died when he “threw himself over his family members to shield them.”
A former fire chief, Comperatore was also, according to his daughter,
…the best dad a girl could ever ask for. My sister and I never needed for anything. You call, he would answer… he could talk and make friends with anyone, which he was doing all day (at the rally) and loved every minute of it. He was a man of God, loved Jesus fiercely, and also looked after our church and our members as family.
Questions abound about this attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, from the motivations of the shooter to the seemingly unfathomable reality that the 20-year-old was able to reach an elevated position with direct line-of-sight only 130 yards or so from the President. There are also many “what might have been” questions about the president personally and the nation, with only shudder-inducing speculative answers. And there are the worldview questions that arise in historic moments like this, about the reality of God and the role of divine providence in national and international affairs, and about the human condition, especially the frailty of life and the moral significance of our actions.
As Dr. Al Mohler helpfully articulated in The Briefing, “…life and death can come down to the matter of seconds and to a matter of a millimeter.” The former president seems to also recognize that his survival was due to that level of precision, acknowledging to the New York Post, “I’m not supposed to be here… By luck or by God, many people are saying it’s by God I’m still here.”
That it is by God and not luck, Christians know for sure (and it seems, so does the President). At the same time, this clear teaching of Scripture, that God oversees the affairs of men, particularly in raising up and casting down those in power, is not easy to understand. Why would God spare the president’s life but not Mr. Comperatore? By all indications, Mr. Trump turned his head to a chart on a screen and was somehow saved. Mr. Comperatore made the decision to throw himself between his family and an assassin, and it cost him his life. How does that make any sense?
“Here,” Mohler continued, “Christians understand we have nowhere to go but the Doctrine of Providence… It is essential to our Christian understanding of the world.” God’s providence extends to every moment of human history, not just the seemingly exceptional ones. The world is never outside of His control, even when the outcome is not as we hoped. Put differently, the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 was providential for both England and Spain. The fog that enabled the Dunkirk rescue was providential for the British, the Germans, and the entire world.
And yet, just as essential to the Christian understanding of the world is the moral capacity of human beings and the meaningfulness of human actions. A Hindu leader once noted to theologian and missionary Leslie Newbigin,
I find in your Bible a unique interpretation of universal history, the history of the whole of creation, and the history of the human race. And therefore, a unique interpretation of the human person as a responsible actor in history. That is unique. There is nothing else in the whole religious literature of the world to put alongside it.
There is no conflict between God’s sovereignty and man’s moral responsibility. In fact, the alternatives would be far worse. If no sovereign God exists, then life and all that happens is random and meaningless, except for some preferred interpretation we choose to impose on it. If all is predetermined, either by “nature” or by some heartless deity, we have no cause to expect better behavior of ourselves or others. The meaningfulness of our actions and the constant presence and oversight of our loving Creator may be difficult to reconcile, but it is a far better scenario.
Thus we can say, both truthfully and meaningfully, that God graciously spared the former president, that the shooter’s actions were evil and heinous, and that Mr. Comperatore was heroic to protect his family. We can also, truthfully and meaningfully, judge the words and actions of ourselves, our leaders, and our press in response to this tragedy. We can act so that, by God’s grace, this kind of thing will not become normal. We can pray that, having lived through this attempt on his life, President Trump is brought to a place of gratitude to God and a sense of responsibility rather than a sense of entitlement. At the same time, we should pray that God’s grace and mercy cover the Comperatore family and that He will use His church to do so.
We should know also that our moral actions matter as well as citizens and voters who follow Christ. How God’s people respond to this telling and troubling political moment will either point this world to Christ or not. So, here’s a prayer for us all:
O Lord, we beseech thee mercifully to receive the prayers of thy people who call upon thee, and grant that they may both perceive and know what things they ought to do and also may have grace and power faithfully to fulfill the same; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. 
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Photo Courtesy: ©Getty Images/Anna Moneymaker/Staff
Publish Date: July 16, 2024
John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.
The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.
BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.
