Another school shooting—this time at a private elementary school affiliated with a Presbyterian church in Nashville, Tennessee. According to police reports, the 28-year-old shooter had attended the school as a child, and targeted the school for as yet unknown reasons.

The shooter, born female, but self-identified as male on social media, was under care for some type of emotional disorder. The shooter had purchased seven firearms from five local gun shops, including two assault weapons, magazines, and ammunition. The shooter randomly killed six people at the school—three nine-year-old students, and three adults (a custodian, a substitute teacher, and the head administrator).

Beyond our feelings of outrage at gun violence and our grief for the families of those murdered, we want to know why. What was the motive to take such innocent lives? Why was the school targeted? Was it because it is a Christian school, or was it related to experiences the shooter had at the school while a student there? Was it related to the shooter’s gender orientation?

In the Introduction to my book, Spelunking Scripture: The Letters of Paul, I note how the Bible has been misused to support cultural conditions that are antithetical to the message of Christ. For example, the Bible has been misused to support slavery, and the subjugation of women, and the condemnation of persons of a different sexual orientation.

I don’t know if the shooter’s transgender identity was a motivating factor in attacking the school, but many who identify as LGBTQ feel attacked, legislatively and otherwise, by some who identify as Christian. Too often, the message of God’s love for all people has been subsumed by religious and political agenda.

It would be easy to dismiss the shooter as just an evil person, and what the shooter did was evil. But what led that person to commit such evil acts? And what can we do to reduce such evil acts in the future?

In the meantime, my prayers are with the families who lost loved ones. And I pray, as the song says, that they will know we are Christians by our love.