Editorial Note: The following is an excerpt from an essay entitled Once Upon a Time of Violence, originally published at Church Life Journal on September 9, 2019.
Given the large number of mass shootings over the past 20 years, and increase in the amount of extremist ideology advocating for violence being spewed online, a new [Quentin] Tarantino film, especially one about one of the most famous and grisly murders in American history [the 1969 murder of actress Sharon Tate, perpetrated by followers of Charles Manson], seems a good occasion for reviewing our moral and theological attitudes toward media violence.
