Loughner, the Tucson murderer, is clearly crazy.  In an earlier blog post, I said Loughner represented an “anti-gospel.”  After reading some of the findings of the Secret Service study on would-be assassins, I think I can say that Loughner is anti-gospel, if not anti-Christ.  (I don’t mean he is the Antichrist or anything like that.  I simply mean his actions represent a polar opposite outlook from the gospel).  Here is an excerpt concerning the Secret Service study concerning folks like Loughner:

“It was very, very rare for the primary motive to be political, though there were a number of attackers who appeared to clothe their motives with some political rhetoric,” Fein says.

What emerges from the study is that rather than being politically motivated, many of the assassins and would-be assassins simply felt invisible. In the year before their attacks, most struggled with acute reversals and disappointment in their lives, which, the paper argues, was the true motive. They didn’t want to see themselves as nonentities.

“They experienced failure after failure after failure, and decided that rather than being a ‘nobody,’ they wanted to be a ‘somebody,’ ” Fein says.

They chose political targets, then, because political targets were a sure way to transform this situation: They would be known.

The study, in a sense, confirms what I stated in an earlier blog post, namely, that Loughner’s actions represent the anti-gospel.  Where Christ says discipleship (that is, following Him) begins with denying self, then taking up your cross, then following Christ, Loughner’s actions were just the reverse.

If he fits the typical profile of a political assassin, he did this for his own fame.  He did this solely for himself—to make a name for himself so that he would not be forgotten.  He wanted to be somebody.  So, he killed somebody.  In fact, he killed 6 somebodies. . .

Where Christ died so others might be given His fame, Jeff Loughner killed so that others would make him infamous.  That’s all.  For the reward of making his name known, he killed …  No wonder he got upset that one of his subduers was hurting his arm.  He made himself his own idol.  He was bloodthirsty for a name.  So, he robbed families of names they loved.  Jeff killed  John Roll, Christina Taylor Green, Gabe Zimmerman, Phyllis Schneck, Dorwan Stoddard, and Dorothy Morris to make sure someone would remember know his name.

Such action is clearly anti-gospel.  It is the spirit of anti-Christ in the sense that Christ offers exactly the reverse.  Christ died, laying down His own life so that others might enjoy the benefits of receiving His name.