Review: "Inside the Mind of a Teenage Killer"

"Inside the Mind of a Teenage Killer"
By Phil Chalmers
Nashville, Thomas Nelson, 2009
Completed June 21, 2013

I am not generally a reader or fan of "True Crime".  It tends to be very sensational or voyeuristic.  This book was on the resource table at a conference where Lt. Col. Dave Grossman was the speaker.  Lt. Col. Grossman's words are prophetic to my mind and I picked up this book on his recommendation.

This book once again reinforces the need my church has for a youth group.  As painful as it was, as disturbing as it was, I plowed through this book because there are two things that I need this knowledge for.  First, on behalf of my youth, I need to know what I am looking at when there might be a killer in front of me.  I don't want the youth in my care and in my flock to be at risk because I didn't do everything that I could to learn about what makes a killer kid.

The second thing I am taking from this book is the structure on how to build the antithesis of what it contains.  What?  This goes to the root of what good church does in our society.  The very things that Phil Chalmers has taken the time and the energy to document are the very things that the church and people of faith HAVE TO UNDERSTAND IN ORDER TO DECONSTRUCT THEM.  In other words, from this book can be taken the lessons of what a church needs to do to build a culture that undercuts those things that go into raising teen killers in today's society. 

I found his conclusions compelling because they are not simple.  And they resonate with my own experiences as a minister and as a father.  And he has taken a compassionate view with these kids that I bless him for.  But this book is not for the faint of heart.

Is the book without failings?  I could do without the reference at the end of every chapter to the resources Mr. Chalmers has documenting the cases in this volume in greater detail.  And I am a lot more of a liberal when it comes to my views and opinions on gun control so I am not as convinced by some of Mr. Chalmers suggestions (although it is fun to shoot).

The final question I took away from this book was how Phil Chalmers restores his own soul in the face of all evil manifested in all the kids he's interviewed and worked with.  He will be in my prayers.

SPOILER ALERT:  Chapter 12; "Raising a Killer in Ten Easy Steps", really got me.  Mr. Chalmers summarizes, step by step, the data he's presented through the book in a list written as a perverse primer on what parents should and ought to be doing to raise teenage killers.  He's very clear at the beginning and the end of the chapter that he is intentionally doing this but his aim is to make us "see reality through absurdity".  "Raising a Killer in Ten Easy Steps" could be a satirical self-help parenting guide, or, in my business, a twisted sermon series.  For me, it is going to become the framework on which to build the youth program for next year.