This past month, another mass terror event occurred. A young man, Mark Conditt, from a seemingly religious family1 and raised in a conservative area of the USA executed a destructive bombing campaign. He was able to conduct his nefarious activities undetected for several weeks even though he lived close to his family and had two roommates. Mark Conditt was called a loner.2 Nikolas Cruz, the Florida high school shooter, and Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas shooter, were also called loners.3
According to one writer loneliness has negative mental, emotional, and physical consequences. He wrote:
Science actually reveals that humans need close relationships, meaningful touch and loving emotional support in order to thrive physically.4
If this research is correct, all three men lacked close relationships even though none of them lived alone. This implies that physical proximity to people is not enough. Humans need emotional and spiritual companionship—relationships that invite and encourage the sharing of deep feelings and thoughts. One might call these heart-to-heart relationships.
Being alone is not necessarily a bad practice. Jesus often sought to be alone in desolate places to pray.5 But Jesus clearly had a proper motive—he was seeking communion with his heavenly Father. The problem with Mark, Nikolas, and Stephen was they did not have proper motives; therefore, their loneliness did not lead to fellowship with God but to malicious thoughts and actions.
Some might argue that the solution to loneliness is success. The pedestrian metrics for success are wealth, influence, and power, but these cannot solve the problem of human loneliness. Consider, for example, the redoubtable merchant banker John Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913). He was well known and had many friends and associates, including business and political leaders worldwide. He was very successful, based on the conventional metrics, and regularly enjoyed the physical presence of some of the most respected people of his day. But note some of his contemporaries’ comments about him:
He was a lonely man, carrying around a vast despair that he couldn’t share with anyone. His unhappy marriage probably plunged him deeper into business while also denying him the pleasure of his triumphs.6
He is very well and jolly by bits but sometimes I see he feels as lonely as I do and he looks as glum as if he hadn’t a friend in the world.7
Pierpont was a lonely man, and fame probably only deepened his isolation. His first biographer, Carl Hovey, wrote, “It is said there are scarcely fifty men in the financial district who have a speaking acquaintance with Morgan.” Pierpont had a wide business acquaintance, but few associates knew him well.8
Pierpont was married twice and had a family by his second wife. He worked with political, business, and church leaders. He was a civic and social leader and a prominent leader in his church. He was the senior leader of a rapidly growing financial services company with many partners and associates, and scores of employees. His company conducted business globally with offices in multiple cities and countries. He had four children and an extended family. To describe as lonely a famous, powerful, influential, wealthy, family person, such as Pierpont, suggests that loneliness is a trait that is far more than just a physical attribute, it is deeply spiritual.
Loneliness cannot be solved by the common metrics of success—fame, fortune, and influence—or by simply the physical presence of others. To address loneliness requires an internal connection with others—heart-to-heart. Loneliness is a symptom of a deep yearning to spiritually and emotionally share one’s most intimate thoughts and feelings with another. Pierpont had an abundance of success and companions in the physical realm but he lacked spiritual heart-to-heart relationships.
Pierpont, however, had one relationship that may have been heart-to-heart. At age twenty-four, he married Amelia Sturges, affectionally known as Mimi, a young woman who was terminally ill with tuberculosis. She died four months after the wedding, but Pierpont sacrificially served her through the duration of their short marriage and was deeply grieved by her passing. There was perhaps no other relationship in his life that was as deep and, in the end, as painful. One of Pierpont’s biographers noted the following:
The experience with Mimi may have taught Pierpont the wrong lessons—a fear of his best impulses, a need to stifle his deep-seated romanticism.9
Perhaps Pierpont’s pain drove him to hold back relational bonding with others and contributed to a life of loneliness. Four years after Mimi’s death, he married Frances (Fanny) Louisa Tracy. He did not seem to be as devoted to Fanny as he was to Mimi. Fanny bore four children. But Pierpont manifested an unbridled impulsive addiction—not as harmful as physically maiming or murdering others but relationally destructive. Instead of physical harm, he inflicted emotional and mental harm as illustrated by the following quote.
. . . it was Mimi whose memory Pierpont would cherish, while the “practical” marriage to Fanny would prove the fiasco, causing terrible pain to them both. Pierpont’s unrequited romantic longings would only grow over the years.10
Apparently, the pain of losing Mimi was debilitating to Pierpont and tarnished his marriage to Fanny. This unhealed pain manifested in many ways including fascination with the occult and marital infidelity.11 This led Pierpont to poorly steward his time, mental focus, and capital; consequently, both his family and business suffered.
Though the symptoms of loneliness manifested by the recent mass murderers were different from Pierpont’s, both were destructive. And both had a common root—living life without genuine heart-to-heart relationships. Some might argue that the shooters were on the fringe of society—misfits and losers—while Pierpont was a model citizen in many ways: a church leader, civic leader, social leader, business leader, and political leader. But he lacked heart-to-heart relationships, as well.
Loneliness is a symptom of a spiritual void. Heart-to-heart relationships can only happen based on Christ, that is, relating to others in accordance with God’s design. To relate to others based on God's design requires a Christian worldview of people and events, which provides the perspective and potency to connect in healthy heart-to-heart relationships.
God's design for people is to live interdependently. This is an innate need of all humans. Note the words of Scripture recorded of the first human beings:
Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." (Genesis 2:18 ESV)
The quality of goodness is a divine attribute.12 To say that something is good means that it aligns with God and conversely something that is not good does not align with God. Therefore, from the beginning, mankind was designed not to live alone but to live interdependently. This requires healthy families and communities marked, in part, by healthy interdependent heart-to-heart relationships.
The book of Proverbs stresses the importance of healthy interdependent relationships with this directive:
A wise man is full of strength, and a man of knowledge enhances his might, for by wise guidance you can wage your war, and in abundance of counselors there is victory. (Proverbs 24:5–6 ESV)
Recently, I heard a Bible teacher note that the above text doesn’t refer to just any counsel but to wise counsel—counsel aligned with the wisdom reflected in the book of Proverbs and, indeed, the wisdom reflected in all Scripture. This wisdom comes from a Christian worldview.
One indicator that a person is disconnected from a Christian worldview is loneliness—living independently without heart-to-heart relationships. Living an independent life will be an unfruitful life—a life of emotional, mental, or physical death and destruction. Whether one is a seemingly deranged person or a seemingly highly successful person, independence is a lonely life and an unfruitful life. Christians are called to live fruitful lives—to bear fruit that pleases the Lord. Note the words of Jesus:
By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. (John 15:8 ESV)
Bearing fruit that pleases the Lord does not make a person a disciple, rather it reveals that a person is a disciple. A true disciple is divinely empowered and has the personal responsibility to bear good fruit.13
True christians bear good fruit, in part, by living in healthy interdependent communities, that is, with people seeking to live aligned with the will and ways of God. This doesn’t mean that people can’t have alone time; Jesus modeled the proper use of alone time as a means of seeking the Lord. But as a maxim, life should be lived in the context of healthy communities. Godly people seek healthy interdependent relationships with others who will challenge them and hold them accountable to a life aligned with the will and ways of God. This is a high standard, but it is God’s standard and is the only way to truly defeat a life of loneliness.
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1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/21/us/mark-anthony-conditt-austin-bomber.html.
2. Ibid.
3. https://www.charismanews.com/opinion/69936-we-have-a-new-national-crisis-loneliness.
4. Ibid.
5. Luke 5:16.
6. Ron Chernow, The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance (Grove/Atlantic, Inc.), Kindle Edition, 49.
7. Ibid., 95.
8. Ibid., 139.
9. Ibid., 23.
10. Ibid., 23.
11. Ibid., 51, 113.
12. Luke 18:19.
13. John 15:1–8. 
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