The term is a punch line, a hyperbole for a misfortune or disaster so extreme that it should be in the Bible alongside the accounts of ancient plagues and wars. Scriptural scale, often manifested in five- and six-figure body counts, outstrips our daily frame of reference, fostering a detachment from the Bible. But when a mass killer sweeps a campus and claims 32 lives, our global village shudders and suffers. Biblical proportions, indeed.

We now have a case for the record books. Seung-Hui Cho's assault at Virginia Tech is the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. In writing the 1994 book, "Anatomy of a Massacre," I researched and chronicled what was then our country's worst single killing spree: October 16, 1991, Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas. During that attack, George Hennard fatally shot 23 people in five minutes, taking his own life in a restaurant hallway during an ensuing gunbattle with police.

In the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, the media have recycled components of "the mass killer profile" and "the warning signs." We need the reinforcement, because the dire information is accurate and recurrent. The prelude to Hennard's crimes mirrors that of Cho. Like Cho, Hennard was a bitter, suicidal loner, a stalker, and an aficionado of past mass killings. People who were paying any attention to him believed he was mentally ill, including his physician father.

As Episcopalians, do we keep the Bible on the shelf for now? A grab for scripture might seem too obvious, too automatic. Additionally, our church avoids proclamations of end-times or fundamentalist conclusions that calamities compensate sin -- again, pat responses to tragedy. We're not prone to saying "I told you so" in our church. But the Holy Bible is our book, too, and we can use it to cope with the Virginia Tech massacre without compromising our reason or the memories of the fallen and their families.

The Bible reminds us that we have a hard time acting on warnings. It is full of unheeded admonishments spanning centuries. Most are found in Old Testament prophecy of a chosen people destined to lose that status through their errors, to see their homeland and way of life obliterated. Warning signs, inaction, disaster ... this is the sequence of much of the Old Testament and the canon of the mass killer.

We may tire of the talking heads from law enforcement and forensic psychology invoking the mass murderer profile. But they are right. Cho gave his warnings, as did Hennard and James Huberty, perpetrator of the 1984 attack at a McDonald's in San Ysidro, California, which left 21 dead. The temple becomes a ruin, the restaurant a wasteland, the classroom a killing field.

Thankfully, the best of mankind balances our biblical and contemporary failings. "Love your enemies," Jesus insists in the Book of Matthew. While it asks a great deal of us to bestow such feelings upon Cho today, compassion would have been more forthcoming and beneficial before he pulled the triggers -- a tough love of aggressive mental health treatment that a well-documented confluence of teachers, fellow students, and the courts could not achieve.

Loving an enemy, an attacker, a destroyer is counterintuitive. It takes bravery and foresight, qualities more expected of guardians and warriors than the meek and the peacemakers of the Beatitudes. But reaching the kingdom of heaven or preventing hell on earth is a deliberate act. A safe society and a merciful solution for those who threaten it comprise a difficult but desirable outcome, as consultation with police, psychiatrists and the Gospels would confirm.

Why even speak of the Bible? Many understandably wonder, "Where is God in all of this?" It may be best to ask the people who walk with Him to the scene of the crime and the aftermath. One of the central characters of Anatomy of a Massacre is Jill Hargrove, victim assistance coordinator for the Bell County District Attorney's Office. Hargrove has told me many times that she could not do her job without her faith. Her job -- helping crime victims and their loved ones -- scaled up monstrously following Hennard's rampage, a post-event ordeal for families, first responders and entire communities that lasted long after the news crews had left. Hargrove thanks God for her unexpected strength, and the survivors of Luby's still thank Hargrove. When I wrote Anatomy of a Massacre more than 10 years ago, I was not a churchgoer. I accepted Hargrove's testimony as an author back then. I feel it as a Christian today.

"Biblical proportions" is not merely the stuff of clichés or Technicolor spectacles. It is an honest representation of real events in our very modern world. The Virginia Tech massacre qualifies for the term, leading us to the book itself for historic truths, timeless lessons, and God's healing power.