John 15:13 (KJV)

¹³ Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

I know this refers to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross but I think that also means that we are expected to care about and for one another.

Today I read two articles that address many of the issues I spoke of yesterday.  The articles dealt with bystanders who witness the commission of crimes and yet do nothing.  They address the issues in very different ways but there is an underlying message I think we can take away from both.

The first article I read was posted by Chicks on the Right.  It discusses a video recently made by the Defense Department’s Defense of Equal Opportunity Management Institute, to provide training to people who might witness an assault or other crime taking place, on how they can intervene.

The video is about bystander intervention.  The premise is set using a horrendous crime in the 1980s that resulted in the murder of a woman.  Dozens of people had “witnessed” all or part of the crime, yet failed to intervene.  The video goes on to outline a nine-step plan to “teach” us how to intervene.

The problem with setting the stage with a violent sex crime and then addressing intervention into harassment in the workplace makes absolutely no sense, however, I believe the entire video is a demonstration of just how differently the two world views operating in our world today see reality.

The COTR address the video with a bit of humor and sarcasm by pointing out just how ridiculous it is to use the nine point intervention plan when responding to a violent crime in progress.  The satiric video included in this post also does a good job of pointing out how absurd it would be.

I think the video and its nine points fails to recognize a couple of important points.  First, there is evil in this world and there always will be.  It does not matter how “nice” we are or how we structure society.  Evil will always exist.  Second, we have, as I said in yesterday’s post, outsourced the things Christ encouraged us to do.  Therefore, we tend to think “someone else” will take care of this.  That someone else sometimes never shows up…..or shows up too late.

The second article, Steubenville and Our Society of Bystanders probably caught my attention because of the word bystanders.  It is an excellent article that discusses the horrific crime committed by two boys in Ohio.  I watched the news coverage of their sentencing and remember thinking, “how many other people watched this happen, and assisted with spreading the filth on social media?”  How many?  How could they?  WHY did they?

Again, I believe these are the unintended consequences of a Progressive world view that holds that there is no transcendent source of Truth; no unchanging moral compass.  The Progressive wants everyone to feel good and be free to do what is “right for them.”  They believe that if the intelligent elite structures society in just the right way that “Men will stop raping because they are asked to stop.” You, therefore do NOT need a gun to defend yourself. They believe if we are nice enough to other countries who hate us and apologize for past mistakes Global Peace will be ushered in.

They BELIEVE that.

The article about the two Steubenville football players who mercilessly raped a teenage girl, then spread pictures and videos of themselves throughout social media states:

We are increasingly becoming a society of bystanders—making media of human suffering, filling our hands with cameras, phones and typepads so that we have no free hand to lend to those who need it most.

Our inclination to stand by and do nothing in the face of human injustice is a a beastly epidemic, fed by the ease of unfiltered social media use and the artificial distance created between digital “reality” and moral repercussions. So we report and even consume news of women being raped, children being bullied, nations being oppressed, standing by, out of the way, and doing nothing to stop such incidences from happening again.

As this indicates, we need to not only intervene instead of standing by when something is wrong in our personal sphere, but also in a broader context.  As Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin says in the video below: “stop using Biblical prophecy as a reason for not doing anything. This, of course, refers to the broader context and it is something I’ve discussed in previous posts.

It is difficult sometimes to know what it is that God would have us do.  What makes it more complicated and confusing is the Social Justice movement that has invaded our churches…but that is another subject for another time….
Which brings me to one of my favorite SkitGuys videos.

“Feed my sheep,” Jesus says to Peter.  In following this command, we therefore spread the Word of God and become Christ’s hands and feet in a suffering, fallen world.

It also means we do not stand by and watch evil triumph.  Peter finally understood and did what Christ asked him to do.

Let us go forth and do likewise.