What would you do?

When Larry Behrens was here 2 weeks ago he left behind a book he'd bought at the airport, Alive , the story of the Uruguayan rugby team whose charter flight crashed in the Andes in 1972, and ultimately 16 survived for 10 weeks.  The book is very detailed in its nearly day-to-day account, including the unhappy gore of the survivors' resort to cannibalizing those who had already died.  I remember seeing the book in high school but couldn't imagine reading it then.  

The book gave ample attention to the difficult decision the survivors had to make: to eat dead people, even bodies of their own friends, or die.  It was not an easy decision, and did not come without much argument.  It began slowly, as survivors kept praying and hoping for a rescue, and with almost no food at their disposal, began to suggest the unthinkable.  Even many days after the reluctant decision was made, some survivors would do the best they could to avoid partaking, and a few had to be at times coerced by others. 

Reading this, I couldn't help but compare the decision of these survivors to that of a Thai woman who, sees her children lacking in basic needs, or a parent with a serious disease that the local public hospital won't treat.  Assessing her potential income-producing the assets, realizes the unthinkable: her body by far has the most potential. 

There is an ethical difference here: no ethicists that I know of would say the Andes survivors did anything wrong morally, whereas you would find disagreement concerning prostitution, even in a desperate situation.  But even with that there is a major difference: the Andes survivors made a difficult moral decision to eat dead bodies to save their own lives, whereas some women I have talked to have made a difficult decision to sacrifice their own living bodies to save the lives of others.  These have stated, sincerely I believe, that they hated what they did, but that it was a necessary sacrifice.  And I have to say I respected them for it.

What would I do?  What would you do?  What does God think?

Of course, that's why we're here, so that fewer women such as one of our newer students who lost her husband 5 months ago leaving her with nothing but 2 kids to support, will have to make such a decision.  

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cikmuik
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mFsCsMNUbZi
Reply #6 on : Tue December 06, 2011, 02:07:25
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Rain
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qbuGtAFY
Reply #5 on : Sun December 04, 2011, 20:33:03
This piece was cogent, well-wrttien, and pithy.
Noah
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Deja Vu
Reply #4 on : Thu February 21, 2008, 20:48:10
Per CNN.com, a Jetliner with 46 people just crashed in the Andes.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/02/21/venezuela.plane/index.html
Noah
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Unsure How to Respond
Reply #3 on : Mon February 11, 2008, 21:08:48
I've been reading a book entitled "The Natashas" that talks about the sex trafficking in Eastern Europe. I'm absolutely sickened by the magnitude of this problem. I'm also sickened by the men who treat these women like commodities and who justify their sexual exploitations as "helping out poor women" while simultaneously satisfying their "natural desires"...as if they deserve to fulfill their sexual desires by robbing women of their dignity.

Story after story, the author, Victor Malarek, tells about women who were forced into prostitution. Many of the women stay in the business out of fear that their pimps will beat or kill them. Many women stay in prostitution to provide for their families.

The whole time I've been reading this, I've been thinking, "Where is the church? Where are BRAVE Christians who are willing to sacrifice their lives to help these women? How can we sit back and judge women as "sinful" because they're in lives of prostitution when WE are doing nothing to help them in their circumstances of poverty?"

Yeah, evil exists and that's a large part of what drives women into this industry. Poverty begets sin; sin begets poverty and the cycle continues over and over again.

However, evil exists, hard choices like prostituting or letting one's children starve exist exist partly because Christians (like me) have lived comfortable lifestyles completely separated from and oblivious to these examples of pain and suffering.

Jim - what you are doing is not radical, persay; it is what I believe Jesus wants us to be doing. It is what we should be doing.

I recently heard that the sex-trafficking industry has now surpassed the magnitude of the historic Transatlantic Slave Trade in terms of the number of people who have been sold into sex-slavery.

How easy it is for us to look back on the Transatlantic Slave Trade and say "My goodness, how could people have tolerated such a horrible industry?" as if it would have been common-sense for them to vehemently oppose the slave trade.

But what will our predecessors say about our generation and our reaction to modern-day slavery? Our generation MUST respond. Not only is it our responsibility to give money to support ministries like The Well; it is our responsibility to fight against human-trafficking -- to actually DO something. Honestly, in my heart I wonder if, when we get to heaven and we are asked what we did to combat human-trafficking, our Lord will be content with us saying that we gave our money to the cause. No doubt, giving is honoring to the Lord, but I wonder if He would have wanted more out of us -- perhaps for us to sacrifice our lives for such a cause.
Marie
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Your writing ability
Reply #2 on : Fri February 08, 2008, 10:21:27
I never noticed before, but you write well, and you have just used that talent to drive home an important point. That's a great analogy. It's so easy to judge the act of prostitution. Thank you.
Roy
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Re: What would you do?
Reply #1 on : Thu February 07, 2008, 16:35:55
Your question is a very difficult one. We can say what we think we would or should do. But I really believe that none of us knows what we would do until we are confronted with making the decision. Did Abraham ever imagine that he would put Isaac on an altar to sacrifice him? I think not.