Thanks to Rick for the link to Condi stepping out to call for some “tree shaking” regarding the genocide in Darfur. Until this is daily/nightly news, it will not garner the kind of attention needed to do something. Reminded me of the forward Bono wrote for Jeffrey Sachs’, The End of Poverty.
However, for all the book’s cogency, you won’t find an answer to the most important question of all. It falls outside regressions, theorems, field work and lands fairly, squarely on our shoulders. We can be the generation that no longer accepts that an accident of latitude determines whether a child lives or dies – but will we be that generation?” Will we in the West realize our potential or will we sleep in the comfort of our affluence with apathy and indifference murmuring softly in our ears. Fifteen thousand people dying needlessly every day from AIDS, TB, and malaria. Mothers, fathers, teachers, farmers, nurses, mechanics, children. This is Africa’s crisis. That it’s not on the nightly news, that we do not treat this as an emergency – that’s our crisis.
Granted, Bono writes about poverty. The same applies to those things which contribute to poverty and its dark consequences. Bono goes on and writes, “History will be our judge.”
Too long the church has washed its hands of tragedies of this magnitude. We too will be judged by history; and by the One toward whom all history flows.