Confronting the Ugly Truth

In April of 1994, the African country of Rwanda entered into what today is referred to as genocide. Over the course of one hundred days, about eight hundred thousand Rwandan lives ended at the hands of their fellow countrymen, and the world watched in silence. Facing the facts proved too horrific for the Western World. Realizing that a solution would cost much caused the United States and Europe to turn a deaf ear to the cries for help. While some knew the truth and chose to ignore it, others chose never even to learn the truth. 1994--just fifty years after the Holocaust, yet people still chose to ignore. Someone once said that the opposite of love is not hate but apathy, just not caring.

When will we stop passively reading about injustice from a history book and start involving ourselves as part of the solution to current issues regarding the suffering of others? From North Korea to Sudan, genocide still exists. In addition to victims of genocide, today, an estimated 27 million people (according to UNICEF), both adults and children, find themselves caught in slavery. That number far exceeds those in slavery during the 1700s and 1800s. While evil will always exist, we do not have to fold our hands, shut our ears, and content ourselves with the erroneous idea that the problem is too overwhelming or that the issue doesn't directly affect us. We don't have to not care. In fact, not caring contradicts the very character of God. In Psalm 10:17-18, the psalmist reveals God's actions toward those suffering injustice: "O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline your ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more" (ESV). Perhaps part of the reason for our collective apathy is that the truth is just too difficult to swallow, but swallow it we must. In the words of the Director of International Justice Mission Gary Haugen, "Any serious contest with evil requires a painful confrontation with the truth."