The first time I saw this photo I was devastated to the point of tears. I was shocked by its simplicity. It was not an artful piece of photojournalism by any stretch of the imagination. It was stark and shocking and its message hit me with tremendous force. I was browsing through an article about the photographer, Kevin Carter, and discovered that he’d committed suicide in despair after winning the Pulitzer Prize for photojournalism. It’s easy to understand his despair, even if I don’t fully understand his response. His award was for his work in Africa, work that drained him emotionally as he struggled to answer the question of why such atrocities as starvation and genocide are allowed to exist. It’s a fair question, and the answer has always been with us...but usually ignored because few want to own up to the responsibility that comes with it.Why would a loving God allow such a thing to happen? Only in our Christian faith can we find a satisfactory answer, an answer that has been provided to us in the second chapter of Genesis. And it’s in the answer that we learn that we’ve been asking the wrong question all along.
The right question, the proper question, should be, “Why do we allow it to happen?”
How quickly we forget that God has made us stewards of the Creation. We are our brothers’ keepers in every sense of the term. It’s a job that’s been entrusted to us since the moment God first breathed His spirit into Mankind. Yet it appears that so few of us are truly up to the task. When I think of all the wasted time and energy that some Christians put into attacking others, for wagging their fingers and pointing out how everyone else seems to be getting it wrong, I can’t help but think how much better our world would be if those same Christians put their time, money and energies into making the world a better place for the less fortunate, for “the least of these,” as Christ calls them. I can sympathize with the secular world for feeling hopelessly ineffective, but I cannot understand why so many Christians seem to think that death by starvation and disease is someone else’s problem. I find it terribly sad that even some of my own Christian friends feel this way. They simply shrug it off and say, in some form or another, “That’s the way it goes sometimes.” They’re saddened by it, but feel any singular effort on their part would go unnoticed anyway. I know this because I’m often one of those people, and it pains me to admit it. I do donate my time and money when I can, but I mostly feel ineffective, as though I am working alone and trying to fill up the ocean one drop of water at a time.
Yet the solution is simple, and these are the facts...
There is no excuse for any child dying in the manner of the child shown in this photo. Period. In this world today we absolutely have the resources, the money and the means to ensure that every single person on this planet is properly fed, clothed and sheltered. Every single one, without exception. The problem is that those of us in a position to help—the wealthy countries, and all the individuals who live in them, such as you and I—lack the collective will to fix the problem. We’re often too wrapped up in our own lives to look this sort of death and evil in the eye and commit to fighting it in a collective effort. We’re content to let it have it’s way elsewhere in the world, just as long as it stays out of our backyard, just as long as it stays out of sight in some country that’s too far away to worry about.
As Christians, what price will we pay for turning our backs? We'll be judged for ignoring these types of problems, you know. Christ tells us this in no uncertain terms in Matthew 25:37-40: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me… Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
When will people stop blaming God for allowing so many atrocities and start accepting the responsibility not only for fixing them, but for allowing them to develop in the first place? Surely we cannot fix all the world’s problems, but we cannot throw up our hands in despair, either. We often pray for God to help these people, and we forget that as God’s ambassadors on Earth, we are His hands...we are the answer to our own prayers!
When do we start asking the rights questions? When do we start accepting responsibility and start taking action?
We’ll have to answer these questions someday. What will your answer be?
I'll close with these verses from Isaiah 58:6–11. Please keep them in mind as you decide your course of action.
Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: “Here am I.
If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
And if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.”
The LORD will guide you always;
he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
like a spring whose waters never fail.
Africa is a continent on fire, and we are the waters that must put out the flames.
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