The prominent atrocities we have discussed in the past few blogs are no different that occur on a daily basis in our world. People are starving all the time in our world but Stalin’s use of starvation to kill the people of Ukraine gets all the headlines. This is similar to when a plane crashes. The crash fills the news but many more people are killed in automobile accident each year and those receive scant attention.
When we read of people starving or a crime being committed, we attribute that action to one or a few individuals. We tend to think that it is just a few individuals in our world are capable of committing such atrocities. However, when we look at the high profile cases of suffering we have documented, it is obvious that thousands of people were responsible for this suffering, not just the leaders of these countries. It was not just Hitler and his closest advisors who were responsible for the death camps. It took thousands of people to build those camps, outfit them with the barracks, gas chambers, and ovens, round up the Jewish people, transport them to the camps, and run those camps.
Now we might think that we in America are not capable of such actions but we did allow slavery to exist in our country for many years. During the war the United States fought in the Philippines at the beginning of the 20th century, atrocities were committed on both sides.[1] During the Second World War, we sent thousands of Japanese to concentration camps.
The lesson we hopefully will learn from history is that all of us are capable to the atrocities we have described. The Bible is so accurate in its assessment of our soul which is need of a thorough renovation that only God can bring.
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[1] Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex, New York: The Modern Library, 2002, p. 104.
