If The Left Behind series of novels were not enough to disfigure the Christian faith in the public square, now we have the television series Revelations, an obvious effort to cash in on the fears and heresies of American life. These entertainments are fed by dispensationalists and pre-millenialists who have swirled into public influence in the last decade. They present a fantastic, anti-biblical view of how believers are invited by the Jesus of the Gospels to wait for his return when he shall come in glory to judge both the living and the dead.
Perhaps more pointedly than anywhere in Scripture, Matthew’s gospel calls the church not to investigate apocalyptic events to discern when Christ will return, but to be obedient here and now. In the parable of the Last Judgment, where no one is left behind, we are divided into sheep and goats, and then Jesus tells us why. We have done the right thing (or the wrong thing) to him, as he is represented in real, historical time by his brothers and sisters, his “little ones” who were hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, and in prison. Some interpreters understand this to mean that the nations (gentiles or outsiders) will be judged by how they have treated members of the church. Other interpreters claim that this is a call to universal human obedience, and that all people of all religious persuasions will be judged (and received or rejected) by these criteria.
I remembered that parable and the differing interpretations when I read an editorial in the New York Times by Nicholas D. Kristof. He deplores the lack of action by this present administration on the genocide in Darfur. The President has taken no position on the Darfur Accountability Act or other bipartisan legislation to put pressure on Sudan for its complicity in what the U.S. Congress has named genocide.
Kristof does not come to this view dispassionately. He is of Armenian descent and has been invited to take part in 90th anniversary memorials of the Armenian genocide. But Armenian- Americans will miss the point if only the dead are honored, and they make no effort to try to save those being killed, raped, and tortured in Darfur, he says. Further, he catalogues the genocide that the United States has sidestepped (beginning with the Armenians under Woodrow Wilson in 1915).
He pleads for action now. He also writes that MTV, of all things, is raising the issue more openly and powerfully than the White House, and is covering Darfur more aggressively than most TV networks. In his view this constitutes a national embarrassment.
Even worse than an embarrassment, the silence signals a grave moral lapse for a pro-life administration. The silence is even more egregious when we remember that President George W. Bush has not concealed his trust in a divinely ordained vocation to save the world from tyranny. Yet in Darfur even the threat of the power of the sword or of military might could do a world of good to prevent the slaughter of 10,000 people a month. There are already 300,000 dead.
Further, this is one public issue on which Christians are united. From World Vision to the PC(USA), there are calls for action dating back a year or two. The matter is especially urgent now.
Kristof ends his editorial by describing three visits to Darfur, during which “the dispossessed victims showed me immense kindness, guiding me to safe places and offering me water when I was hot and exhausted. They have lost their homes and often their children, and they seemed to have nothing — yet in their compassion to me they showed that they had retained their humanity.” *
He concludes: “So it appalls me that we who have everything can’t muster the simple humanity to try to save their lives.” Make no mistake — our inaction appalls Jesus even more. We do not need to sift the signs of the end times, or be excited by fantasies about when He will return. We will be judged by whether we will have met the most simple, human test: Lord, when did we see thee naked, hungry, thirsty?
Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
* The New York Times OP-ED, Sunday, April 17, 2005, p. 15.
