As most of you know, I am a youth minister in
Columbus, Georgia. For our Wednesday night classes we have been going
though a Christian ethics series. I begin every class with “How should a Christian respond to…”
and then I allow our teens to have an open forum of discussion. My goal isn’t to control or steer the
conversation but to allow opinions and views to come to the surface. After some mature, and civil discussion,
(our teens have really impressed me) we look at applicable scripture. We have discussed murder & nonviolence, abortion,
divorce & remarriage, and homosexuality.
We began our ethics series with this video:
What would you do? Surprisingly, most of my teens said that they would not turn
the wheel. They argued that if you
choose to turn the car you willfully enter the situation that you once had no
control over. What do you think?
Obviously this hypothetical scenario is
unrealistic, but it makes for some fun, lighthearted conversation. I intended it as so, because the later
topics (e.g. divorce, abortion) hit a little closer to home and become a bit
personal.
I have thought about this a lot and I have made up my mind:
ReplyDeleteI would not turn the wheel. I would kill the 4. I feel that if I turn the wheel I am actively choosing to kill that 1 person. If I don't turn the wheel there was no decision made by me... I let whatever was going to happen still happen.
I kept thinking about how inaction is just as much a decision as if I were to do something. That by witnessing the tragedy and doing nothing to make it less so, is just the same as if you acted to kill the 5 people, etc.
ReplyDeleteWhich I keep having to think about my tendency to do nothing about things. It's something I constantly struggle with. Being content with an "innocent" bystander approach.
Ethically though, it's difficult to judge one another's decisions to act or not act, because only God truly knows the heart of each man. Which your blogging has inspired me to write something about that very theme.
Thanks for your thoughts guys!
ReplyDelete