God. Real. Right.

A Jerry Johnson Live broadcast from June 9, 2008: An hour of phone calls and discussion about why people are reluctant to get involved in helping others, and why Christians ought to do it, even if it involves great personal risk.

…unless you are prepared to see a pedestrian violently hit by a car Friday evening, May 30th. The video has received a lot of attention not because it shows a 78 year old man, Angel Torres, being struck down by two cars racing or chasing down the wrong side of a two way street, but because it shows onlookers, some of whom clearly witness the accident, demonstrating inexplicable reluctance to step out and help him.
A captioned slideshow about Mr. Torres and the incident is available here, at the website of wsfb, a local news station. Now to be fair, the onlookers did not have much time to respond. The video shows a police cruiser happening on the scene less than a minute and a half after Mr. Torres is struck. And the onlooker who appears most disturbed also appears to behave (in slightly sketchy video) like someone who is confused and not sure what to do.
But with those caveats in place, not only are the witnesses irresponsibly reluctant to act, but so are a number of passersby in vehicles slowing down, looking, and moving on. One motorcyclist at least hesitates, slows, and finally returns to the victim just before the police cruiser arrives. Their reluctance to act exposes a problem in our culture and raises a moral issue no culture can afford to ignore. Read the rest of this entry »