Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter.  If you say, "But we knew nothing about this," does not he who guards your life know it?  Will he not repay each person according to what he has done? (Proverbs 24:11-12).

Even now, more than six decades after the conclusion of the Second World War, the Holocaust is a touchy subject in Holland.  They were hit hard by Adolf Hilter's campaign to "cleanse" Europe of its "impurities."  From an outsider's perspective, it seems there is a pervasive pan-generational sense of pain, anger, and guilt for what happened in Western Europen in the early 1940s.

I think a lot of the malaise comes from the societal recollection of what happened to "those staggering toward slaughter."  I know:  It's hard and dangerous for me to judge the thoughts and motives of people from a different culture, from a different era, living under much different circumstances -- but celebrated Dutch historian Geert Mak has published much the same sentiments:  "The war years were hard, the dilemmas sometimes almost irresolvable, and it befits generations that had no part in this period to be cautious in their judgment.  It has to be said, however, that this phase of Amsterdam's history offers little scope for self-congratulation.  Most Amsterdammers were anything but resistance fighters.  With their families they tried to avoid the perils of occupation as far as possible, and that was all... Despite the heroic work of some individuals, no form of resistance was such an abject failure as that against the deportation of the Jews... The guilt of the idle spectator still hovers like a cloud over the entire city."

Hindsight, of course, is 20-20.  The real question is how are we going to do things differently in our day and age?  How can we follow the instruction of Proverbs 24:11, to "rescue those being led away to death" and take action on the instances of injustice and inequality of which we're all aware (albeit shoved all the way to the back of our consciousness)?

There are two classic (and current) responses to these biblical imperatives to help the needy.

The first classic Christian response is to assume that verses such as Proverbs 24:11 are talking purely (or at least primarily) about spiritually-needy people, who do not know or follow the God of the Bible and are effectively staggering off toward an eternity apart from God in spiritual darkness.  Practically speaking, the call-to-action in this response is to share the Good News of Jesus, verbally, with as many people as possible and keep returning every conversation to the centrality of our spiritual well-being.

The second classic Christian response is to assume that verses such as Proverbs 24:11 are talking purely (or at least primarily) about physically-needy people, who are literally being victimized by genocide, slavery/human-trafficking, homelessness, poverty, famine, or any other type of social injustice in our world today.  Practically speaking, the call-to-action in this response is to organize protest rallies or public awareness campaigns, to volunteer in soup kitchens and homeless shelters, and so on.

For some reason, people who tend to respond in the first way often find themselves arguing with people who tend to respond in the second way -- and vice-versa.  There's some kind of (usually unspoken) assumption that the two responses are mutually exclusive.  However, I would suggest from my reading of the Bible, that we need to keep a balanced perspective, trying to rescue both spiritually-needy and physically-needy people.  Because the fact of the matter is that both types of need are very real and very tragic.  They all fit the circumstances of Proverbs 24:11 and thus all deserve our consideration.

So here's the real question:  Who do you know that might be currently staggering toward slaughter?  And what are you going to do about it?