Illustration: Apathy

By John Gaines, Antioch congregation, Snead AL

Winston Moseley died a few days ago. Few people would recognize his name. The 81-year-old man spent the last 52 years of his life in prison. In 1964, Moseley stabbed to death a young woman named Kitty Genovese in a brutal, gruesome killing.

What got people’s attention was the fact that there were 38 witnesses who watched Kitty’s murder, and no one did anything to help her even though she was screaming, “Help me!” It was only after she was dead that anyone bothered to call the police.

One of the witnesses later told law enforcement authorities, “I didn’t want to get involved.” (Washington Post, April 5, 2016).

This updates an illustration about apathy or indifference that some of us who have preached for a while may have used before.