The Tragedy of Triage
Medical doctors are often forced to make tough decisions: "Vital signs defining the colour-coded triage, T vitals . RR: respiratory rate; SpO2: saturation of peripheral oxygen (pulse oxymetry); HR: heart rate; GCS: Glasgow Coma Score; Tp: temperature; ICU: Intensive Care Unit" (Wikipedia).
"For what if some were unfaithful? Will their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? May it never be! Yes, let God be found true, but every man a liar. ...for all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God" Romans 3:3-4, 23). When we look at the shortcomings of people, we should realize that we are all that way: we all sin, we all "lack the glory that [we] ought to have from God" (Luther's translation of verse 23).
We are distressed when Christian leaders fail us by falling into sin. But we all have limited resources – physical (strength, health, time, money), emotional (pressures, stresses, failed relationships, etc.), and spiritual (sin and guilt, guilt-projection and self-justification). We are forced to choose what to do with our limited resources: should we be self-centered opportunists "looking out for number one," or should we be idealists "loving our neighbor as ourselves"?
There are casualties in war, often innocent people are injured physically, psychologically, or spiritually – these are interwoven in each person. Go to the article "Metropolitan Hilarion of Budapest sanctioned for 30 years" at our website link https://discover-original-christianity.info/Orthodox-Christian-Laity-and-Unity.htm to read about the one-time rising star in the Russian Orthodox Church, perhaps the next Patriarch, who was suddenly demoted and stripped of all his powerful positions for speaking out against the war:
"And in Russia, there are politicians who remind us [falsely] that our country has never lost in any war, therefore, 'whoever comes to us with a sword will die by the sword.' First, let's remember at what cost Russia [supposedly] won the wars. This price is millions of lives. Secondly, let's remember that every war brings incalculable disasters to people. We must also remember that the outcome of the war is unpredictable." Then, after being demoted for speaking out about the war, he was sanctioned by Ukraine, all for speaking out!
The term "triage" refers to the rationing of limited resources during times of war, plague, or natural disasters. If you do a search for this term or explanation, you'll find dozens of articles about the dilemma faced by doctors, nurses, and hospital administrators during the Covid-19 pandemic: do we use our limited resources – respirators, antiviral medicines, hospital beds, and short-staffed personnel – for the sickest people, or the elderly, or the youngest, or the most likely to survive? Should we "triage" the rest of the people – cull out those most likely to die anyway, or the oldest who've already lived a good life, or the poorest who have no ability to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep them alive... or those of another ethnicity or language that our country doesn't like?
Abbas Gallyamov, a former speechwriter for Vladimir Putin up to 2010, who has been living in exile in Israel since 2018, in the article "Russian military chiefs are losing patience with Putin and could soon turn on him in a coup, former aide predicts" is quoted as writing – "It must be understood that the vast majority of commanders in the army of an authoritarian nation are not staunch supporters of the authorities, but run-of-the-mill opportunists. As problems pile up in the country and the army, that the authorities are unable to solve, Putin is more steadily transforming in people's eyes from a great strategist to an ordinary, second-rate dictator."
Is that what opportunism is like? Is "doing the most good for the most people (including myself)" opportunism, or is it really an honest ethical dilemma? As you see from the above examples, this isn't just airy-fairy speculation: it has real-world consequences. Also, we are facing a population implosion – a "demographic winter" of limited numbers of young people to care for the disabled and elderly. China now is facing a decrease in its population, as is Japan, Russia, the United States, and Western Europe. The birth rate for stable population is 2.1 babies per woman, but if the birth rate falls below 1.6, that society will vanish in about two generations. For decades now, I've been warning about this but few people have responded: almost nobody wants to think about our own or society's eventual decline or death. Just this week, I've finished updating our sketches of "Agape Restoration Communities" – go to our short article on "The ARC's BRIEF OVERVIEW" that ends with a link to "The ARC" Chat/Video Forum.
We were created for community, for koinonia-fellowship, to share in the glory of God and to share His glory with others. But we have fallen short, we all have sinned, we have limited resources and abilities. What will we choose: to "look out for number one" or to love our neighbor as ourselves?
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