Accidents can happen. But what happens after they have happened? A young woman driving along the road noticed a red vehicle by the roadside and next to it a teenage girl waving for help. When she stopped and left the car, she was robbed. The police recommends to single drivers not to stop in similar situations but carry on and inform the nearest station either personally or by telephone.
It leaves a question. Where have we got in our society that mistrust must prevail when help is being asked? Social attitudes become increasingly exploited, materially as well as morally. It is a crime in more than one sense.
To exploit a person’s willingness to help while there is actually no need to do so amounts
a) to anti-social behaviour and
b) is highly destructive.
Because our education reminds us that we are told “Give when you are asked to do so” (Matthew 5.42).
Whoever grants help in whatever form applies practical love, trusting in the written or unwritten social contract among people. To exploit such trust for selfish purposes is abusing a valuable social element, thus diminishing the already weak solidarity on which we all depend. In consequence citizens grow suspicious and wonder whether or not a request for help turns into a dirty trick to be used for dirty purposes. Which in turn leads to a decrease of solidarity, because nobody likes to be cheated instead of being thanked.
Let’s hope that the voice of the Bible and/or the soft voice in our heart will be strong enough to make us still follow their advice and continue to grant help even if our trust may be misused. – However. One of Germany’s prime ministers, known as a stout protestant, was recently complaining that his subjects had lost their primary trust (Urvertrauen) in him as their Father of the Land. Somebody like him with his Christian background should weigh his words with more caution. How can he as a human being expect a fellow human being to put his or her trust in him as if he were equal to the maternal origin from which all life emanates and which could therefore provide safe ground for trust even in critical times when social conditions demand more solidarity, when society lacks charity and warmth, even when “men have prepared a net to catch me as I walk … they have dug a pit in my path…” (Psalm 57.5).
To have access to religious realities allows a person to participate in the creative process that promotes life. It calls for social attention and helps compensate social disappointment. The symbols of human integrity remain valid in all religions and in all truly human activities, even when hostile factors threaten to undermine trust and to discourage the believer.
