Article December 5, 1988 Issue

Answering the cry for freedom

When we hear about a hostage situation, what do we think and do? The Christliness of our response can make a difference.

Warren Bolon

Someone is abducted on a city street. A flurry of conflicting reports builds to a blizzard of news coverage, of probing cameras and interviews with diplomats, family members, friends. After days of no word from the captors, there's a demand for ransom or a claim of responsibility. Or there is silence, broken only by the crackling static of new rumors.

Whatever the depth of our religious convictions, at first news of a hostage crisis the heart naturally reaches out, even if only as wordless feelings of hope and compassion, for captive and family. When it happens overseas and the hostage is from our own country, feelings can run deeper. We may seek God's help with even more fervency as images of physical and psychological torture expand under the electron microscope of media coverage.

The accumulation of public curiosity and care gradually melts away, though. The sense of urgency is buried in the welter of new events. Our willingness to care enough to pray may flag as hostage situations, such as those of recent years in Lebanon, drag on.

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