I recently watched this film and was profoundly disturbed, moved, and horrified by the scale and tragedy of the Genocide which unfolded in Rwanda between ethnic Hutu's and Tutsi's beginning in April 1994. In fact, more than 800,000 men, women, and children were murdered in Rwanda during this unbelievable reign of inhumanity lasting less than four months. This was among a population of less than 8 million!

There were several revelations about this event that struck me which I think are relevant to our examinations of religion and culture. The first is the fact that it was the French government who supplied the Hutu's with weapons and then they along with every other Western power refused to intervene in the prevention of this African holocaust.

What is interesting to me is that the French, who have been so vocal in their outrage toward America, and President Bush in particular over the U.S. initiative to liberate Iraq, seemed to have no Moral indignation whatsoever over the abandonment of a whole nation to barbarism. I would argue that this is the inevitable result of postmodern relativism that characterizes so many Western European nations today, and France chief among them.

In the absence of any Clear Moral Convictions these cultures have become indifferent to the oppression of others because they lack any absolute moral commitments. "Who are we to say that this or that is wrong?" Such cultures cannot even condemn the ideologies which lead to genocide. They certainly condemn genocide after the fact but then it is obviously too late. It is only when you are in possession of clear moral convictions rooted in a concept of absolute truth that you are compelled to intervene in order to enact justice.

Of course the French were not alone in their abandonment of the Rwandans; the U.S. under the Clinton administration was equally ambivalent in their response. In fact, recently declassified government documents show that this same lack of moral conviction and the resulting priority of politics over principal were dominating factors in the U.S. indifference.

What is so notable about the 20th century is that great physical power has been acquired by men who have no fear of God and who believe themselves unrestrained by any absolute code of conduct. I would add, if this "code of conduct" does not derive from God then who? History has demonstrated that there have always been many who are willing to author and impose their own moral categories and in every instance the results have been catastrophic. Will we continue to stray further from the truth or will we awaken to the inevitable disaster? Will we return to this one truth? - "I AM the Lord thy God, thou shall have no other gods before Me."