Pastor David Kalamen

      It was March 13, 1964. I was twelve years of age when I heard about the death of 28-year-old Kitty Genovese in New York City. She was attacked by Winston Moseley, raped and stabbed, outside her apartment while police say at least 38 people looked on and did nothing. It made a significant impression upon my mind and heart.

      This became what many call “a defining moment” in my life, an occasion where my life’s path was undeniably shifted and altered. Sometimes those moments are created by internal changes – ideas, feelings, trauma; sometimes those moments are triggered by external circumstances that fundamentally impact your perspective on life. We all have them: demarcation points where things are different from that point on.

      March 13th was a defining moment, and I decided I would never be one of the 38 people who watched a crime occur and did nothing. The modern slogan that is often quoted in our culture is: “See something, say something.” Well, there are times when “saying something” is not enough: one must “do something.”

      In 1969, social psychologists Bill Latane and John Darley published a work entitled, Bystander ‘Apathy’ in the American Scientist to describe the event. The phrase “bystander apathy” was disputed as those around her had genuine concern but failed to act. The incident is generally referred to now as “the Genovese Syndrome” – meaning, “due to a diffusion of responsibility, each bystander assumes that someone else will act, leading to a lack of intervention by no one.”

      It is now 2025. I am 72 years of age. The Genovese Syndrome is alive and well, and from my perspective, thriving in a generation that has seen a very rare scenario become commonplace within our Western society. We see evidence of the damage non-intervention causes every day. A generation is quick to record events on their cell phones but slow to get involved to help.

      They hide their sense of conscience or cowardice behind a camera, some even with the intention to use what they have filmed to profit in the media. Unfortunately, this syndrome has created further challenges. In cases like the tragic New York subway incident involving Daniel Penny and Jordon Neely, those who attempt to intervene may even face retaliation, and sometimes, criminal and civil legal retribution.

      Our culture is more aware of the term, cognitive dissonance, defined as “the mental discomfort or tension that arises when a person holds two or more contradictory beliefs, values, or attitudes simultaneously.” This concept was introduced by psychologist Leon Festinger in the 1950s to describe the mental discomfort of holding conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. For example, when someone values health but smokes cigarettes, their behavior (smoking) conflicts with their belief (valuing health) creating cognitive dissonance.

      This tension between observation and engagement afflicts the Christian community too. The tragic part of cognitive dissonance, as it affects moral decisions and social-justice judgements, is that it usually results in a victory for amorality, or a withdrawal from decision-making completely. It becomes easier and easier for us to live with a subterranean hypocrisy, knowing and feeling what is right but allowing wrong to rule.

      We become socially conditioned to observe and not engage, to keep our opinions to ourselves and not speak up, to silently suffer wrong rather than fight for right. We become conditioned to allow evil to dominate and injustice to rule. We comfortably and conveniently package our convictions away. The social conditioning leads to compromise, and compromise always leads to conformity.

      Like the proverbial frog, placed in water that is gradually heated, the Christian is slowly cooked into irrelevance. Like the mighty elephant eventually controlled by a small stick in the ground, the strength of the Christian community is tempered and restrained. Like the once strong soldier, manipulated by constant pressure, who breaks under brainwashing, the Christian becomes the marionette in the puppeteer’s hands.

      All it takes is a little bit of leaven to affect the whole lump of dough. We would like to think that we are immune from the viral effect of dissonance or moral obfuscation, or that a little bit of moral compromise won’t hurt us a bit or affect anyone else, but they can and do. Moral concessions usually begin in small, insignificant ways, so it’s easy to underestimate their potential for damage. But this damage can be like a cancer that spreads to every part of our being and undermines the ability to stand up for anything.

      Compromise isn’t usually found in huge acts of evil doing. More than often, compromise starts in minor slips in integrity. The slope becomes slippery, and each subsequent act of compromise hastens the speed of the fall. Every little accommodation weakens the conscience and makes it more difficult to reverse the downward spiral. Conceding in one area often leads to giving in in another area, and sooner rather than later, a future is affected, sometimes irreparably.

      Lowering moral standards weakens character, corrupts good thinking, and affects everyone around us. It takes no effort whatsoever to drift with immoral currents. A native friend once told me that “only dead fish float downstream.” It takes moral resolve and energy to help an individual, a family, a community, or a nation advance morally.

      From my perspective, the principle of “recompense” should weigh heavily on Christian’s hearts. When we engaged in sin, we degraded society with our selfishness and narcissism. Sin not only affected and destroyed our life but caused immense collateral damage. If we have truly changed in coming to know the Lord Jesus Christ, our goal should be “to redeem through acts of righteousness what we previously destroyed through acts of sin.” This is true social recommendation.

      Sadly, many have abandoned the narrow road of convictions for the broad road of convenience, comfort and popularity. It takes character, the result of many defining moments, to resist the Genovese syndrome. Albert Einstein said, “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.”

      Senator Dan Coates said, “Character cannot be summoned at the moment of crisis if it has been squandered by years of compromise and rationalization. The only testing ground for the heroic is the mundane. The only preparation for that one profound decision, which can change a life or a nation, is those hundreds of half-conscious, self-defining, seemingly insignificant decisions made in private” (Readers Digest, June 1996).

      There is a story from Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. In this satirical novel, the protagonist, Lemuel Gulliver, finds himself in the land of Lilliput, where he is captured and tied down by the tiny inhabitants using numerous threads. That story illustrates that compromise does not have to be made of thick rope to cause liberty to be lost. All it takes is the ongoing lacing of the fine thread of making decisions not to stand up for what is right.

      Martin Luther King said, “If the moderates fail to act now, history will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamour of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” Today is the day to “act now” – to decide whether your life will be ruled by standing back and standing aside or whether you will engage your world by standing up and speaking out.