KONY 2012: The Debate and Christian response.

Over 85 million people have watched the KONY 2012 video, put together by Jason Russell, so over 85 million people have heard about the atrocities of Joseph Kony, a Ugandan warlord who is responsible for thousands of crimes against mostly children. (Nota Bene: He has only committed dozens of different crimes, but there he is responsible for those crimes being done thousands of times.) He and his Lord's Resistance Army have terrorized African countries like Uganda.

The video itself is one of the most high-quality videos that encourages people to join a cause. Russell uses his personal life, popular beliefs and symbols (like the peace sign), emotional appeals, popular music, appeals to being part of a greater cause and many other Rhetorical devices to convince the watchers of his opinion. He incorporates references to technology and social media to tell his story (e.g. using a Facebook timeline to show his relationship with Jacob, showing that people are joining the cause with rising numbers of people joining the group on Facebook) to show that this new generation uses social media and technology to join together. He doesn't overwhelm the audience with facts and proofs, proofs and facts till they're bored to tears, and not doing that is also a Rhetorical device. The video is 30 minutes long (All right- 29:58 if you want to be exact), so he doesn't have to cram everything together; he has enough time to keep everything nicely spread out. He makes his plan very real, not vague, and he does an especially good job of showing concretely what the viewers of the video can do to help this cause.

About five years ago the group talking about the Invisible Children came and gave their presentation at my church. It definitely invoked my pity, but for some reason I think that the mention of The Lord's army was only passing, and I don't remember if they mentioned Kony by name. This video actually did more to motivate me then their entire presentation because it shows concretely how I personally can help and it makes me feel like part of a greater cause.

There is some debate about Kony, brought to light by Russell's video. Some areas of debate include whether Kony is dead or alive, whether the US has actually deployed soldiers to Uganda, and whether Kony's army has already done its worst. Some people claim that the whole thing is a complete scam. There have been some very strong reactions incited by this video.

But there is one thing that is not in debate; that the crimes of Joseph Kony are despicable, twisted and wrong.

The Bible tells us that God has given a conscience to all men to tell the difference between right and wrong. This is a perfect example of how all people will admit that some a actions are wrong.

"But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."