Louisville Process Theology Network

The Meaning of Sacrifice, I

Feb 09, 2006

It seems to some of us that Iris Chang died for our sins almost as surely as Jesus did; strange as this may sound to most of our friends. Maybe five percent of the people in the United States have ever heard of Chang, while 99 percent have heard of Jesus. Let's begin with a little more information about Chang and her work.

Iris Chang was the much acclaimed author of "The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II" and a tireless advocate for justice. To say that she was passionate for justice would be an understatment. Unable to take comfort in the honors her book brought, she confronted anyone who dared minimize the horrors her book recounted.

It's estimated that 260,000 people were killed in Nanking by the Japanese army in WWII; many gruesomely tortured. Japan has naturally tried to bury this story over the years, meanwhille concentrating on their own suffering from the atomic bomb attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that ended the war.

But, Chang would not allow the Japanese or anyone else in the world to forget Nanking. Her own grandparents had fled the city in 1937, and she just could not forget those who were trapped and tortured there. She told their story countless times to television viewers and lecture hall audiences, and she was a fiery speaker.

To be continued.