Colin/Colette the abandoned humpback whale calf that ended up in Sydney Harbour this week just gone has had Sydney abuzz. The city seems to have been polarised by debate over what should or shouldn't have been done for Colin. No matter which side of the fence you were sitting, the news on Thursday that Colin was to be put down was deeply upsetting. On Thursday night I sat on the lounge with a weeping child on each knee as we mourned the decision that had to be made. Ladybaby in particular was moved by Colin's plight and she kept shouting "But it's not fair! They shouldn't be killing him; they should be looking after him".
Colin's plight and his eventual death has tugged at the heartstrings of people everywhere. One lady whom I have never seen before bailed me up in the stationery aisle at Coles to tell me what b******* they are at the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
Two things occurred to me in relation to Colin.
If we are, as the evolutionists believe, nothing more than the end product of a random biological process in which only the strongest and fittest survive, then we have no business grieving over Colin. He is the result of a natural process; Darwin's theory in practice and nothing more nor less. Colin's abandonment and demise should barely cause a ripple in our pointless, materialistic, live-for-now-cos-there's-nothing-after mentality.
But that clinical detachment was sorely lacking in the news, in the faces of those on Pittwater devising ever more schemes for saving Colin. There was no "well that's just the way it is" in the actions of the guy who bought all the milk he could find and poured it into the harbour in the hopes that Colin would somehow derive nourishment from it. Chickabid and Ladybaby, as young as they are, *knew* that what was happening was an abomination.
I put it forward that it is because we are NOT the end result of a random evolutionary process that Colin's plight so disturbed us. We are human beings created in the image of God...the same God who made the whales. We, as human beings, were given dominion over the animals by God (Genesis 1:20-31). We were instructed to look after all that God had made, to use it wisely and well, and to be good stewards of all He gave us. The reason that we all felt like we should do something about Colin is because God gave us the responsibility to care for the fish of the sea, the birds of the air and all the creatures who crawl along the ground.
In the perfect world that God created "Colin" could never have happened. But when sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, God's perfect world was broken. Colin's death is a consequence of that sin, of that broken world. It wasn't fair. It shouldn't have happened. It is an abomination. It is a reminder that rebelling against God has serious, far-reaching consequences and it should cause us to take pause and ponder our own mortality and our own attitude towards God.
Some would blame God and berate Him for allowing it to happen. Others would claim that it is evidence for there being no God at all because if there was He wouldn't allow this to happen. I say that our very response to Colin points to the existence of God, the reality of sin and its far-reaching consequences.
The other thing that I wanted to say was brought home by a caller to 2GB and it put the whole Colin episode into stark perspective.
In the five days that Colin languished in the Harbour, over 1100 babies were aborted in Australia. 1100 babies who would have been willingly adopted into Australian families had they been brought to term. We drive past an abortion clinic every time we go to church. I wonder how many babies lost their lives on Friday in that clinic? I wonder how much pain they suffered in being ripped from their mothers? I wonder why *that* doesn't make the front page of the daily papers? It is to our collective shame that it doesn't.
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