英文自修144：当仁应不让（Thought for the Day 20141010）
本系列内容英文原文取自BBC Thought for the Day节目网站，朋友们也可以下载节目录音收听。
转载、翻译：武太白
------------------------
Thought for the Day 20141010 Bishop Richard Harries
The plague that swept through Europe in the middle of the 14th century may have killed some 200 million people, up to 60% of the population. Even as late as the 17th century the great plague in London was responsible for 100,000 deaths, 15% of the population at the time. Indeed for most of human history it was assumed that plague, along with pestilence war and famine was just one of the things we were stuck with. Now, however, we take it for granted that epidemics, like the Ebola outbreak, which has so far killed nearly 4000 people, can and should be controlled. With the advent of scientific medicine in the 20th century we work on the assumption that we can eventually discover the cause of a particular disease and find a cure for it, and that with proper public health measures we can in the meantime control its spread. There could be no bigger contrast between the attitude of almost every previous age and our own. We believe the responsibility is ours. The ball is in our court. It’s not predetermined, it’s not fated. It’s down to us. We can do something about it.
There was a time when this line of thought seemed a threat to a religious view of life-at least to some people. They believed that the more it was our responsibility, the less it was God’s and vice versa, as though they were two actors competing for the same stage. But that is not how it is. The Bible is clear from the start that we human beings have been given real responsibility. Indeed that is what it means to be created. It is to be given a life of our own, to make something of, and a world to help shape. What is different about our time with its scientific medicine and the ability to take safeguarding measures on an international scale is our larger capacity, our greater responsibility.
And some reported words of Jesus seem particularly salutatory
Where someone has been given much, much will be expected of him; and the more he has entrusted to him the more will be demanded of him. (Luke 12, 47)
From a Christian point of view God not only holds us in existence, he works in and through human beings at all levels, especially those trying to respond to human need. And I think especially of that woman doctor in Nigeria, Ameyo Adadevoh, and her small staff team at an ordinary family clinic whose quick thinking managed to stop Ebola spreading from a patient they had diagnosed, so far limiting deaths in Nigeria to only 7. Four of the dead are health workers, sadly including Dr Adadevoh herself. Those choices, at both a political and personal level, literally make all the difference.
------------------------
14世纪中叶横扫欧洲的瘟疫可能夺走了2亿人的生命，是当时人口的60%。即便后来的17世纪，伦敦的大瘟疫也使10万人丧生，是当时人口的15%。实际上，人类历史的大部分时候都认为瘟疫，与鼠疫、战争和饥荒一样，只是我们遭受的多种打击之一。然而，如今我们毫不怀疑流行病——如本次埃博拉病毒的爆发已经使近4000人丧生——能够、也应该得到控制。随着二十世纪医药科学的发展，我们建立了这样的观念，即我们最终能够找到特定疾病的起因，并找到治疗的办法，而有了恰当的公共卫生措施，我们就能够在此期间控制其传播。我们自身时代和此前各个时代对此的态度差别实在太大了。我们相信我们负有责任。球在我们脚下。既不是预先定夺当如此，也不是命运。这是我们能够解决的。我们能做点什么。
曾有这样的时候，这种思路看上去是对宗教生活观的威胁——至少对一些人来说是这样。他们相信我们的责任越大，上帝的责任就越小，反之亦然，似乎这是两个演员在争夺同一个舞台一样。但实情并非如此。圣经从一开始就明确，人类是被赋予了现实责任的。实际上这也正是人类得上帝创造的意义所在，即被给予属于我们自身的生命，可使其实现些什么，也是被给予一个我们能够帮助形成的世界。不同的是我们的时代有医药科技，也能够在国际范围采取安全措施，这是我们的能力更大，责任也更大。
而耶稣说过这样的话，看起来特别像是在向我们致辞：
多给谁，就向谁多取。多托谁，就向谁多要。
从基督教的观点来看，上帝不但是我们存在，他还在各层面上作用于、并通过人类起作用，特别是通过那些试图对人类需要进行回应的人。就此我特别想到了尼日利亚的那位女医生，阿梅约·阿达德芙和她寻常家庭诊所的小小医疗团队。正是他们的快速思考成功阻止了他们确诊的一位病人的埃博拉病毒扩散，从而把尼日利亚埃博拉病毒的死亡人数控制在七人。其中四人是卫生工作者，也包括阿达德芙医生本人，这令人悲哀。他们那时的选择，不管是在政治层面还是在个人层面，事实上都完全改变了局势的走向。