Pulse
1 April 2024
One of the most engaging movies on Netflix that I’ve watched recently is Society of the Snow, a 2023 survival drama directed by J.A. Bayona. This film is based on the true story of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 which crash landed on October 13, 1972, in the Andes mountains on its way from Montevideo, Uruguay to Santiago Chile.
The flight had 45 people on board, nineteen of whom were members of the old Christians Club rugby union team. The other passengers were friends and family members of the team.
After being stranded for 72 days, 16 passengers of the flight survived and were finally rescued. However, due to minimum food supply, the survivors had to resort to cannibalism in order to stay alive.
Like the actual events in 1972, this movie raised questions about the legality and ethics of cannibalism – even if it is the last resort taken by a group in a very dire situation.
In its review of the film, the film industry magazine Variety states that ‘there’s more discussion and debate around the group’s last resort turn to cannibalism … concerned about a lack of consent from the dead … than any depiction of the act.’
Speaking to BBC’s Talking Movies in 2023, one of the survivors, Carlitos Páez – now 70 years old – explained the trauma of survivors as they made the decision collectively:
You have to live through the process of 10 days of eating nothing, knowing that rescuers had stopped looking for you. We felt we had the right to life and the right to go back home, we didn’t want to be in a film on Netflix or in Hollywood, we wanted to go home.
From Páez’s perspective, the decision of the survivors would be one that most people would make if they were in the same circumstances. He says:
When I speak at conferences, I ask people to raise their hand if they wouldn’t do it, and no one has every raised their hand. Not one.
What is the Christian position on cannibalism? From the standpoint of Christian ethics, is the cannibalism of the survivors of the plane crash in 1972 morally permissible?
THE BIBLE AND CANNIBALISM
When we scan the pages to the Bible to look for passages that explicitly prohibit the practice of cannibalism, we will be hard put to find one.
However, in order to deal with this subject, we must not simply look for chapter and verse that prohibit the practice. We must begin at the beginning, as it were, and examine what the Bible has to say about the dignity and value of the human person.
In the opening chapters of Genesis we find the account of the creation of the first humans – Adam and Eve – and its description of these special creatures of God. Human beings, we are specifically told, are created in the image and likeness of their Creator.
Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them (Genesis 1:26-27).
Human beings are distinguished from the other creatures that God has brought into being because they alone are given the privilege of bearing the divine image. Thus, human beings possess a special dignity, and human life has a special sanctity and value.
For this reason, murder is strictly prohibited. We find this injunction in the sixth commandment, which states: ‘Thou shall not kill’ (or, ‘Thou shall not murder’ [NIV]) (Exodus 20: 13). The connection between the prohibition against murder and the fact that humans are bearers of God’s image is made clear in Genesis 9:6: ‘Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image.’
This suggests that murdering a human being for any reason is prohibited by Scripture.
While there isn’t a passage that explicitly prohibits cannibalism, there are several that refer to the practice (Leviticus 26:29; Deuteronomy 28:53-57; Jeremiah 19:9; Lamentations 2:20; 4:10; Ezekiel 5:10). In each case, the practice is regarded as a terrible curse and an awful degradation.
The picture that emerges from the teachings of Scripture on the dignity and value of a human being, and its general abhorrence of cannibalism in general is fairly clear. Just as the Bible prohibits murder, so it forbids the practice of cannibalism.
IS THERE AN EXCEPTION?
The question that must now be addressed is: ‘Is there an exception to the rule regarding cannibalism?’ Are there situations where cannibalism is morally permissible, even if the practice must be regarded as repugnant?
As far as I know, there is no consensus among conservative Christian ethicists on this question. There are some who believe that cannibalism should not be practiced under any circumstance. But there are others who are of the view that in very extreme circumstances, when there is absolutely no other alternative, cannibalism is justified.
Before we return to the story of the survivors of plans crash in 1972, we must discuss the distinction between homicidal cannibalism and necro-cannibalism.
Homicidal cannibalism has to do with murdering someone in order to cannibalise him or her. Necro-cannibalism, on the other hand, is to eat the flesh of someone who is already dead.
Without doubt, Christians of every stripe would reject the practice of homicidal cannibalism as morally repugnant. Homicidal cannibalism should therefore be prohibited without exception. Thus, in the case of the survivors of the 1972 plane crash, the following hypothetical scenarios would be morally unjustified:
- It is morally unjustified for the group to choose its weakest member, kill them, and then cannibalise them.
- It is morally unjustified for the group to kill and cannibalise a member who has volunteered to sacrifice his or her life in order to ensure the survival of the group.
- It is morally unjustified for the group to agree to cast lots and kill the member who drew the short straw, as it were, for their sustenance even if this approach is agreed upon by every member of the group.
But what about necro-cannibalism – which in fact was what the survivors practiced? Is it morally justified for the group to cannibalise one of its members who has died due to either starvation, thirst, injury or the cold?
We must bear in mind that they have no alternative source of food, and they do not know when the rescue team will reach them, or if the team has given up the search.
I am inclined to think that it is morally justified for the group to practice necro-cannibalism in this case.
However, I must clarify that to allow cannibalism in such a case is not to invalidate the abhorrence the Bible sets forth for the practice. It is certainly not to ‘normalise’ or even ‘glamourise’ cannibalism as some secular neo-liberals seem to be doing.
From the Christian perspective, cannibalism must be regarded as sinful and tragic, even if it is permissible as the absolute last resort, and in a situation where no alternative is at hand.
Some Christians worry that such a stance signals the abandonment of deontological ethics and a slide towards consequentialism or utilitarianism.
While these concerns are important, it must also be pointed out that Christian ethics is a multi-faceted system. In making moral or ethical decisions, Christians who wish to uphold biblical commands and principles must invariably also consider the circumstances in which the decisions are made, and the consequences of those decisions.
A Christian who takes the prevailing situation into consideration in making ethical or moral decisions is not necessarily a situational ethicist. Likewise a Christian who is cognisant of the consequences of moral decisions is not automatically a consequentialist or a utilitarian.
Moral acts are indeed complex. Take for instance, the ethical issues that arise in the case of a Christian intentionally killing another Christian in the context of war, even if it is a just war.
In the aftermath of the 1972 crash, two spokespersons for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York told The New York Times (December 28, 1972) that the survivors ‘acted justifiably’ when they ate parts of the bodies of their dead companions to ensure their own survival.
Msgr. Austin Vaughan and Rev. William Smith, professors of theology at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, said in a statement that ‘A person is permitted to eat dead human flesh if there is no feasible alternative for survival.’
However, the complexity of this issue and the lack of consensus show that this topic deserves more attention from Christian theologians and ethicists than it has hitherto received.
Dr Roland Chia is Chew Hock Hin Professor at Trinity Theological College (Singapore) and Theological and Research Advisor of the Ethos Institute for Public Christianity.