If you are an SAT verbal guru, you might know that the word “nefarious” is synonymous with wicked. What you might not know is that “Nefarious” is also the name of a documentary about human trafficking.

More importantly, a free — unless you want to give an offering — screening is coming to Biola on Saturday, Sept. 24, beginning at 1 p.m.

Film exposes human trafficking throughout the world

I took the liberty to leapfrog the rest of the Biola community by joining a few friends to watch a screening one week earlier at the Pasadena International House of Prayer. The film is well done and is by no means shy about exposing the heart-wrenching reality of human trafficking.

The story will begin in the former Communist bloc of Eastern Europe where a multitude of women are tricked or kidnapped, abused and trafficked. Corruption is prevalent as traffickers are able to, for example, bribe law enforcement and border control to avoid arrest. Traffickers even work with orphanage directors who show no qualms about supplying them with girls who become too old for the orphanage. In short, there is a failure of the rule of law.

There are other problems elsewhere. For instance, the Netherlands is a country that has legalized prostitution. “Nefarious” will feature an owner of a brothel who, like many of the Dutch, appears to have grown complicit and dull to the destructive side of the sex industry. Apparently, the Netherlands has experienced an ominous erosion of its moral fabric.

Meanwhile in Southeast Asia, there is a different problem: Poverty influences parents to sell their own children into sex slavery for income. In this case, the lack of economic freedom, stifles job creation and suppresses the human drive to generate wealth and opportunity.

Human trafficking a complex issue

These three democratic institutions — the upholding of the rule of law, a robust moral fabric and preservation of economic freedom — are necessary for a solution. Yet, they are not sufficient.

Human trafficking is a complex issue. The solution is multifaceted and goes beyond just passing laws. There must be awareness, understanding, financial resources and all forms of human capital. Most of all, it takes a praying church to loose the supernatural work of God to make the wrong things right.

Hope for future justice

Certainly, it is a fallen world, but there is always hope. It is not an empty, rhetorical hope, but a real, living hope founded upon the truth that King Jesus is returning one day to fully and forever establish his throne of justice and righteousness.

Not only do I long for that appointed time, when everything nefarious is exterminated, but I also want to be a part of the epic story — his story — that is now unfolding before our eyes. And I invite you to participate too.

So step outside the Biola Bubble, as I urged in a previous Chimes article, and “awaken to a world of new perspectives,” as other opinion pieces have encouraged. The upcoming “Nefarious” screening is an opportunity to do just that.