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The Drawbridge Keeper has been in circulation since December 1997. 30 years earlier in 1967 it was known as To Sacrifice a Son: An Allegory, a short story written by Dennis E. Hensley and first published in the Michigan Baptist Bulletin. Since then it has appeared in numerous forms, including as a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints video version produced in the mid-1970s. However, even the 1967 recounting is but a version of a much older story. Consider this form of the tale from 1884: The tale of a son sacrificed for the salvation of many is best classified as an inspirational parable. It attempts to render God's sacrifice of his son Jesus understandable on a more direct level by relating it in terms of an earthly father's anguish over having to make a comparable offering. As such, it's a teaching tool, nothing more. Asking if it's true is akin to asking if Goldilocks and the Three Bears was based on a real event. As a Jesus died for us parallel, the tale falters on one key point: Jesus did not go to his death as the result of an accident. Though the Heavenly Father did give up his son to save mankind (the way the drawbridge keeper sacrifices his child to spare the lives of strangers), the choice was not forced upon Him by circumstance. The death of Jesus Christ was predetermined; the Son was always fated to die for mankind's sins. Some scholars find that inconsistency a sticking point with this allegory; they say it debases God's planned sacrifice by presenting it as a spur-of-the-moment decision. The tale has another function besides that of religious allegory. It is sometimes framed as a question and used on philosophy tests. Another version involves one child playing on one set of tracks while ten children play on another set the train is headed for and asks if it is right to throw the switch, resulting in one death instead of ten. In that form of the question, the children are not known to the switchman, which removes from the equation the emotional factor of choosing between beloved family members and strangers. (If you're a philosophy student trying to ace an exam and can explain the reasons for your response, the correct answer is to leave the switch alone. By moving it you would be murdering those now about to die. If the switch is left in its original position, no murder will be committed even though deaths occur as a result of inaction. Those who believe in a higher power have a further philosophical reason for leaving the switch untouched; by changing the course of the train, they are usurping God's prerogative in deciding who is to live and who is to die.) Philosophy exams and religious allegories aside, the tale has achieved the measure of popularity it has likely because it leaves the reader asking himself what he'd do in a comparable situation: save the many at the cost of the one he cherishes, or rescue the one he loves at any cost. It's a question that takes the measure of a person.
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