Posted on 08/06/2014 1:07:12 PM PDT by Kaslin
I wonder how the Ebola doctor feels now that his humanitarian trip has cost a Christian charity much more than any services he rendered.
What was the point?
Whatever good Dr. Kent Brantly did in Liberia has now been overwhelmed by the more than $2 million already paid by the Christian charities Samaritan's Purse and SIM USA just to fly him and his nurse home in separate Gulfstream jets, specially equipped with medical tents, and to care for them at one of America's premier hospitals. (This trip may be the first real-world demonstration of the economics of Obamacare.)
There's little danger of an Ebola plague breaking loose from the treatment of these two Americans at the Emory University Hospital. But why do we have to deal with this at all?
Why did Dr. Brantly have to go to Africa? The very first "risk factor" listed by the Mayo Clinic for Ebola -- an incurable disease with a 90 percent fatality rate -- is: "Travel to Africa."
Can't anyone serve Christ in America anymore?
No -- because we're doing just fine. America, the most powerful, influential nation on Earth, is merely in a pitched battle for its soul.
About 15,000 people are murdered in the U.S. every year. More than 38,000 die of drug overdoses, half of them from prescription drugs. More than 40 percent of babies are born out of wedlock. Despite the runaway success of "midnight basketball," a healthy chunk of those children go on to murder other children, rape grandmothers, bury little girls alive -- and then eat a sandwich. A power-mad president has thrown approximately 10 percent of all Americans off their health insurance -- the rest of you to come! All our elite cultural institutions laugh at virginity and celebrate promiscuity.
So no, there's nothing for a Christian to do here.
If Dr. Brantly had practiced at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles and turned one single Hollywood power-broker to Christ, he would have done more good for the entire world than anything he could accomplish in a century spent in Liberia. Ebola kills only the body; the virus of spiritual bankruptcy and moral decadence spread by so many Hollywood movies infects the world.
If he had provided health care for the uninsured editors, writers, videographers and pundits in Gotham and managed to open one set of eyes, he would have done more good than marinating himself in medieval diseases of the Third World.
Of course, if Brantly had evangelized in New York City or Los Angeles, The New York Times would get upset and accuse him of anti-Semitism, until he swore -- as the pope did -- that you don't have to be a Christian to go to heaven. Evangelize in Liberia, and the Times' Nicholas Kristof will be totally impressed.
Which explains why American Christians go on "mission trips" to disease-ridden cesspools. They're tired of fighting the culture war in the U.S., tired of being called homophobes, racists, sexists and bigots. So they slink off to Third World countries, away from American culture to do good works, forgetting that the first rule of life on a riverbank is that any good that one attempts downstream is quickly overtaken by what happens upstream.
America is the most consequential nation on Earth, and in desperate need of God at the moment. If America falls, it will be a thousand years of darkness for the entire planet.
Not only that, but it's our country. Your country is like your family. We're supposed to take care of our own first. The same Bible that commands us to "go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel" also says: "For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, 'You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.'"
Right there in Texas, near where Dr. Brantly left his wife and children to fly to Liberia and get Ebola, is one of the poorest counties in the nation, Zavala County -- where he wouldn't have risked making his wife a widow and his children fatherless.
But serving the needy in some deadbeat town in Texas wouldn't have been "heroic." We wouldn't hear all the superlatives about Dr. Brantly's "unusual drive to help the less fortunate" or his membership in the "Gold Humanism Honor Society." Leaving his family behind in Texas to help the poor 6,000 miles away -- that's the ticket.
Today's Christians are aces at sacrifice, amazing at serving others, but strangely timid for people who have been given eternal life. They need to buck up, serve their own country, and remind themselves every day of Christ's words: "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you."
There may be no reason for panic about the Ebola doctor, but there is reason for annoyance at Christian narcissism.
I agree with your points but I also think she made some reasonable points as well. So I agree with both of you. :-)
LOL
I used to love Ann but she has gotten pretty spooky in recent years.
Hard to decide which slippery slope she’s gone further down, the pointlessly cranky one, or the just plain stupid one.
Too short.
“Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.” Matthew 25:40. Apparently Ann Coulter never read that verse from the Bible.
Nicely sums up article, and my thoughts as well.
.
Matthew 7:6 -
“Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.
English Standard Version
Great post.
There is much to do and many in need all across the world.
In places like Africa, its hard to make a difference in the system, but it is possible to make a huge difference one person at a time.
God bless those that answer that call
I don't see it that way. Those who are helping are enabling Africans not to take care of themselves. These countries chose to reject western leadership. What Coulter is saying makes sense. Millions of dollars to fly home to medical care workers who put themselves in harms way? It was a choice, a foolish one.
Meanwhile, who's helping Christians in Syria and Iraq?
This really is a new low for Coulter. He went where God led him. It’s not like he asked to contract Ebola.
I do think that the only God that Ann Coulter understands is Chris Christie.
I've often wondered that, myself.
Charity begins at home. While wanting to help in Africa, or Central America, or some other 3rd world country is commendable ... there's a whole lot of people who could use that hand up right here. And they're likely not a whole lot further away than your backyard.
Flame away.
Just think of all the money that could have been saved by giving to the poor instead of pouring perfume on Jesus’ feet!
Wait a minute...
Ann has officially jumped the shark..................
This is just so sad. She calls herself Christian? She might want to read what the body of Christ is called to do in His service.
*sigh*
You are making a "baseball players are overpaid" type of argument. It is Dr. Brantley's life and it is his call.
BTW, I will bet you are driving a high-end foreign auto.
What has happened to her?
I wonder what it is she doesn’t ‘get’ about the use of private money? Would she have been less upset if it had been taxpayer funds that provided the trips?.......................
So would she say the same about Mother Teresa?
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