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.
They risked their lives and now they’re risking yours and mine. We had thousands of miles between the US and the ebola capital of the world, a great natural barrier, but our “government” invited ebola in and its here to stay. The doc and nurse new the risks and they shouldnt have been let back in to the country.
Just more strife, peril and chaos foisted on America by our lying president.
The fact remains... Not ALL christians are indeed christians...
There are many people doing charity work here. This man went to Africa specifically to bring them medical care, which clearly they do need.
This is a very silly article.
The problem wasn’t that he was there. That’s a noble cause.
The problem was that they brought him back.
Grow up for cripe sake. America is not yet a third world country and you have a greater chance of dying from the influenza virus than the Ebola virus.
Yes, they infected were brought back as specimens to expirimented on to the benefit of the drug companies. The drug scientists should have gone to them!
She likes Christy. Nuff said.
Wow. The title, alone, is an abomination.
They are Christian missionary members of the organization that Franklin Graham runs, and Americans, they are being treated at our top american Ebola treatment clinic.
Samaritans Purse does good work in Africa and other places. I think it is up to them where to concentrate their efforts.
And if donors disagree with the expensive measures taken to save the doctor and nurse they can stop donating to Samaritans Purse (which I doubt will happen).
The “free market” applies to charities too, Ann.
I could see the great stupid masses getting hysterical, with help from the amoral media, and calling for retribution on Christians.
Nicely done. Sometimes even the best and the brightest dim their bulb.
wait a minnit... a PRIVATE charity paid the $2million to fly him back here????
I though it was a government jet or somethig...
(they should have treated him there)
I see by the direction that this thread is going that I will be a minority opinion, but I agree with Ann on this one. He might have done it out of selflessness, or he might have done it out of vanity (”look at how I’m working for the truly poor”) but he would have accomplished more by working to convert some of the powerful, and donating to send medical supplies to Africa. Maybe train some African docs here.
I’m really happy to see the responses here. Pretty well my first thoughts as well. This guy is a hero in my mind, to selflessly serve others in the armpit of the world, taking a chance on dying from not just Ebola but all the other third world issues. He did a good thing. To roast him because he has a giving heart is not very nice, Ann.
Right.
Wow. Bless her heart.
Hey Ann, I have some advise for you. Not every thought that goes through your head should come out of your mouth. She needs to learn when to SHUT UP!!! What an idiot. There are plenty of docs and resources to do the work here. Those people in Africa need us. One doctor from America going to Africa will not tip the balance here Ann.
Ann Coulter is not an Evangelical Christian, her input on how Samaritan’s purse should handle their money is a little cold and pretentious.
As far as the West letting new diseases and epidemics be handled solely by whatever Africans can do, well you might want to rethink that.
You really prefer that the entire world just sit in ignorance since 1976, waiting to see if the numerous African outbreaks ever escaped their borders?
As it is, the West has helped end the (at least) 18 breakouts prior to this one over the last 38 years.
You? No Ebola there.
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