by Nomad
Ann Coulter succeeded in making a spectacle of herself the other day by calling Africa "a disease-ridden cesspool" and the American doctor who contracted Ebola as an idiot. In the next breath, she dares to mention moral decadence and Christian values.
Like a lot of people, I would like to think I have developed a natural immunity against Ann Coulter and her dreadful attention-seeking declarations. I want to believe that whatever she has- and by the looks and sounds of it, it's quite lethal, I won't catch it.
As any doctor will tell you, reducing one's exposure decreases the chances of infection and subsequent transmission.
So, I do my best to avoid reading or hearing anything from Ms. Coulter. It's not easy. Coulter's the Bird Flu of the Right Wing.
Three days ago, I read (through a third party) that Coulter scribbled a piece called “Ebola Doc’s Condition Downgraded to ‘Idiocy. " (That's about as clever as Coulter ever gets, I'm afraid.)
In her article, she criticizes Dr. Ken Brantly, one of the two Americans who has been diagnosed with Ebola. Coulter castigates the missionary for forcing the Christian charities Samaritan’s Purse and SIM USA to pay for him to fly in a private jet back to the U.S. and receive care at “one of America’s premier hospitals.”
American Christians go on “mission trips to disease-ridden cesspools," says Coulter because "they're tired of fighting the culture war in the U.S., tired of being called homophobes, racists, sexists and bigots."
These do-goers "slink off to Third World countries, away from American culture to do good works." Coulter suggests that instead of traipsing into the the jungles of Africa, the doctor could have done so much more good work right here at home.
She moaned “Can’t anyone serve Christ in America anymore?”
Like so many things that Coulter writes about, this article begins with a false premise and runs wild from that point. Is she trying to claim there are there no Christian charities working inside the US? If so, she needs to do a little more research before picking up her poison pen.
Here's an easily-found website that offers a list of Christian charities and I assume that most of them work inside the US. (I will not vouch for any of them but that is surely enough evidence to scrap the Coulter article at its inception.)
But perhaps I have misread: is she trying to claim that American-based Christian charities have no business helping the poor outside of American borders? I don't happen to remember Jesus saying anything like that.
The Bible does say :
To help the poor is to honor God.
For some reason, it doesn't specify the poor of which country or region of the world. A bit vexing, isn't it? There's so many poor people in the world.
Again the same problem happens in the New Testament. In the Epistle of John, Christians are told that pity isn't enough, We must give help. We must act. Strangely there's no map or border, no advice on how to distinguish who we should and should not be helping.
“If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with action and in truth”
Every Christian must speculate for himself why the Book doesn't tell exactly which brother in need is more deserving of our aid. It doesn't tell us at where the borders our compassion for the poor begin and end.
The most ironic part of this particular Coulter rant is that the lack of empathy that Coulter herself promotes on a daily basis is the best example why more and more people have simply stopped caring about what happens to the poor and the needy.
If there is a culture war in the US then Coulter should be looking in the mirror to find who is firing the salvos.
Meanwhile in the real world, the man Coulter calls an idiot, Dr. Ken Brantly, continues to improve. He was able to write a small note of appreciation.
I am growing stronger every day, and I thank God for His mercy as I have wrestled with this terrible disease. I also want to extend my deep and sincere thanks to all of you who have been praying for my recovery as well as for Nancy and for the people of Liberia and West Africa.One thing I have learned is that following God often leads us to unexpected places. When Ebola spread into Liberia, my usual hospital work turned more and more toward treating the increasing number of Ebola patients. I held the hands of countless individuals as this terrible disease took their lives away from them. I witnessed the horror firsthand, and I can still remember every face and name.
But he also wanted people to know that his faith was tested when tests showed that he had contracted the illness.
When the result was positive, I remember a deep sense of peace that was beyond all understanding. God was reminding me of what He had taught me years ago, that He will give me everything I need to be faithful to Him.
Compared to Coulter's disease of the soul, what Brantly picked up in Africa seems as harmless as a hangnail. His prognosis is far better than Ms. Coulter's.
Here's a syndicated article from the International Business Times about David Writebol, husband of one of the American Ebola patients. Writebol reports that he was quite disturbed by the attitude of Americans like Ms. Coulter.
