An Altar Call from Bill and Melinda Gates

Dr Ralph Winter, founder of US Center for World Missions, died this past year. In the years before his passing he wrote increasingly about fighting the origins and fundamental causes of disease. He discussed how our theological frameworks don't even conceive of the workings of good and evil on the levels of micro-biology. For instance, he discusses the intersection of colonial powers, missionaries, armies, and native persons in the SE portion of the United States over a 250 year period. 150 missions were built. Armies fought each other. Missionaries sought to express the Gospel. And the native poputlations were virtually wiped out. By disease.

And there was no real comprehension that the Enemy's strategy was not war; colonialism; competing powers; etc. It was the waging of disease.

Bill Gates and Dr Winter, in some ways, started down very similar paths about the same time. I don't know if they ever crossed paths.

I think this summary of changes in global health and wealth over last 50 years is remarkable. I think it very important to simply conceive of the change that has been underfoot. www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_at_state.html (20 mins)

(It is also an interesting graphic representation of complex data--that can be accessed on Google)

Sorry to be a killjoy, but Bill and Melinda Gates are a major funder of International Planned Parenthood, the largest global supplier of abortion "services." They've showered the group with over $35 Million in the past ten years. How exactly does this square with reducing the "child death rate" or being an "evangelist" for the "preciousness of human life?"

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish" -Mother Teresa

I've often wondered why we don't praise Bill Gates for his work in poverty reduction prior to his "retired work" of funding lots of different initiatives. Not to minimize them, of course, but his method of getting rich was to provide something for society that we either needed or found our lives better because of it. One result is many people from India have jobs because of technical support necessary for others with computers. Other things might include the software, hardware, and other industries that we created because there was now an avenue for more wealth creation to make our lives collectively better. Imagine the number of jobs we wouldn't have without a Bill Gates.

"As I spoke with a person at the foundation at the small reception afterward, he explained to me that the Gates had been on Capitol Hill for two days and in almost every meeting they had, Members of Congress told them that the faith community will have to be centrally involved if the U.S. is to make an even deeper investment in global health."

Good for Congress on one part: It IS the faith community, and any other interested individuals' responsibility, NOT the US government to make the investment and work on the issue of global health. And good for Gates in putting his money where his mouth is and using his voluntarily offered resources. As for more tax money going out...whether it is war in Iraq or nation-building in Afghanistan, it shouldn't be done.

Sorry to be a killjoy, but Bill and Melinda Gates are a major funder of International Planned Parenthood, the largest global supplier of abortion "services." They've showered the group with over $35 Million in the past ten years. How exactly does this square with reducing the "child death rate" or being an "evangelist" for the "preciousness of human life?"

"It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish" -Mother Teresa

"As I spoke with a person at the foundation at the small reception afterward, he explained to me that the Gates had been on Capitol Hill for two days and in almost every meeting they had, Members of Congress told them that the faith community will have to be centrally involved if the U.S. is to make an even deeper investment in global health."

Good for Congress on one part: It IS the faith community, and any other interested individuals' responsibility, NOT the US government to make the investment and work on the issue of global health. And good for Gates in putting his money where his mouth is and using his voluntarily offered resources. As for more tax money going out...whether it is war in Iraq or nation-building in Afghanistan, it shouldn't be done.

Are you opposed to parents planning their family?? Do you think that might have any impact on infant mortality? It is possible to oppose the present practice of abortion without turning any party who supports legal abortion into a demon incapable of any good action.

Are you opposed to parents planning their family?? Do you think that might have any impact on infant mortality? It is possible to oppose the present practice of abortion without turning any party who supports legal abortion into a demon incapable of any good action.

It isn't a question of supporting legal abortion. In this case, it is a question of owning and operating fixed and mobile abortion clinics around the globe. Clinics in which hundreds of thousands of unborn children's lives are snuffed out every year. That is the activity funded and enabled by the Bill 7 Melinda Gates Foundation. You don't care about those lives. Fine. That is your poverty. Justice indeed.

Are you opposed to parents planning their family?? Do you think that might have any impact on infant mortality?

Plannned Parenthood will continue to drive a great big extra-wide mobile clinic through the gaping holes left by a level of discourse that fails to see any legitimate agenda but one. Where did I indicate any expression about not caring about those aborted? I believe those committed to justice must listen with two ears and speak with one mouth.

I believe those committed to justice must listen with two ears and speak with one mouth.

Do you "listen with two ears" to the racist? The warmonger? The slavemaster? The corporate exploiter of the poor? No, you condemn racism, war, slavery and exploitation, as you should.

Why, then, do you choose to listen to the abortionist? To the multinational corporation that pulls in millions a year in fee-for-killing services? Why do you celebrate the billionaires who underwrite the killing? Why on this issue alone is some "level of discourse" invoked as an excuse for passivity and acquiesence?

I'm all ears listening for how anyone is using discourse as an excuse for passivity; and for your answers: "Are you opposed to parents planning their family?? Do you think that might have any impact on infant mortality?"

I'm all ears listening for how anyone is using discourse as an excuse for passivity; and for your answers: "Are you opposed to parents planning their family?? Do you think that might have any impact on infant mortality?"

"All of which is beside the point "

My point is only this: There is more than one point.

One does not become more committed to reducing abortions by measuring all things against that standard. It requires us becoming a people with a love, ethic, and way of life that transcends issues and answers the questions better than Planned Parenthood and others whom we believe to be the opposition.

They exist and thrive because they are answering some questions better than we are. We can listen, learn, change, grow and become transformative. Or we can shout louder.

How do you feel the "shout louder" strategy has worked?

Imagine saying "one does not become more committed to reducing child abuse (or poverty, or war) by measuring all things against that standard." You never would, nor should you. It is only on the issue of abortion that you counsel listening, learning, changing, growing.

Wilberforce shouted down the injustice of the slave trade. Ghandi shouted down the injustice of the Raj, and King shouted down - quite literally - the injustice of Jim Crow. What is lacking on the issue of abortion is a unified Christian voice shouting "STOP". Instead, we have Christians who if they don't actively support abortion are embarrassed by those with the bad taste to bring it up.

Why? Here's what I think. I think that many of those on the religious Left know that they would lose their friends in the Democratic Party if they began speaking "prophetically" about abortion. They would quickly find themselves labelled "extremists" and "intolerant" if they stood up for the unborn, and so they don't. They have made a tacit pact with the secular Left: accept us at the table on the issues of poverty and war and we won't be a bother on abortion. It is a mirror image of the pact the religious Right has made with the Republican Party: accept us at the table on the issue of abortion and we won't be a bother on war and torture. And it is as cyncial and disheartening to see Christians on the Left abandon the unborn as it is to see Christians on the Right abandon the poor.

Imagine saying "one does not become more committed to reducing child abuse (or poverty, or war) by measuring all things against that standard." You never would, nor should you. It is only on the issue of abortion that you counsel listening, learning, changing, growing.

Wilberforce shouted down the injustice of the slave trade. Ghandi shouted down the injustice of the Raj, and King shouted down - quite literally - the injustice of Jim Crow. What is lacking on the issue of abortion is a unified Christian voice shouting "STOP". Instead, we have Christians who if they don't actively support abortion are embarrassed by those with the bad taste to bring it up.

Why? Here's what I think. I think that many of those on the religious Left know that they would lose their friends in the Democratic Party if they began speaking "prophetically" about abortion. They would quickly find themselves labelled "extremists" and "intolerant" if they stood up for the unborn, and so they don't. They have made a tacit pact with the secular Left: accept us at the table on the issues of poverty and war and we won't be a bother on abortion. It is a mirror image of the pact the religious Right has made with the Republican Party: accept us at the table on the issue of abortion and we won't be a bother on war and torture. And it is as cyncial and disheartening to see Christians on the Left abandon the unborn as it is to see Christians on the Right abandon the poor.

It's easier to see that the poor are human than a fertilized egg. When does life begin? I personally wouldn't abort but know that when Human life begins is a difficult question from a scientific and theologic perspective. It always has been in history.