The Whole Story

I recently read an article about the marking of World's AIDS Day which occurred a few weeks ago. Apparently as part of the activities there was a forum on global health that was hosted by Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback church in California. The article went on to talk about President Bush's activity in the PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief) program, and how under the Bush administration, an estimated 10 million lives have been saved due to PEPFAR funding since 2003. 10 million! In his introduction of the president, Warren said, "No man in history, no world leader, has done more for global health than President George W. Bush." That's an astounding and weighty endorsement. The article's author goes on to say that he personally visited Rwanda in the past year and was able to see the impact that the PEPFAR program was having first hand. He says, "...I saw evidence of PEPFAR’s work everywhere. Its importance to Africa’s efforts in the fight against AIDS cannot be overstated."

As I read the article, I was amazed and confused at the same time. Amazed, because I was impressed with the positive results that the program has been having in AIDS ridden countries of the world. Confused, because this story has not hit the major news media. Why in the world is this not front page news? Why are these statistics not leading the top of the broadcast news? 10 million lives have been directly affected! Countless number of lives have been radically changed and given hope due to this program.

Working in ministry, I have a personal philosophy that states that I will never miss an opprotunity to brag about the things I am doing in my job. In other words, if I have a chance to tell people about the good things that are going on in the ministry of the church, I will always jump at that chance. I consider it a part of my job to make known the way God is working in and through people for his glory. Considering all of the bad news in the world and America today, you'd think the media would jump at the chance to brag about something good that our country is doing...but they haven't.

Why not? You already know the typical right-wing answer I'm going to give: media bias. Think about it, why else would this not be reported? There's absolutely nothing negative about it. In fact, everything about the story is absolutely fantastic news. The only reason I can see for not reporting this story is that the mainstream media doesn't want to credit President Bush with ANYTHING positive. They only want to shoot him in the back as often as possible, and have thus completely ignored this story.

Also, I find it interesting that the author of the article I read was one Cameron Strang, editor of Relevant Magazine. I have posted in the past about how Strang tends toward the liberal side when it comes to social issues, and how he accuses the Right of not caring enough when it comes to things like poverty and fighting disease. In fact, here are Strang's words: "However, and this is where many on the right miss it, the example Jesus set for us to stand up for the defense of the innocent does not end at birth. Just as they do for abortion, Christians should be on the forefront of standing against things that take millions of innocent lives around the world every day - systemic poverty, preventable disease, unnecessary wars, slavery, genocide. The list goes on." And now we have Strang writing about how no one else in earth's history has done more for AIDS than George W. Bush (who by the way, is a republican). Apparently those on the right DO get it, Cameron!

This brings up another point: there has been a liberal tendency when it comes to social issues in the ranks of up and coming evangelical Christians who echo Strang's comments that conservatives don't care enough for social issues. What do they say about this story? I'm not trying to justify any one particular political group here, but those who say that conservative Christians don't care about social issues are flat out wrong, and this story helps to prove it (not to mention the fact that Christians dominate the statistics when it comes to standing up for social justice in EVERY area. Christians are the ones who build hosptials, open shelters, feed the hungry, treat the sick, etc.).

All this leads me to a question that I don't know the answer to: is it possible that many thousands of Christians voted for Barack Obama in this past election based upon the errant observation that conservative Christians don't care about social justice? If so, they were uninformed, because conservative Christians certainly do care about social issues as evidenced by this story. Also, if such Christians made their electoral decisions based upon the seeming lack of compassion by conservatives, then that means their thoughts were influenced by a biased media that refuses to report on stories like this. Why would they not report on it? Because if they did, people would see that conservative Christians really are compassionate, and DO care about social justice, and would therefore not choose to elect the Messiah of the mainstream media: Barack Obama. Take for example the title of Strang's article: "Bush's Unexpected Legacy," referring to the fact that he has done more for global health than any other individual in history. Why does Strang find this legacy as being "unexpected?" Because he has listened to ridiculous rhetoric and bought into the fact that conservatives don't care about people, which is simply not true.

It's time for people to wake up and make their decisions based upon what is actually happening, and not just on what the media says is happening. Start thinking for yourself and stop letting others think for you!