There are far too many Christians who are woefully ignorant of things they really should know something about. And there are far too many believers who think that good intentions alone are sufficient to justify a particular course of action. Often these two deficiencies coincide, and believers find themselves supporting all sorts of things which they should not be supporting at all.
There really is no excuse for ignorance in our information age, with so much info-sharing technologies available to us. And good intentions are never sufficient to determine how we should act. One can mean well but still push a course of action which may do more harm than good, or result in disastrous consequences.
Christians of all people should be discerning, wise and careful in what they promote and support, including what they help to finance. We should be careful in where our money is going, and make sure it is not subsidising causes inimical to biblical principles.
Sadly I have heard of far too many Christians praising various organisations in the naive belief they are doing some good and are worth supporting. Yet do they really know what these groups are up to, and how they spend the money these gullible Christians are happy to pour their way?
As one example, I often hear of Christians praising things like the work of Bill and Melinda Gates, believing they are doing such fine work in helping the poor, etc. But do they actually know what this Foundation is up to? Do they care where their money is in fact going to?
Last year I discussed a conference the Gates were involved in, which focused on contraceptives and abortion rights. Wendy Wright discussed this at the time with these words: “‘What are women’s attitude toward children,’ I asked a representative from a Sierra Leone family planning organization.
“‘Before the war, they were negative. Now they are positive.’ ‘Do they want children?’ I clarified. ‘Yes, they want children. They need to learn their rights. When they learn their rights, they won’t want children.’ He was among the select invited to London to witness the parade of African presidents, Asian and European leaders and drug companies make promises at the Summit on Family Planning that concluded in London on Wednesday.
“The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, along with International Planned Parenthood Federation and the UN Population Fund convened the Summit as a platform for government leaders and pharmaceutical companies to commit to supply funds and access to contraception.
“Much of the audience was those who stand to benefit richly from the multi-billion dollar windfall. Family planning groups were partners in organizing the event and will implement Melinda Gates’ vision. Many of the groups have a sordid association with abortion and population control.”
Denise J. Hunnell, M.D. discussed this fixation on flooding the developing world with contraceptives and abortifacients such as Depo-Provera. She said, “In promoting her cause, Ms. Gates links her efforts to expand contraceptive use to the fight against HIV/AIDS. However, use of an injectable contraception offers no protection against HIV transmission. In fact, researchers from the University of Washington studied women in Africa and found that the use of DMPA doubled the transmission rates of HIV.
“They cited three mechanisms to account for this increase. First, the hormonal contraceptives cause the vaginal lining to thin and develop small tears that increase the exposure to HIV during sex. Secondly, the hormonal contraceptives weaken the immune system and reduce a woman’s ability to repel HIV infection. Finally, women who are HIV positive and take hormonal contraceptives shed more HIV virus, making them more infectious.
“Clearly, increased use of an injectable hormonal contraceptive is not going to help the fight against AIDS. Hormonal contraceptives are also associated with a significantly increased risk of breast cancer. In a 2012 study published in the Journal of Cancer Research, researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center looked specifically at DMPA and found that it doubled the risk of breast cancer.
“Pushing for expanded use of a drug that doubles the breast cancer risk in developing countries with limited capacity for routine screening for breast cancer is illogical and borders on reckless. So why would the Gates Foundation advocate such a medically risky solution to the poverty of developing countries?”
And the Gates Foundation is still up to its ears in promoting all this, as William F. Jasper recently wrote about: “The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is taking fire from leaders of Black organizations and human rights advocates for funding and promoting a new form of the controversial contraceptive Depo Provera, particularly aimed at women in Africa and developing countries.
“Melinda Gates, wife of Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, recently told the New York Times that she is championing wide distribution of the drug as a result of talking to poor women around the world. But Kwame Fosu, policy director for the Rebecca Project for Human Rights, says Mrs. Gates’ claims are ‘disingenuous’ because the women she claims to be helping are not being informed about the dangers involved.
“’No African woman would agree to being injected if she had full knowledge of the contraceptives’ dangerous side effects,’ Kwame Fosu told C-FAM, the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute. ‘In fact,’ claimed Fosu, ‘in countries where women are educated on the harmful complications, Depo Provera use is negligible.’
“’Depo Provera (made by the Pfizer Corporation), the most deadly contraceptive (according to the FDA), is being marketed with malice and forethought at our precious women and girls of African descent world wide,’ said Dr. Randy Short, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based Rebecca Project for Human Rights, in a scathing statement earlier this year exposing the Gates-Depo Provera scheme.
“’Many nations have outlawed it, but it continues to be used in the USA, the Caribbean, Oceania, Latin America, and Africa,’ Dr. Short noted. ‘The use of Depo Provera,’ according to Short, ‘contributes to and in several cases causes life threatening diseases and medical problems: cervical cancer, breast cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, stroke, heart attack, sterility, miscarriages, HIV/AIDS, Chlamydia, and other STIs/STDs….’
“Dr. Short notes that ‘the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation got into trouble in Niger with some vaccination project being done on 180,000 African women. The Gates know that the drug is deadly. Mr. Gates’ father was an ardent eugenicist’.”
Jasper concludes, “As we have reported previously in The New American, Bill and Melinda Gates are members of a secretive, elite clique calling itself ‘The Good Club,’ composed of billionaire eugenicists who champion population control. The members of this group include David Rockefeller, George Soros, Warren Buffett, Michael Bloomberg, Ted Turner, and Oprah Winfrey.
“The Good Club is a major backer of the Obama administration’s Global Health Initiative, which is working, among other things, to further empower the World Health Organization, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and other United Nations agencies and programs.”
Yet how many uninformed or uncaring Christians are not only applauding the work of the Gates Foundation, but are actually supporting it financially? As I said, ignorance is just not an excuse anymore, and good intentions alone just do not cut it.
So when will God’s people wake up and start being a lot wiser and more biblically discerning as to who they endorse and who they financially support?
http://www.c-fam.org/fridayfax/volume-15/gates-summit-raises-billions-for-abortion-groups.html
http://cnsnews.com/blog/denise-j-hunnell-md/melinda-gates-false-and-dangerous-solution-poverty
http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/health-care/item/16799-gates-foundation-pushing-dangerous-contraceptives-on-black-populations
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