Malaria

The United Methodist Church has committed $75.000,000 over the next 3 years to defeat and eradicate Malaria by 2015. What an honorable goal; I'll support it and try to do my best to be a part of those dollars. It is simply beyond justice or morality of any type to permit something evil to exist when we have the power to eliminate.

And yet! And yet what about poverty? And yet what about child abuse? And yet what about sex trading?

I guess we ought to call these evils by their correct names of greed, lust and ignorance. Should we of the Church not commit equal amounts of time, money and energy to the elimination of these evils by the year 2015?

Even as I write this I feel a dreadful sense of cynicism.

Let's assume that we reach the above utopia. Let's assume that through the offices of good people, God's people throughout the world, we come together and eliminate the four headed monster I've identified about. Maybe we even eliminate the other monsters you may mention as equally important.

My cynical response becomes, "for what?" Shall we rid Africa of Malaria so that governments and terrorists will have more fodder for their killing? Shall we raise children into young adults so that they can oppose one anothers ideology and in the name of civilization continue to fight battles that are neither just nor right?

The battles against the evil I've mentioned are all worthwhile; there are others to be fought as well. But to win those battles without changing the purpose of human beings seems to be an exercise in futility.

We live in a world of false prophets for all our leaders are crying "peace, peace when there is no peace." I guess some war is inevitable, I know the truth about good men doing nothing, I've seen the horrors of the holocaust - but is war the only way? Are such things as ethnic cleansings the ultimate way of peace and freedom?

It is a small world and I see more and more "warfare." Sometimes it is between nations, other times it is in the form of a coup, still others it happens in our neighborhoods and sometimes it happens in our home. Can we not commit prayer and resources to eliminate the scourge of war by 2015?????

Bill