The other day a nonbelieving pundit expressed the internal conflict he was experiencing over the fact that so many of the medical professionals risking their lives to help Ebola patients in West Africa are Christians. On the one hand, he admired their self-sacrificial commitment. On the other, he worried that they might proselytize, even by their mere presence, for the Christian faith.
Apparently attending to someone’s physical needs is acceptable, but not if this is done out of a Christian motivation.
I have a solution to the dilemma for him. Go there yourself, and take as many of your nonbelieving medical friends as will be willing to go. Maybe you can find them in all the hospitals founded by atheists.
Somehow I doubt he will find that many who are willing to risk their lives for others. It turns out that what one believes about ultimate reality makes a difference. When you strip away the spiritual perspective, you also lose the physical care.
About Stan Guthrie
Stan Guthrie is an editor at large for Christianity Today magazine and for the Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview. His latest book is God's Story in 66 Verses. He also is author of All that Jesus Asks: How His Questions Can Teach and Transform Us, Missions in the Third Millennium: 21 Key Trends for the 21st Century, and A Concise Guide to Bible Prophecy. He is co-author of The Sacrament of Evangelism. Besides authoring, writing, and editing books, Stan is a literary agent, bringing together good authors, good books, and good publishers.
Stan writes the monthly Priorities colum for BreakPoint.org. He has appeared on National Public Radio's Tell Me More, WGN's Milt Rosenberg program, and many Christian shows, including The Eric Metaxas Show and Moody Radio's New Day Florida. A licensed minister and an inspirational speaker, he served as moderator for the Christian Book Expo panel discussion, Does the God of Christianity Exist, and What Difference Does It Make?