Ann Coulter’s Xenophobic Anti-Gospel of Hate
Ann Coulter is on a roll. Her commentary is becoming more deplorable by the week. Yesterday’s column hit an all-time low.[1]
Ann Coulter, meet Dr. Livingstone.
Dr. Livingstone was not a fake Christian. He lived out his Christianity, taking to heart the apostle Peter’s admonition, “you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 2:5).” As a renown explorer and missionary in Africa, Dr. Livingstone’s motto was “Christianity, Commerce, and Civilization.”
I suppose that Ebola Ann Coulter would also have chastised medical missionary Albert Schweitzer and the selfless humanitarian, Mother Teresa, who lovingly devoted herself to the “least of the least.”
None of these people were deterred by, as Ann so delicately put it, “medieval diseases of the Third World.” Nor would they have shirked their divine calling based on risk factors “listed by the Mayo Clinic.”
Highlighting the absurdity of Coulter’s theology, Erick Erickson remarked, “St. Thomas should have never gone to India and Jim Elliott should have never gone into the jungle. Sigh.”
Regarding Dr. Kent Brantly’s trip to Liberia, Coulter asked, “What was the point?” Her having to ask the question suggests she would not understand the answer.
Coulter’s essay title, “Ebola Doc’s Condition Downgraded to ‘Idiotic,’” tells us exactly where she stands! Anything she doesn’t understand or agree with is automatically “idiotic.”
Christian Narcissism
From the onset of her discourse, Coulter impugned the motives of Dr. Brantly – and other Christian missionaries – suggesting pride and self-interest in enduring the hardships of overseas missionary work. Ann, this is just plain silly. But then, Coulter does not mind defaming innocent people.
Coulter began her column asking, “I wonder how the Ebola doctor feels now that his humanitarian trip has cost a Christian charity much more than any services he rendered.”
She then detailed some of the costs to his charities and alluded to, of all things, Obamacare. (I don’t recall Coulter complaining about the extensive cost – to the American people – of search and rescue operations to find her boss and one-time mentor, John F. Kennedy, Jr., in 1998.)
Coulter asks, “Why did Dr. Brantly have to go to Africa?” Following up with, “Can’t anyone serve Christ in America anymore?”
According to Coulter, overseas missionaries 1) seek the rewards of feeling and being perceived as “heroic” and 2) are really cowards, fearful of combating political correctness and engaging in the culture wars at home.
Coulter’s conclusion: all of these overseas missionaries are guilty of “Christian narcissism.”
(I would submit that the narcissist is Coulter herself.)
The whole matter of self-sacrifice seems, too, to be foreign to Coulter. But aren’t Christians supposed to live a sacrificial life, to die daily to oneself as Jesus put it? Yet, when Christians sacrifice for what they believe God has called them to do, Coulter goes on the offensive. Why? Because they are what she is not.
False Gospel
For well over a decade, Coulter has preached a false gospel, calling herself “a mean Christian” and declaring “being nice is an incidental tenet of Christianity.” Never one to promote the compassionate course of action, Coulter also eschews the principled course of action.
Coulter is at war with Christians and conservatives! (Yet, she claims to be a Christian conservative.)
In yesterday’s assault on principled, compassionate Christians zealous to do God’s work, Coulter distorts the gospel to achieve her ends. Coulter claimed that countries are “like your family” and, of course, charity begins at home. But then her thesis seems to be that it should also end at home.
Coulter wrote, “The same Bible that commands us to ‘go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel’ also says: ‘For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, “You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land.”’”
Naturally, Coulter conflates Old and New Testament theology. In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus made it pretty clear that everyoneis our “neighbor.” Moreover, the Samaritan reached out to help what many would consider a helpless “foreigner.” Also, in the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25), Jesus commends those who have helped what Mother Teresa called “the least of the least” as if they had helped Jesus Himself.
But for Coulter, none of that matters.
Only America Counts
Typical Coulter, xenophobia fills her Ebola column. Nativism at its worst. Coulter, however accurately, observed, “America, the most powerful, influential nation on Earth, is merely in a pitched battle for its soul.” Coulter accurately detailed aspects of that “pitched battle.”
Coulter boasted, “America is the most consequential nation on Earth … If America falls, it will be a thousand years of darkness for the entire planet.”
A millennium of darkness will engulf the Earth if America falls? A bit hyperbolic, what? Yet, I suspect Coulter doesn’t think she is exaggerating.
In order to save America – and thus the planet, too – Christians “need to buck up, serve their own country.” (Actually, Christians need to serve their Lord and Savior – wherever He leads them. Moreover, Coulter appears to see America as the Savior of the world, instead of Jesus, whose very title is “Savior of the world.”)
The worst epithet Coulter could say about soccer was “It’s foreign.” Her hatred of immigrants (legal and illegal) stems from their foreignness. Now the future of mankind is at stake – get rid of all the foreigners!
Let Them Hate Us
Coulter’s metric for one’s spiritual state of being has been – for over a decade – whether one is hated and the depth of that hatred. Consider Coulter’s words:
“[Christians need to] remind themselves every day of Christ’s words: ‘If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.’”
Well, yes, Christians are often hated because they are Christians. But some Christians (or fake Christians) are hated because they do not behave as Christians should behave. Sin and hypocrisy breed hatred and contempt.
Coulter has for so long worn the hatred of others as a badge of honor that she now sees herself as righteous because others criticize or hate her. Could the criticisms be called for? The hatred be earned? Wherein does Ann’s righteousness really lie? If she in in Christ, then it is in Christ alone.
Is Ann Coulter displaying the righteousness of Jesus or the self-righteousness of Ann Coulter?
The really sad thing is that Coulter thinks she is taking the high road!
copied from the facebook page of Daniel Borchers....CoulterWatch
