The headlines and talk shows are dominated by the response ISIS. To be clear, this group readily uses fanatical and brutal actions to achieve its radically exclusive vision. The images they skillfully project are like violent, X-rated video games made real. No wonder that many react to this horror with chills going down their spines. But there is something that worries me more: the ongoing Ebola crisis.
How did ISIS come about? Sure, there’s huge complexity. Yet, we know that ISIS never would have emerged without, first of all, the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the ensuing, devastating war that left that nation in physical, political, and psychological shambles. Second, the sectarian, Shia-dominated regime, which emerged as the final U.S. ground troops left, further radicalized Sunni extremists. These factors were the breeding grounds for black-clothed fanatics ready to cut down any who differ with their identity, even if the majority of its victims are Muslims.
ISIS’s greatest recruiting tool is continued and renewed U.S. and Western military intervention in the Middle East. That, of course, is what their brutal actions are attempting to provoke. The moral callousness of this strategy inspires the fear which they desire and welcome.
However, ISIS can and will be contained. The neighboring regimes in the region are all deeply threatened by ISIS. In the end, they will be compelled to combat and resist ISIS the more these fanatics move out of the desert and toward others’ homelands. It will be bloody, but eventually other nation states and threatened sectarian groups, representing for the most part more mainstream and globally dominant expressions of Islam, will contain and defeat ISIS. The necessity and means of outside military assistance from the West and elsewhere is highly debatable, and at the end of the day, I don’t believe this will be the decisive factor.
The likelihood of containing Ebola, however, seems more daunting right now. There is no cure. Isolating those infected seems to be the only strategy, and the lack of sufficient public health and logistical infrastructure within the affected countries makes this highly challenging. Clearly, this will require a determined, massive intentional effort, and it will take time.
The World Health Organization estimates that 20,000 Ebola cases will occur until they can project seeing the virus contained. And many say that is an optimistic estimate. Further, containing Ebola doesn’t just require funds, supplies, and materials. It will depend on people — 12,750 according to World Health Organization estimates — willing to engage in risky, sacrificial service.
We’ve seen the pictures of those in contamination suits removing dead bodies infected by Ebola. Not only do those bodies of afflicted souls need to be thoroughly decontaminated and disposed of, hopefully with some measure of dignity. The contamination suits also need to be decontaminated. Risks abound.
The coverage of Ebola features the courageous work of Doctors Without Borders — Medicins Sans Frontieres — at the forefront of this struggle. I’m awestruck at the testimonies of its staff I’ve heard. And President Obama announced last week that 3,000 American soldiers would be sent to assist in strengthening the internal logistical and medical infrastructure in the region — a long-term effort.
Those who study the history of how the early church grew so fast in the first three centuries point to, among other factors, the self-sacrificial commitment of its members to those afflicted by sickness, hunger, and poverty. When the plague broke out the 3rd Century, with 5,000 a day dying in Rome, Christians undertook the care of the sick, extending the ministry of the diaconate. Historically, hospitals found their roots in the Christian practice of extending hospitality and healing; the first hospital began 370 A.D., as the vision of Basil of Caesarea.
This causes me to ask where the church is today in the face of the Ebola crisis. Clearly, the epidemic of HIV-AIDS would never have been brought under control in Africa without the involvement of the churches. I can’t image the situation being any different in light of Ebola. From contacts with African friends, I know many churches are both involved and affected by Ebola. But what consistently makes the headlines is the extraordinary work of Doctors Without Borders, and now the U.S. military and medical assistance efforts, along with that of other countries.
Ebola requires a fundamental commitment to the image of God present in every person in order to mobilize any response that may contain it. Doing so will necessitate thousands who are willing to “offer their bodies as living sacrifices,” serving on the frontlines of combat against this disease, which entails risks even with the best of medical precautions. In the long run, I can’t imagine how this will happen without mobilizing the involvement of churches and para-church organizations, along with all the other partners making costly commitments to this effort.
We worry about an ISIS terrorist attack on U.S. soil. And we know that ISIS epitomizes denying the dignity of another whenever it is ideologically required and becomes strategically convenient. The president has said that there is no credible threat at present, even though ISIS would love to stage another brutally horrific incident. But meanwhile, Africans — in cultures and racial backgrounds different from our own — are quietly dying daily, in increasing numbers, from Ebola. This is no perceived, future threat. It’s a present ongoing reality taking the lives of hundreds — 2,400 so far — and threatening the lives of thousands more. I don’t want to see this lost amidst all the headlines about ISIS. Those who are the victims of Ebola should have a clear, undiluted claim on our global moral conscience.
Wesley Granberg-Michaelson ’s most recent book is From Times Square to Timbuktu: The Post-Christian West Meets the Non-Western Church. He served as general secretary of the Reformed Church in America from 1994-2011, and prior to that was Director of Church and Society for the World Council of Churches. He has been associated with the ministry of Sojourners for the past 40 years.
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