Eradication through the Eyes of a Christian Microbiologist

An Interview with retired microbiologist Jeffrey Havenner 

By Brian Lowther

Jeffrey Havenner. Photo by A. Valloza

Jeff Havenner has Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in microbiology from the University of Maryland, College Park. He worked at the Frederick Cancer Research Center at Fort Detrick, Maryland in oncogenic virology. Following that he was directly commissioned in the US Army and worked at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Department of Rickettsial Diseases. Recently he contacted us through our website. Since then we've had a number of discussions. Below are some of the highlights. 

Brian Lowther: Tell me a little about your background.

Jeffrey Havenner: I became a Christian when I was in undergraduate college through the ministry of Campus Crusade. While almost everyone I knew eventually went on staff with them, I went to graduate school and got a masters in microbiology. I have also worked a lot in adult christian education at our church so I've spent quite a few years teaching out of the Bible.  

Brian Lowther: Given that all your friends went into campus ministry, what motivated you to pursue microbiology?

Jeffrey Havenner: I actually thought seriously about joining Campus Crusade and took steps to explore taking that route. It became evident that was not the path God wanted me to take. The rest is history as they say. I was very much attracted to the life of Louis Pasteur growing up and saw microbiology potentially as a way to serve mankind by addressing problems of disease. I actually miss working in the field. My wife's brother-in-law is active in aspects of environmental microbiology. He and I have discussions when we get together. This has helped keep me involved in some of what is going on.

Brian Lowther: How did you become acquainted with the Roberta Winter Institute?

Jeffrey Havenner: I just completed the Perspectives Course. That's how I ended up coming across the RWI site. 

Brian Lowther: What caught your interest?

Jeffrey Havenner: Dr. Winter raised the question of whether pathogenic microbes such as viruses, bacteria and protozoa constitute a malevolent form of intelligent design. The question becomes are they "of the Devil?" 

One consideration could be that the Devil, as an outcome of the curse upon mankind, could have been allowed by God to tamper with microorganisms but I don't think that happened. I think that this gives the Devil too much credit. 

Brian Lowther: What's your take?

Jeffrey Havenner: In part the answer to the question is that the Devil corrupts but does not create. One consideration could be that the Devil, as an outcome of the curse upon mankind, could have been allowed by God to tamper with microorganisms but I don't think that happened. I think that this gives the Devil too much credit. Instead I think that over all our genetics have deteriorated as a result of the curse and our susceptibilities to infection have increased evidenced in part from the declining longevities over the generations in Genesis. More likely microorganisms have been able to adapt positively to those changes at our expense.

Brian Lowther: One of my colleagues––a public health consultant in South Korea––thinks almost identically to you in regards to not giving the devil too much credit.  Our group is very much a mix of different views compromising around an agreed goal of fighting disease for the glory of God, and we all agree that the devil corrupts but does not create.

Jeffrey Havenner: There are two sides to disease.

1. The invasiveness of the pathogen.
2. The susceptibility of the host.

What I am suggesting therefore is that the microbes themselves were opportunistic and man became susceptible via the curse that removed nature's cooperation with man.

It is quite possible that since the original disobedience of man in the garden we have become more susceptible to the microbes of God's creation and that is what has become the greater factor in the disease process. What I am suggesting therefore is that the microbes themselves were opportunistic and man became susceptible via the curse that removed nature's cooperation with man.

The Book of the Revelation seems to show us the relationship of increased susceptibility to disease when at the breaking of the fourth seal.   "... I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth" (Rev. 6:8 ESV). War and famine weaken populations leaving the more susceptible to plagues and the vectors that carry them. This was quite evident in the influenza pandemic following World War I.

Brian Lowther: I have been debating in my own mind lately the point you suggest about original sin causing our susceptibility to the microbes of God's creation, i.e., perhaps the microbes that make us sick were always there, but weren't harmful to human beings until Adam sinned.

Jeffrey Havenner: Opportunism seems to be much more of what the Devil is about. Therefore resisting diseases seems more to be about decreasing human susceptibility than to look for eradication of the disease-causing organisms. Only smallpox has been eradicated of the major epidemic diseases.

Electron microscope image of smallpox virus (Poxvirus). Used in accordance with Creative Commons. Sourced via Flickr.

Smallpox: dead or alive? 

Brian Lowther: It seems to me that the eradication of smallpox occurred through the smallpox vaccine, not by destroying the smallpox virus. Is that correct? So, smallpox was eradicated by decreasing human susceptibility, as you suggest. However, I do know that vials of the smallpox virus still exist in the U.S. and Russia. Does that mean that the disease causing organisms were destroyed (other than the two stocks in the U.S. and Russia)?

Jeffrey Havenner: You are right in saying that smallpox was eradicated by vaccination. There appears to be an open question of whether Variola is actually gone from the wild or whether it is merely dormant in attenuated forms and still lurking in the human population. In doing further reading it appears that smallpox vaccine is still being produced and administered. The US Military apparently is still vaccinating its personnel. The feeling seems to be that the virus is out there somewhere.

Actually I have to correct my response to you. As I have continued to read up on Small Pox I find that giving the vaccine has been discontinued from general administration and is no longer required for public health workers because the risk is now considered to outweigh the potential benefit. The source for this is this review from the Children's Hospital in Philadelphia. I still think the Army may still be giving the vaccine from what appears on their sites.

Four reasons why the body of Christ should play a role in disease eradication

Brian Lowther: Other than prayer and funding, in what way do you think the body of Christ could play a role in eradication? Can you envision an organization like One World Health being established by a group of believers with eradication of a specific disease as their goal? Or is this an impossible dream?

Jeffrey Havenner: As far as research on diseases goes, much of that effort is associated with academia which is NOT welcoming to overt Christian participation. Most efforts to do research on disease seem to be based on humanitarian desires to do good and give back. I do believe that a lot of our drive to embrace causes of this kind arises from what might be called memories from Eden that seem to be hard wired into our brains. These appear to go back to God's design of and subsequent command to Adam and Eve to have dominion and to replenish the earth.

A Christian organization dedicated to fighting disease in God's name is definitely not impossible.

Science and theology have been at some odds since the Age of Reason dawned in the 18th Century. Scientists and science students who are motivated by faith in God have faced and continue to face a deep bias against them in academia in favor of humanism. A single mention of creation or "intelligent design" even casually is enough to get one blackballed from many scientific institutes. Thus Christians in the halls of academia tend to be as private about their faith as a convert to Christianity would have to be in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan.

A Christian organization dedicated to fighting disease in God's name is definitely not impossible. Initially it might resemble the Institute for Creation Research which does actual science but gets no respect or acknowledgement from the secular scientific community.

1. Unlike Creation Research which might seem esoteric to the average person, an overtly Christian organization in the fight against diseases that threaten humanity has the potential to have a direct impact on human well being. 
2. Research that actually contributes to finding cures for dread diseases like cancer or AIDS/HIV will draw attention and funding if it can document promising results. 
3. In fact such an organization might approach the issues in a more honest way, rather than from a dogmatic fashion that presumes the answers it wants. 
4. I tend to believe that God might well bless an effort to glorify Him through such research as He blessed Joseph in a national effort to avert famine in Egypt.

One thing disease eradication workers desperately need

Brian Lowther: One of the goals we've considered is trying to fill a need within the public health industry by helping workers integrate their work with their faith, i.e., demonstrate to them how their work glorifies God and brings his will on earth as it is in heaven. Does this seem like a legitimate goal to you? Is this needed? In other words, is an organization needed that would network and encourage believers at work in public health/disease eradication? Or is there already someone doing this?

Jeffrey Havenner: That does seem like a worthy goal. Scientists are under intense pressure to compartmentalize faith in God if they have it and keep it out of scientific practice on pain of exile from the profession if they do not. When I was in graduate school, I was blessed to have a fellow graduate student in the next lab who was also a Christian. We spent quite a bit of time discussing theology as well as science and attended an off campus Bible study together. He was eventually the best man at my wedding. We still keep in touch. I don't know if public health people feel the same degree of pressure.  I have another friend in the US Public Health Service that I will be getting together with in a few weeks. I will ask his impression of pressure to compartmentalize faith in that discipline. I will ask him if he is aware of a Christian fellowship of Public Health workers. I believe this gets to your last question as well. I asked my friend who works at NIH about a Christian association of public health workers and he said he was not aware of one.

Scientists are under intense pressure to compartmentalize faith in God if they have it and keep it out of scientific practice on pain of exile from the profession if they do not.

The integration of our faith in God with our work so that God is honored by what we do and by how we interact with people we work with is of great importance. It is easy for people to feel defeated in their walk with God because they feel compromised in the way they are forced to separate work from faith to avoid trouble especially in government settings. Freedom of Religion in America has morphed into the right of freedom from religion.

Life is War

Compiled and condensed from the writings and speeches of Ralph D. Winter
By Brian Lowther

Here is an analogy: Not many people alive today lived through World War II. Those of us who did can recall the utter transformation of a nation involved in all-out war. Swarms of “servicemen” (including women) swirled about on planes, trains, and buses, heading off to ports of departure for the various “theaters of war” around the world. Eleven million were sprayed out across the globe in the Army, Air Corps, and the Navy. But 200 million “civilians” staying behind were equally occupied by the war. As millions of men disappeared from their jobs women back home took their places. A largely women’s workforce (“Rosie the riveter”) built entire ships one every fourteen days, medium bombers one every four hours. It was no longer a peacetime situation. Crime dropped, and thousands of industries were transformed. Factories that once made cars now built tanks. Others that made nylon stockings now made nylon cords for parachutes. Still others made new things like ammunition, thousands and thousands of vehicles of strange new types, plus thousands of ships (six thousand of which went to the bottom in the Atlantic war alone).

Don’t you know there is a war on?

I vividly recall that even domestic activity was extensively bent and refitted to support both the true essentials of society as well as the war effort. The gasoline being burned up by war vehicles on land, armadas of ships and submarines at sea, and hundreds and even thousands of fuel-burning planes in the air, did not leave enough gasoline for anything but truly essential use at home. You could be fined $50 (today that would be $500) for going on a Sunday drive with the family if that trip did not include some war-related or crucial civilian-related purpose.  I mean, you can’t believe the strictures on the civilian population during an all-out war like that.  Coffee totally disappeared as a non-essential: incoming ships had no room for such trivialities because more crucial goods took their place. Women saved their bacon grease to make explosives and planted victory gardens. People on the coastlines drove twenty miles per hour after dark with their headlights partially blacked out, or volunteered as air-raid wardens or donated their rubber raincoats and tires and bathing caps, even though they couldn’t be recycled for military use. Any idle moments or carelessly disposed materials were instantly challenged by “Don’t you know there is a war on?” 

An authentic U.S. ration booklet from World War II. These instructions appeared on the back cover of the booklet: "Rationing is a vital part of the war effort.  Any attempt to violate the rules is an effort to deny someone his share and will create hardship and help the enemy. Be guided by the rule: “If you don’t need it, DON’T BUY IT.”

Now I wish today, I wish today that Christians would say that also and they would say it often to another Christian who is blowing his time or his money or his interest on something that is very trivial. “Don’t you know there is a war on?”

(See reconsecration.org for more of Ralph and Roberta's thoughts on the subject of wartime lifestyle.)

Captured by the War

There has never been another war the scope of the Second World War. Our country has never really been jeopardized [since then]. We weren’t jeopardized by the Viet Nam War, or the Korean War, or by what happened in Rwanda.  We have never been running for our lives [like we were in] the Second World War.  The point is that every single citizen of this country—like in no other period since then—became captured by that war.  

The famous philosopher of yesteryear, Mortimer Adler, made the observation that what the world needed was the “moral equivalent of war.” That is, an attitude of all-out war effort not fighting against flesh and blood, but a similarly massive, urgent, intense, sacrificial concentration of human beings against not humans but human problems. I would add, against an enemy that is not human and whose very existence is denied apathetically by even most Christians today. Not since World War II has America seen all out mobilization of the general population to support the cause of attaining victory over what was almost universally acknowledged to be a great evil.

Wars in the past have typically gotten started because of some massive and aggressive challenge, like the sinking of the Lusitania (WWI), or the bombing of Pearl Harbor (WWII). The closest thing to that might be a global plague of the sort that killed from 50 to 100 million people in 1918 - far more people right after World War I than were killed in the war itself. But even that might not lead to the kind of total war which the United States and other nations experienced in what we call the Second World War.

Pearl Harbour bombing December 7, 1941--CC BY-NC-SA by akwccr

There is no likelihood that the equivalent of a Pearl Harbor is going to happen that would rally the social resources of the world, or even Christian resources, or more particularly, the Evangelicals. But it is easily possible to imagine that the force of the Lord’s Prayer “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” would require us to do everything we possibly can, not just to exhibit fantastic personal sacrifice, but to mobilize as much of the Christian world and the non-Christian world as possible.

Ok now, one of my experiences getting into the war: I was at Cal Tech, already in my second year there. And the Navy and the Army both said, “We need some of these college students to join and especially those with engineering and scientific training. And we will pay their tuition until they graduate and then make them officers.” And this was a pretty good deal, because it wasn’t an option. It was only one of two or three inevitabilities. “You either do that, you go with the Army, or you get drafted. You don’t have any other choice.” Well, you know most students signed up for either the Army or the Navy in their officer program. And so, I got in the Navy.

All of a sudden the whole school was taken over by the Navy. And it was now a military training base. We were studying all the same engineering things and science things. But there was now a new course called “The History of Naval Warfare” and a few other things. And so, we were being prepared for being officers in the U.S. Navy. 

Ralph Winter - 1943

Among other things, we were issued new clothes. We couldn’t just wear our own clothes. They shaved our heads. They changed everything. They had a whole new vocabulary.  In the Navy they didn’t have walls and floors and ceilings. They had bulkheads. Every word practically, was different. People would say all kinds of crazy things like “Knock it off.” At night I thought to myself when I was first in the Navy, “What do they mean by knock it off?” They mean, “Shush up! Be quiet.” That was just a Navy phrase. But it became so customary that it eventually sounded perfectly fine.

Everything is subordinate to winning the war

The thing I do recall is, the clothes we were issued––the shoes, the pants, the other garments we were given––were absolutely high quality stuff. Now, my family was never really a poor family, but we never bought stuff like that. And the navy took very good care of you. You didn’t have to say, “Now let's see, I think I need to get my teeth cleaned.” [That] was on a schedule. Your whole life was scheduled. The Navy was really basically, a very good operation to belong to. Talk about safety and care and concern. 

When somebody joins the Navy and he gets all these nice clothes, got his hat, got his belt, got his shoes. There is always a meal. You never have to lift a finger. You have a place to sleep. All this is worked out, and he says: “My, this is really great. I just love the Navy. The Navy has been so kind to me. I just want to glorify the Navy. The Navy has just taken my life and given me new clothes, and a new life and a new vocabulary” and on and on and on…  and he keeps saying this and saying this and saying this. Pretty soon somebody is going to say: “Wait a minute, we didn’t give you these things to [make you] happy. We gave you these things to fight a war and to give your life if necessary." 

You see, the Navy didn’t really care about me, they cared about winning the battle. The war was more important than any one person’s life. They were training us to give our lives. In the battle of Midway, there were seventy-five planes that took off after those Japanese ships. They knew they were never coming back, they didn’t have enough gas to get back. They were doing it, not to save their lives, but to give their lives. They were winning a war and everything was subordinate to that. 

Missionary Call

Up until now, in your church you may have gotten the impression that you get the missionary call and off you go. You lose all your possibilities of being a rich businessman or a great computer programmer because now God is going to waste your life as a missionary. Either that happens, or it doesn’t.  Either you’re called as a missionary, or you can just live your life. Try to get the best job possible. Try to marry the right person. Get the right kind of house. Get the right kind of car. Maybe get a boat, and just have a great time! “My this is really great, I just love God. The Lord has been so kind to me. I just want to glorify the Lord. The Lord has just taken my life and given me new beliefs, a new life, new friends, new vocabulary. He is so good, so good, so good, so good, so good, so good…" 

And God says, “Wait a minute, I didn’t give you these things to enjoy them merely, or simply to praise me. I gave you these things to fight a war and to give your life if necessary."

I don’t believe there is such a thing as a missionary call. Is there anybody here who has accepted Christ but not accepted his commission? If you have not accepted his commission you have not accepted Christ! You can’t divide between Christ and the work he is doing and the purposes he has. 

And God says, “Wait a minute, I didn’t give you these things to enjoy them merely, or simply to praise me. I gave you these things to fight a war and to give your life if necessary."

He who seeks to save his life will lose it

America today is a “save yourself” society if there ever was one. But does it really work? The underdeveloped societies suffer from one set of diseases: tuberculosis, malnutrition, pneumonia, parasites, typhoid, cholera, typhus, etc. Affluent America has virtually invented a whole new set of diseases: obesity, arteriosclerosis, heart disease, strokes, lung cancer, venereal disease, cirrhosis of the liver, drug addiction, alcoholism, divorce, battered children, suicide, murder. Take your choice.

Labor-saving machines have turned out to be body-killing devices. Our affluence has allowed both mobility and isolation of the nuclear family and, as a result, our divorce courts, our prisons and our mental institutions are flooded. In saving ourselves we have nearly lost ourselves.

Now when Jesus said, “He who seeks to save his life will lose it,” he may have been referring to something like this. We really don’t have any basis for assuming that all God wants of us is to make each one of us a wonderful, glorious, worshipping believer. 1 John 3:8 says “The Son of God appeared for this purpose that he might destroy the works of the devil.” And “As my Father has sent me, even so I send you.”  John 20:21

The Bible more than any other thing in my life has really stopped and stunned and changed my life. And it’s something that you can’t laugh off.  I want to refer you to 2 Corinthians 5:15. He died for all so that they might have nice uniforms and a place to stay and food to eat and just get along wonderfully? No, that's not what it says. It says, “He died for all that they who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and rose again.” Do you know what that means? That means you have no options. You cannot say, "God has not called me." God has called you. You’re all part of the war effort. Let me read it again. “He died for all that they who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and rose again.”

What would happen to this world if more evangelical Christians were to realize that God blessed them with money in order to make them a blessing, not to pamper them?
~Roberta Winter

What Does the Problem of Evil have to do with Missions? Part I

By Ralph D. Winter
Originally written in the U.S. Center for World Mission Prayer Log on Sunday, June 26, 2005

Editorial Note: One question that seems to come up again and again to us in the Roberta Winter Institute is, “What does the problem of evil have to do with missions?”  We understand why this question comes up so frequently. It is most likely because our founder’s most notable contribution was in renewing and strengthening evangelical interest in missions. It also may be because our main audience up to this point has been people in mission circles. Below are some of Ralph Winter's thoughts related to this question. Tomorrow's post (What does the Problem of Evil have to do with Missions? Part II) will be a response to these thoughts.

Help me, anyone, please, to sort out my mixed reaction to the events of the morning today at Lake Avenue Church. Here I came into the service from a week in which I hear Elsie Purnell is failing fast. Chris, a Wycliffe father of four in England, finally dies of a sudden cancer flare up. The morning service is given over to the interview of three different people who have contributed to the beauty in the world through their artistic giftings.

I have often discussed with Barbara the thought that during a calendar year Lake Avenue ought in their services at least once speak specifically about the intricate marvels of God’s creation not merely the marvels of human artistry. Concerts after concerts but no science!

Now, however, I am thinking one notch further. It is not just God’s creation we need to keep an eye on. We need to note, more specifically, the rampant ongoing “damage” to His creation (Elsie, Chris, etc.) and what would seem clearly to be a biblical mandate to fight against those destructive forces which tear down His glory.

What most startled me about this morning’s service was the interview of Julian Revie, the Caltech student who plays the organ. The pastor said there were three of his contributions that deserved mentioning. First, he has been invited to create some music and go and play at an AD 1366 chapel at Cambridge University. Second he has been invited to do something similar in Australia. Third, at the very moment I am writing this he will be in Ventura finishing up a marathon 22-hour presentation of all of Bach by something like 30 participating organists.

How is it that Sunday after Sunday all these good people ... hear all about God’s love and forgiveness, ... etc. and do not face up to the will of God that we should fight against the things which mar and scar both the people of God, the saints of God, and the creation of God. 

What is my problem? Julian is a microbiologist [who holds degrees in biochemistry and molecular biophysics]. That is a crucial area of research in which are secreted away the answers to Elsie’s suffering and Chris’s death. How is it that Sunday after Sunday all these good people at Lake Avenue Church hear all about God’s love and forgiveness, the blood of Christ that has paid for our sins, the abundant Christian life, etc. and do not face up to the will of God that we should fight against the things which mar and scar both the people of God, the saints of God, and the creation of God. Why are we saved? Just to get to heaven when we die, just to make sure others get there?

In our Sunday School class this morning (an older group) we were urged to face the fact that we “are all wasting away,” all of us, but that we need to “rejoice in the Lord” nevertheless. I don’t mind “wasting away” except that we older people, almost every person in that room, are being assailed by pathogens that are artificially and often very painfully speeding that process up. Meanwhile, are we simply to rejoice in the Lord and not fight back against those forces that are tearing down His Creation?

Isn’t that strange? What is this, a diabolical delusion? Any suggestions from anyone will be very welcome.

How attractive is our invitation to people to return to and yield to their Father in Heaven if they continue to believe he is the one who contrives for most everyone to die in suffering?

I forgot one thing. The reason I am so concerned to identify evil and become known as a believer in Jesus Christ who is fighting it, is because a great deal of evil in this world is blamed on God. How attractive is our invitation to people to return to and yield to their Father in Heaven if they continue to believe he is the one who contrives for most everyone to die in suffering? Unless Satan is in the picture and we are known to be fighting his deadly works we are allowing God’s glory to be marred and torn down. Doesn’t that make sense?

The Worm Must Die, the Cobra Must Go

By Ralph D. Winter

From his Editorial Comment originally published in the January 1998 Issue of Mission Frontiers.

Snake Charmers Cobra in Jaipur, India

To ignore the alarming connection between human (and/or satanic) responsibility and the evil that permeates this world is to plunge headlong into a type of Hindu fatalism.

But not to be too hard on the Hindus. Take the case of a devout Christian woman in the Middle Ages who considered a worm growing in her forehead something God had “sent” to her to keep her humble. One day, leaning over, she noticed that the “God-sent” worm fell out on the floor. She hurriedly restored it to the open sore in her forehead—not wishing to frustrate the purposes of God.

Is this not similar to a Hindu family grieving over the death of a child from the fangs of a cobra well-known to have made its abode in a clump of bamboo in the backyard? Even after the boy’s tragic and much mourned death the cobra continues on unassailed since the family earnestly seeks to “consent” to God’s will. God obviously placed that cobra in the clump of bamboo? Thus, the family feels it is not their place to eliminate that evil. Is this the best way to look at what is going on?

Or, finally, if you are ready for this, my wife and I hear from all kinds of wonderful loving people who are willing to pray for my wife whose cancer is steadily eating its way throughout all her bones. We deeply value and appreciate those prayers. We devoutly hope they help. But we think that there comes a time when the worm must die, and the cobra must go.

See, no one that I know of has suggested that we, the Evangelical world, have a responsibility to get up and “kill the worm” or “kill the cobra” when it comes to malaria or cancer. That is, no one has suggested that either I or Evangelicals in general set out resolutely with the millions of dollars at our disposal to combat the source of malaria or cancer.

Who is Addressing Root Causes of the Biggest Human Problems?

This old tree is laying here due to the coastal erosion occurring all round this area. Gurnard near Cowes, England, United Kingdom

By Brian Lowther

Speaking in organizational terms, the Roberta Winter Institute receives oversight from William Carey International University. This is a very beneficial arrangement to the RWI as our goals fit hand-and-glove with their goals. The University’s mission statement is: preparing men and women to discover and address the roots of human problems around the world. Given that one of the biggest human problems is disease, our key aim could be stated as a specific outworking of WCIU’s: Inspiring faith based initiatives to address the roots of disease. 

This idea of getting to the problem at the roots is profound and essential. It comes quite obviously from horticulture. Some plants, especially some weeds, will never die unless you dig out their roots and utterly destroy them. You can cut them off at the surface time after time, but they just keep coming back. But when the root is exposed and removed from the soil, the weed is gone.

There are also medical connotations. In medicine, it's easy to understand the difference between treating symptoms and curing a medical condition. When you're in pain because you've broken your wrist, you want the pain to go away as quickly as possible. But painkillers won't make your wrist better. True healing is needed before the symptoms disappear for good.

Colloquial examples abound - one I like is the case of being so busy mopping up the floor that you can’t turn off the spigot.

In this entry I’d like to explore which theologically motivated organizations are addressing the roots of the five biggest problems facing mankind today.  By exposing just how little is being done to address the roots of disease, I trust  you’ll see the rationale for the RWI’s existence.

I’ve based my list on Rick Warren’s Five Giants: 

1. Poverty
2. Illiteracy
3. Corrupt Governments
4. Spiritual Darkness
5. Disease

1. Poverty

Here is an ambitious partnership between ten Christian anti-poverty organizations 

2. Illiteracy

• Literacy Evangelism International
• Joni and Friends Christian Literacy Program

3. Corrupt Governments

This is largely a governmental concern (as evidenced by this list of organizations), but here are a few expressly Christian examples:

• Fellowship of Christian Councils and Churches in West Africa
• Christian Workers Movement from Central India
• Bond Anti-Corruption Group (see Christianity Today article here)
• Inter-faith Anti-Corruption Advisory Committee

4. Spiritual Darkness

Rather than list a few good examples, I’ll simply ask, what church, denomination or mission organization is not focused on addressing the roots of spiritual darkness?

5. Disease

While Christians through the ages are noted for being kind to people who are already sick, helping them get well, defending them against aggressive pathogens, we are not well known for attempting to eradicate those pathogens themselves. The World Health Organization is known for that. The Carter Center is known for that. Increasingly Bill Gates is becoming known for that. But if we in the body of Christ don’t take a very public, top-to-bottom stance against disease at its roots, both in our theology and in our practical efforts, people will continue to assume that God intended and created the diseases that terrorize us, and by association, many other forms of evil that can’t be attributed to sinful human behavior. Is that really the kind of God we represent when we go out to win people to Christ, his son?