by Brian Shilhavy, Health Impact News:
Ever since President Trump declared he was cutting off all funding for USAID, along with Wikileaks publishing data on who has been receiving a piece of the multi-billion dollar international U.S. Government funding “slush fund,” the Conservative Christian “Alternative” media has had a field day with publishing articles about the evil “liberal” organizations pushing their agenda overseas at the expense of USAID and federal funding.
This is just another example of the hypocrisy on the Right, and how they are most certainly not pro-Free Speech, but only pro-Conservative Christian Speech, while censoring news that implicates their own complicity with taking government funding through USAID for their own programs, called “ministries.”
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
icking through overseas adoptions, as well as Christian “medical missions” which fund the distribution of vaccines and western pharmaceutical products in poor countries.
Conservatives have made a big deal over the revealing of USAID funds flowing into the “Liberal” corporate media such as Politico, ignoring that funds also flowed into “Conservative” corporate media as well, such as Christianity Today.
Evangelicals and other Christian groups who are now at threat of closing down due to the loss of government funding through USAID are beginning to complain, as $billions of government funding has made rich such Christian heavyweight international organizations such as World Relief, World Vision, Samaritan’s Purse, and Catholic Relief Services.
How Christian Groups Are Responding to Trump’s Foreign-Aid Freeze
On the afternoon of Friday, Jan. 31, World Relief, an evangelical charity that helps resettle refugees around the world, but especially in the U.S., got an order from the U.S. Department of State to stop all work under its contract with the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. This was confusing, since that evening a group of Afghans who had served alongside Americans in the long-running conflict there were arriving into Sacramento airport, and the nonprofit group was contracted by State to take care of them.
“It said, stop all work,” says Matthew Soerens, the vice president of advocacy and policy for World Relief.
“But we were not going to not show up at the airport. We were not going to not make sure that they had a place to sleep that night and a warm meal.”
It’s not a heavy lift to meet people at an airport and buy them a meal. What worries the folks at World Relief more is who was going to pay their rent for the next 90 days?
Usually that time period is covered by federal money distributed through various partners so that refugees have time to get on their feet and find a job, but now the State Department has ordered World Relief and other charities to immediately cease doing that. And who was going to pay rent for the thousands of other families World Relief was supporting, both in the U.S. and overseas?
Evangelical and other Christian charities have not been spared these cuts. Among the organizations that lost funding are such Christian behemoths as World Vision, International Justice Mission, Samaritan’s Purse, and Catholic Relief Services, which at $476 million, was the largest USAID recipient in 2024. (Full article.)
Overseas “adoptions” and “medical missions” are the main “ministries” Christians are upset about with the cuts in federal funding.
Nearly every denomination is represented among the recipients of USAID funding, including major evangelical and conservative organizations like Samaritan’s Purse, the global charity operated by Franklin Graham — who happens to be among Trump’s most sycophantic admirers. Graham’s reputation as a “humanitarian” has surely benefited from his organization’s association with U.S. relief efforts, not to mention $90 million in taxpayer support.
As Christianity Today reported on Feb. 4, “Most of USAID’s budget goes to grants for specific development projects, including at Samaritan’s Purse, World Vision, World Relief, Catholic Relief Services, and many other faith-based groups. It supports local Christian health clinics in Malawi and groups providing orphan care.
“In Kenya, PCEA Chogoria Hospital, a historic mission hospital now run by Kenyan churches, provides comprehensive health care to HIV patients through support from USAID.
On January 24 the hospital received a stop-work order for that care and has had no indication of a return of funding despite (Secretary of State Marco) Rubio’s promises that life-saving HIV care could continue. The hospital has 3,162 HIV patients in that USAID-funded program, and 42 staff members caring for those patients. (Source.)
As I reported during COVID, Smaritan’s Purse was a leader in the U.S. providing COVID-19 vaccines, and the deadly new drug Remdesivir, in their “Christian Medical Clinics.” See:
Fully Vaccinated Franklin Graham Has Heart Surgery for Pericarditis as Samaritan’s Purse Helps Inject People with COVID-19 Shots
Franklin Graham, of course, became famous during COVID, because he assured everyone that “Jesus Christ would advocate for people using vaccines”. See:
Read More @ HealthImpactNews.com
