Christians Wrestle with a Biblical Response to AIDS
According to ASSIST News Service, Dr. Peter Piot, UNAIDS Executive Director challenged the group of approximately 14,000 to mobilize political commitment, scale up AIDS prevention and treatment, eliminate stigma, develop a vaccine and find $10 billion to fight the disease.
The conference comes days after UNAIDS released new figures that reveal the AIDS epidemic is still in its early phase and shows no sign of leveling off in the hardest hit countries. The report warns that AIDS is erasing decades of development and cutting life expectancies by nearly half in the most affected areas. Some 45 million people are infected with HIV-AIDS, almost half of which live in sub-Saharan Africa. Three million are children under 15. Last year, five million people were newly infected with HIV, and three million died of AIDS, according to ASSIST.
Last year World Magazine reported that while rates of infection may be declining in the West, AIDS in Africa "is on a rocket-like trajectory. Over 22 million Africans are infected with HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS, compared to 1.5 million Americans."
Through One Lens
In light of such devastation, why aren't Christians leaping to help? According to World Magazine, Christians in the United States have not pushed relief efforts "because they tend to view the AIDS crisis overseas through domestic debates led by homosexual activists."
A survey of U.S. adults showed evangelical Christians are significantly less likely than non-Christians to give money for AIDS education and prevention programs worldwide. Conducted by the Barna Research Group, the survey reported that 3 percent of evangelical Christians plan to donate toward AIDS education and prevention internationally, compared with 8 percent of non-Christians.
Barna's random telephone survey of 1,003 U.S. adults was commissioned by World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization. "We wanted to measure Americans' attitudes about and awareness of the international AIDS crisis," says Richard Stearns, president. "Needless to say, the results are deeply troubling, given that 73 percent of Americans -- among the most charitable in the world -- say they are aware or very familiar with the issue, but are still not likely to help the international AIDS crisis."
In his 1994 book, "The Truth about AIDS," Dr. Patrick Dixon, a church leader and physician, said that Christians often ask him whether AIDS represents the wrath of God. "The reason AIDS is such a sensitive issue is because it touches on so many different aspects of conscience and morality," he wrote.
Dixon quoted a Catholic professor of philosophy in the United States who said the following at an international conference: "The gay community was the originator of the AIDS troubles in America and gay men should accept AIDS as just punishment for their disgusting sins."
According to Dixon, "The big issue is how a traditional Christian view on morality can be equated with God's call to love."
While American believers grapple with moral dilemmas, some overseas churches feel slighted. "At the U.N. conference, a pastor from Uganda expressed part of the frustration of many of our African brothers and sisters when he said, 'The church in America does not feel our pain' and is not responding at the level commensurate to the urgency of the problem," reports Dr. Milton Amayun.
Amayun is vice president of international programs at International Aid, a Christ-centered, health-focused global relief and development agency based in Spring Lake, Mich. He is a public health physician who has designed, managed or supervised major health programs in five continents.
"We need to obey the call for compassion," says Amuyan. "We have to find a process for breaking down the walls of apathy and lack of concern for the decimated ranks of Christian churches in Africa.
"Christians worldwide need to reclaim the great tradition of being at the lead of caring for the sick and downtrodden," Amuyan continued. "All of us have a role to play; either as abstinent youth, faithful spouses, compassionate donors, vocal advocates for greater support or caring health care providers."
Many Do Reach Out
Yet there are several Christian organizations long at the forefront of AIDS relief in Africa. For the last 20 years, International Aid has been providing medicines, medical supplies and technical assistance to hospitals and clinics in 16 countries of sub-Saharan Africa where HIV/AIDS is most intense.
World Vision, an international Christian relief and development organization, was one of the first non-government groups to respond to AIDS in Africa more than a decade ago. In recent years it has increased its efforts to provide care, comfort, and education.
Dr. Hector Jalipa, World Vision's Africa regional health and HIV/AIDS adviser, notes, "As a Christian organization, we have a big role." World Vision approaches AIDS relief with the acronym "HOPE" - Help for those already infected, Orphan care, Prevention, and Education. At the grassroots level, says Jalipa, they work in churches to change people's behaviors and attitudes toward abstinence and marital fidelity.
Another Christian group, World Relief, has rearranged its global priorities to respond to HIV/AIDS. Current programs, including child and maternal health programs that reduce child mortality rates through disease prevention and good nutrition, have had no choice but to re-direct their focus. New strategies to address the destructive force of HIV/AIDS can now be found in World Relief's core community development programs.
"AIDS is the new filter though which we're viewing existing programs because of its devastating impact on people we're serving," says Arne Bergstrom, World Relief's vice president of international ministries.
Experts acknowledge that information alone won't reduce risky sexual behavior in young people or increase awareness about transmission; it requires a change in one's beliefs. A study by J.D. Caldwell on the African AIDS epidemic shows that "Cultural beliefs about sexual practices are so pervasive that behavioral approaches, such as the encouragement of condom use, have not been successful.
Unless knowledge and information are linked to beliefs and values," the study said, "providing knowledge and information alone is a very weak intervention tool."
And this is where Christians have taken the lead. According to Laura White of World Relief, that group is mobilizing churches in Nkhota Kota, Malawi, to start youth Bible studies that emphasize God's plan for sexuality.
"From the pulpit, in patient fellowships, youth groups and private homes, the Church is widely proclaiming abstinence and faithfulness in every way it can, while still loving and caring for the many affected families," says White.
In Part Two, next Monday, we'll hear from Christo Greyling, World Vision's HIV/AIDS coordinator for South Africa and Lesotho. A hemophiliac, he tested positive for HIV while attending theological seminary in 1987 and publicly disclosed his HIV status in 1992 while serving in the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa. Greyling is presenting a poster on "Mobilizing local congregations towards prevention and care" at the AIDS conference in Barcelona.
Originally published July 08, 2002.
