A Christian Response to AIDS - Church AIDS programmes

How should Christians respond to AIDS?

(Important: see also website of ACET - an international community of independent church-based AIDS programmes in countries such as Uganda, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Russia, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Slovakia, UK, Ireland, Thailand and India. ACET (AIDS Care Education and Training) was founded by Dr Patrick Dixon as a Christian response to AIDS in 1988. ACET members have cared for many thousands with AIDS, and educated over 1.5 million school pupils in the classroom, as well as trained over 100,000 health care professionals about HIV prevention and AIDS care. For more on a Christian response to AIDS see also entire text of two books on AIDS available by Dr Dixon which are free online, or order physical copies of the books FREE in bulk for use in the poorest nations - see FREE BOOKS ON AIDS. )

I will never forget the first person I met with AIDS: a young student desperately ill in a side-room. He was anxious, sweaty panting for breath, and gripped with fear. He was alone and about to die. (Article on a Christian response to AIDS published in Tear Times 1997). From that moment on I found I was involved. Here was a human being made in God's image, in great need. How could I respond other than to care and help, laying aside any personal feelings I might have had about lifestyles, and the means by which he had become infected?

Facts about AIDS:

	1 in 200 of all adults globally are already infected - and the church in many nations is a major provider of compassionate care for those with AIDS
	1 new infection every 15 seconds - 85 million so far
	1 million infected so far in US
	More AIDS deaths in US alone each year in 1990s than in entire Vietnam War
	95% of all infection globally in last 12 months is 'hetero'
	Epidemic slowing down in wealthier nations where spread mainly among men who have had sex with men and among drug users
	Some towns and cities in Africa have infection rates as high as 1 in 3 of those between 15 and 65
	In Uganda infection rates are showing signs of decline, especially among the young
	There is still no vaccine or cure
	Best treatments for HIV involve multiple drug therapy e.g. HIV protease inhibitors. These prevent viral genes from entering genes of white cells, or prevent viral production.
	HIV continues to mutate rapidly.
	Global infection toll to date: 85 million of which half are dead
	First five cases diagnosed 1981
	As recently as 1985 doctors were still pumping infected blood into people because they thought it was safe, and 'heteros' were still thought to be largely immune
	Rapid infection in poorer nations may be linked to co-factors such as other untreated transmitted diseases
	Most deaths from HIV are directly related to immune damage (TB commonest cause of AIDS death) or to HIV-induced tumours.

So often as Christians reacting to AIDS we do nothing or find ourselves rushing to open our bibles, to declare to ourselves and to others that something is wrong. Yet in our sudden response we can loose sight of God's mercy, love and forgiveness - and the reality that many have been infected through the actions of others rather than through their own behaviour. It is possible as to be technically correct in interpreting God's standards for human behaviour yet terribly wrong and un Christian in our own attitudes.

Christian response to AIDS must be guided by example of Jesus

Take the example of Jesus with the woman caught in the act of adultery - really the story of the missing man (1). Here are a bunch of angry men, looking for an excuse to lynch a woman, yet it takes two to and the man is nowhere to be seen. In Jesus' day there was a hierarchy of sin: woman sex sin punished by death, other sin was more or less acceptable, while man sex sin was hardly worth fussing about.

He cut right through them with just one sentence: "If any one of you is without sin let him be the first to throw a stone at her" (2). "Yes you sir, who's eyes have never strayed to the top shelf of WH Smith, you who have never been jealous, spiteful, rude or have never gossiped behind someone's back, you who are the perfect wife, you who have never lost your temper with the children, you who have never told a half-truth or broken the speed limit. You come now and cast the stone."

No one moved. Jesus stared them all out until they all left one by one - the oldest first. In one sentence Jesus had totally destroyed any possibility of judging others according to a ranking of sin. All of us have sinned and fallen short of God's glory (3), all are utterly dead outside of God's grace (4).

He was the only person on this earth who had the right to condemn yet he says to the woman "neither do I condemn you". He also adds "go now and leave your life of sin" (5) .

As Christians we get confused between the two things Jesus said: either we rush to make a moral statement, tripping up over judgmental attitudes along the way, or we rush to express God's mercy and love, falling into a deep hole where there is no longer a clear moral framework for living. The Jesus way is to hold infinite love and perfect standards in tension together - something we need his help to do. This is the Christian way.

Let us be absolutely clear that the teaching of scripture from Genesis to Revelation is constant regarding the wonderful gift of sex union, as a celebration of love and friendship between a man and woman committed together for life. God loves sex, it's the waste of sex outside marriage that causes him grief. The bible is far more daring and explicit than our sermons on sex, making clear that all sex union outside marriage is wrong.

Sex is shown to be a mystery, a spiritual event when two become "one flesh" (6). We see the physical side of this whenever a sperm fuses with an egg. Half a cell from a woman fuses with half a cell from a man to form literally one flesh: a new unique individual full of future personality and identity.

If someone is seriously hurt in a car crash just outside my house I rush out to help. I don't walk away just because I find out he's drunk and that is why there was an accident. Nor do I start preaching an anti-drunkenness sermon in the ambulance or on the ward. I do however talk about the story widely wherever I go, pointing out the dangers of drinking and driving.

We are there as servants to help as the person wishes and it is a privilege to do so. Many are shocked to find christians involved who care deeply while unable to endorse certain lifestyles.

I often think about the story Jesus told of the prodigal son (7). What would have happened if he had become infected with HIV while away and had died before having had time to think again? I imagine his dad reading the newspaper over breakfast one day and seeing the death notice of his own son. I imagine him breaking down in tears as he calls his wife: "He never phoned, he never wrote, and in ten years we had no news except through friends of friends".

I often think of people with AIDS today, many dying without hope and without God, and I think of our heavenly father, with tears pouring down his face, not wanting any to perish (8), or to be separated one day more, yet with sadness releasing people to go their own way.

When a volunteer from a local church goes into a home that person carries the presence of Christ. Jesus has no body of his own: we the church are his body. We are his hands, his feet, his smile, his voice, his heart, his touch.

The only part of God that people see could be the life of Jesus in you or me. As we go into the home, and give someone a hug, or take someone's hand we too are making a little bit of history: a powerful declaration of God's love, a prophetic statement of his heart to people who often feel totally alienated from the church.

There is also a time for declaring God's design for living. Faced with a world disaster resulting largely from ignoring God's ways it would be unimaginable for the church to be silent. It is a fact that if everyone kept to just one partner for life, and ceased injecting drugs, HIV would be wiped off the face of this earth in less than 30 years. It is also true that continuing without restraint over the same period could cost over 200 million people's lives.

Condoms are an incomplete answer other than reducing the risk in the short term. Are governments honestly expecting a couple where one or other may have been at risk to go on using condoms for the next 50 years ? What happens when they want to have children or when the condom breaks, leaks, falls off or fails in some other way? Pregnancy rates are notoriously high with condoms. It was the pill that produced the "revolution" in the 1960s not the condom.

In any case, wealthy nations have been unwilling so far to provide enough cash to rubberise all sex in Africa, Asia and other parts of the world where such solutions cost more dollars that countries have. I was once offered a consignment of 140 million condoms for Africa - which sounds great till you work out that it would be enough to last the continent just one night, and cost more money than most large donors can provide for a decade - hardly a sustainable and practical strategy to contain explosive HIV spread in 2/3rds of the world.

The World Health Organisation has at last seen sense with the admission that "the most effective way to prevent transmission of HIV is to abstain, or for two uninfected individuals to be faithful to one another. Alternatively the correct use of a condom may reduce the risk significantly" (9).

These days when so many have been at risk through past behaviour, the only way for partners to be sure of safety may be for testing to be made widely available. In some countries up to a third of women with AIDS have been celibate and then monogamous, yet are now dying because their husbands were infected through other relationships. This is a controversial and sensitive area. Anyone considering a test needs expert advice first.

The WHO 3by5 inititiative aims to provide free antiviral treatment to 3 million people in Africa and Asia, and will at the same time offer free HIV testing to many millions more, hoping to encourage people to find out their status and take action to save their own lives and those of others, or to prolong their lives if they are infected.

We need to act now with a hard hitting message linked to care. Those involved in care have the greatest credibility and impact. Then people can see the reality of the illness, change behaviour and be motivated to help the dying and orphans left behind.

Is your church prepared at leadership level for AIDS ? Any growing church may find people with HIV as members as a result of previous lifestyles. For example, in Central and Eastern Europe, many churches are involved in drug rehabilitation eg Ukraine and Russia, and some churches have several hundred former drug-users in their congregations, of which up to 70% have HIV.

People with AIDS can be very sensitive to reactions: will this new person accept or reject? As with cancer a person can swing rapidly from anger, to denial, sadness, despair, hope, optimism, questioning, resignation, fighting, giving up, wanting active treatment, or even wanting to die.

There may be deep wounds from the past, and feelings of worthlessness. Guilt over unintentional passing of infection on to others, guilt over surviving when so many others have already died, and guilt about lifestyles may all be present. Feelings of isolation and loneliness may be intense. Fear of the process of dying is often far greater than the fear of death itself.

Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, who enabled your servant Job to go victoriously through great bodily suffering without denying your name, power and love. Have mercy on us, Lord, who are stricken by this epidemic of AIDS. Stretch out your healing hand and hold back this virus. Strengthen and comfort, in Jesus Christ, those infected and ease their pain of body and mind. Send your Holy Spirit, renew us all, and lead us into repentance and faith in the Gospel. Give us the gift of discipline, that we may keep our bodies and minds clean and holy. Grant wisdom, knowledge and perseverance to all who seek a cure for AIDS, that they may find the drugs to prevent and heal the disease. Have mercy on us, Lord, and on all AIDS sufferers through out the world. Give us love and compassion to all who seek to assist them, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.

Dr Patrick Dixon is the author of The Truth about AIDS (Kingsway £9-99) and also founder of ACET (AIDS Care Education and Training)

(1) John 8v1-11
(2) John 8v7
(3) Rom 3v23
(4) Eph 2v1
(5) John 8v11
(6) Gen 2v24, Matt 19v5, 1 Cor 6v16
(7)Luke 15v11-31
(8) 2 Pet 3v9
(9) WHO message for World AIDS Day 1st Dec 1991