| AIDS:
Christian Action and Compassion
A Christian response to
AIDS
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?
Click here: Full
text of The Truth about AIDS - by Dr Patrick Dixon - covers
many practical issues and a Christian response, role of the church,
how Christians should get involved in HIV and AIDS. Or order free physical copies in bulk for the poorest nations.
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.
Jesus loathed their double
standards and self-opinionated hypocrisy.
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).
When it comes to pointing
the finger, Jesus forbids the Christian community to put ourselves
on a pedestal when it comes to HIV / AIDS.
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.
So how do we live with
these tensions ? The way of Jesus is clear: a Christian AIDS response means we are called to express the unconditional love of
God to all in need regardless of how they come to be so. This is
fundamental to the call of the church to serve the world.
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.
With those affected by
HIV/AIDS we are called to be helpful, to care and express love.
The church has to act, seeking always to serve others.
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.
Those with AIDS are the
lepers of today. When Jesus touched the leper he made history -
still talked about 2000 years later. It was the most powerful demonstration
of the love of God that he could possibly have shown other than
his own sacrificial death.
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.
How to help: Compassionate
care for the ill and dying, and saving lives through prevention
go hand in hand. Time is running out in many nations as each day
the epidemic spreads further out of control.
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.
Be sensitive to where the person
is today, helping the person understand that in the midst of great
uncertainties about the future, your own constant support and friendship
is not in doubt, just as God's faithfulness and love is not in doubt.
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.
The greatest need is often
for simple practical help rather than just for comforting words
or a listening ear. Wiping someone's bottom can say more about your
care for the person than six hours of sitting in an armchair. Many
want to counsel someone with AIDS - but who is really prepared to
go the extra mile?
A prayer by Bishop Misaeri Kauma (Uganda)
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.
Home Page of ACET
AIDS memorial quilt
- beautifully presented site
Full text
of The Truth about AIDS online - by Dr Patrick Dixon
Order free copies of two AIDS books for bulk distribution in the poorest nations
World Health
Organisation ACET
International SITE - A Christian global movement of independent
agencies seeking to show love and compassion and to save lives
The Truth about AIDS - free online book:
- Latest
AIDS statistics, AIDS information - Africa AIDS Crisis - History
of AIDS - AIDS epidemic, India, Asia, Eastern Europe, Central
Europe, Russia, America, China
- AIDS
research - causes of AIDS - AIDS treatment - retroviruses - protease
inhibitors - cure? Antiretroviral therapy for HIV
- HIV
transmission, AIDS risk factors and HIV window period
- What
is AIDS? - HIV symptoms - AIDS symtoms - symptoms early HIV infection
- early signs infection
- How
reliable are condoms? HIV dating - reducing HIV transmission
- Life
and death issues - HIV medicine
- AIDS
FAQ - vaccine, treatment, AIDS testing, Africa, China, Children,
workplace discrimination, AIDS myths, origin of AIDS
- Moral
dilemmas - euthanasia and AIDS treatments
- AIDS
and the church - when church members need help
- Community
care - treatment, adults, children, orphans
- AIDS
education - AIDS awareness in youth and schools
- HIV
Prevention - needle exchange program and condom distribution
- AIDS
in Africa and HIV in Africa, HIV infected surgeons
- Ten
point AIDS management plan for governments
- A global Christian challenge - church response to AIDS
- Guidelines
for best practice in running HIV / AIDS programmes in developing
countries, plus many helpful case studies and stories (Africa
/ India / Asia)
- A Christian
response to AIDS - global AIDS challenge to the church (article
for Tear Fund)
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
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