University of Stellenbosch HIV/AIDS ALIENATION: BETWEEN PREJUDICE AND ACCEPTANCE Chapter 2 The Historical Response of the Church JANET L. BROWN Dissertation presented for the Degree of Doctor of Theology At the University of Stellenbosch Promoter: Professor H. JURGENS HENDRIKS April 2004 Chapter 2 The Historical Response of the Church 53 2.1 INTRODUCTION: 53 2.2 HISTORICAL ECCLESIASTICAL RESPONSE TO HIV: 55 1.3 CONCLUSION ECCLESIASTICAL RESPONSE: 64 2.4 SUMMARY 67 Chapter 2 The Historical Response of the Church 2.1 INTRODUCTION: The church has been in existence for nearly two millennia, and throughout this time it has faced many difficulties, which have helped to mould and shape it into the form we find it in today. With the advantage of better vision when viewing hindsight, an observer reviewing the historical actions of the church can easily point to areas of weakness in which the church did not respond heroically, or even in such a way as would honour the name of the Christ she claims to represent. However, in all fairness it must be conceded that the church in the world is a body (1.4.10.2) of believers, who although they have the power of the Holy Spirit to guide them, are nonetheless a body of human beings subject to mistakes, failings, and outright evil, even when claiming to speak in the name of God. Much has been written and studied about the phenomenon of change. People are notoriously reluctant to change on an individual basis, and this continuing resistance to change is no less true in institutions across the globe. Unfortunately the scope of this resistance includes the church as well. It is with this understanding that we must now examine the role and response of the church, as demonstrated in the past, as well as it's current response to this modern day crisis - the problem of HIV/AIDS as it affects the population of the world of today. Following the normative moral guidelines laid down in Scripture, the church initially stood firm against all aspects of the AIDS crisis because, particularly in its initial stages, AIDS was almost entirely associated with people and behaviours that were in direct defiance of the principles set down by God in His holy Word. During these early, tentative days of the disease process, those suffering from the deadly virus and even the virus itself, including the deviant behaviours that propagated it, were all conveniently grouped into one easily identifiable box, and labelled 'untouchable' by the church as a whole. This brings remembrances of the biblical stories of those who Scripture labelled as 'untouchable' as well. Although there is no specific New Testament teaching on AIDS, some have said that HIV/AIDS is the modern day equivalent to the biblical anathema of leprosy1 (2.2) (Mt 10:8; Lk 17:12-19; et al) (Nicholson 1994:228). As long as the disease was defined in such a way, the church had little to fear because by condemning those practices that exacerbated the progression of the disease, they could easily distance themselves from affirming any responsibility to any aspect of it. Unfortunately, it was only when the spread had become so rampant and far-reaching that not only were those sitting in the pews becoming either infected or affected by the deadly virus, but the clergy themselves were seeing their own families falling victim to its evil touch. At this point the church as a whole, began to realize that it must re-evaluate its past response; and with that realization, begin to explore ways to move forward using its material, but mostly human resources to seek ways to stem this rushing tide of disaster. At this point of crisis, the faith community began critical constructive interpretation of their present reality (local analysis) (1.4.10.4). This chapter will examine the foundational issues surrounding the problem and the hypothesis identified and developed in chapter one (1.2): 1. Can the negative attitudes, prejudices and behaviours which are held and demonstrated by many in the church towards those suffering with HIV/AIDS, be changed by using deliberate attempts to alter their perspective of this pandemic by providing accurate information, in juxtaposition with the demonstration of Christ's love and compassion to this community? 2. In conjunction to this first question comes a second: Can the compassionate outreach of the church, as it follows Christ's mandate to love (through Home Based Care), change the perspective of those in the HIV/AIDS community so that instead of viewing the church (as a whole) as cold and unloving, their perception will change with the demonstration of such love and compassion by it's membership that they begin to see the church as a source of hope and love? These questions will be examined in the light of the historical church context in an attempt to determine whether the relationship between the local church and the HIV/AIDS community can be altered when provided with the opportunity to learn about each other in safe, non-threatening ways using the vehicle of Home Based Care as the point of entry. Following this examination of the foundational issues surrounding the identified problem of the church's response to the HIV/AIDS crisis will come chapters dealing with the more specific cultural issues that serve to exacerbate the issues. Subsequent to this will be a descriptive explanation of the theological aspects of the problem with the methodological development of the research project under study, along with interpretation of the data received and, the various conclusions and evaluations leading to the way forward that came from this information in the war against AIDS. 2.2 HISTORICAL ECCLESIASTICAL RESPONSE TO HIV: HIV/AIDS may have already been apparent in places like Africa, where it is thought to have originated. It has been reported that in 1998 a plasma sample from 1959 has been interpreted as suggesting that HIV-1 was introduced into humans around the 1940s or the early 1950s. Some scientists have suggested that it could have been even longer, perhaps around 100 years or more ago (Zhu et al 1998). Although it may have originated as early as indicated, it did not come to the attention of the world until it surfaced in 1981 and developed into a recognized threat in the Western world. For the first time, the CDC (Center for Disease Control) in the United States reported in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly (MMWR) five cases of Pneumocystis Carinii Pneumonia (PCP) among previously healthy gay young men in Los Angeles. Afterward additional cases were reported from New York City, San Francisco, and other cities (GBGM, 1981). On 5 July, one month following this report, the New York Times published an article about AIDS (New York Times 1981). Scientists began to scramble for some explanation of this syndrome they were beginning to recognize. By 1983, the New York Times reported recognition on a global scale in their May 24th issue (Altman 1983), In many parts of the world there is anxiety, bafflement, a sense that something has to be done - although no one knows what - about this fatal disease whose full name is Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and whose cause is still unknown. The World Health Organization (WHO) made plans to convene a meeting of experts in Geneva from, November 22-25, 1983 to address the issue. These excerpts from an article published in Christianity Today Magazine (Frame 1985:51) demonstrates the confusion and difficulty experienced by the church in the early days of HIV/AIDS discovery, The Kaiser/Permanente Medical Center in Los Angeles first admitted patients with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) about two years ago. At the time, chaplain Robert Bird avoided those patients. When AIDS began to capture headlines a few years ago, fundamentalist preacher Jerry Falwell said it could be God's judgment on homosexuals... ...a young AIDS victim who became a Christian ...wanted to be baptized by immersion in an evangelical church. However, his request was denied because of fears that the virus would spread in the baptismal water. Generally speaking, however, Christian ministry of AIDS sufferers has been limited to organizations that do not regard homosexual behaviour as sinful. Researcher Harold Ivan Smith, who heads a counselling organization called Tear Catchers, says the evangelical church has lost credibility over the issue. 'AIDS researchers are increasingly looking at evangelicals as idiots and bigots,' he says. From the very beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, some of those on the religious fronts were beginning to respond as a sign of God's kingdom on earth (1.4.10.7). Along with the role of providing compassion and benevolence to the needy, it has long been recognized that the relationship between an individual's faith and religions practices and their personal response to illness has been associated with increased coping skills and even increased healing (Somlai 1997:417) (5.6). The AIDS Interfaith Network was created in 1986 by a group of clergy and pastoral and lay counsellors who were providing spiritual and emotional support services to persons living with HIV/AIDS. These same individuals were attempting to educate clergy, churches, and their congregations about HIV/AIDS in an effort to promote a more compassionate response to those who were struggling with the disease (AIDS Interfaith Network 1986). The Shanti Project which is a humanitarian project with some religious overtones in San Francisco, sponsored an all-day religious forum to address the spiritual needs of people with AIDS. Later that month, the Federation of AIDS Related Organizations, gathering for the second annual AIDS forum in Denver, CO, mandated the establishment of an AIDS Interfaith network. In June 1986, the World Council of Churches (WCC) formed a study group to begin looking into the situation surrounding this newly recognized crisis, struggling to discern God's will for their present situation (1.4.10.6). From this study group came a recommendation of three main foci for ecclesiastical response: pastoral care, social ministry and education-prevention (WCC 2001). Realizing the potential for a legalistic response, which could potentially lead to a warped sense of justice in their misguided hermeneutic regarding God's principles and result in such negative attributes as alienation, estrangement and prejudice, the WCC (2001) also called upon faith communities to: ...to work against the real danger that AIDS will be used as an excuse for discrimination and oppression and to work to ensure the protection of the human rights of persons affected directly or indirectly by AIDS. Unfortunately, the church's overall response to the AIDS situation follows its own history of lethargy against evil. This can be seen as one examines the churches response to historical issues that can now be recognized as unequivocally godless (the horror of the Crusades, the holocaust, slavery, etc.). T. N. Mohan vividly portrays the role of the church in its support of the German Nazi party in his documentary, The Life, Convictions and Martyrdom of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Mohan 1996). Outstanding in this period of history is the small minority of Christians such as Bonhoeffer, who recognized this pervasive evil and stood firmly in his opposition to it, with the result of his own martyrdom. While he was standing for the truth of the Gospel message, conservative Christian groups were proudly standing under the banner of Nazism believing they were furthering the cause of Christ. This warped understanding of love as demonstrated by the church was effectually working to tear down the mission and witness of the Church instead of working to fulfil the mandate (5.4) of Christ. In a similar way, many deluded Christians have allowed themselves to be persuaded to follow a similarly errant line of theology, which reinforces attitudes echoing those that served to perpetuate the Holocaust (3.2.3). This can be noted in the following excerpt from a World Council of Churches (WCC 1987:84, 99) document. From the beginning of the pandemic some Christians, churches and church-related institutions have been active in education and prevention programs and in caring for people living with HIV/AIDS. The consultative group was privileged to have worked with several of these during the study. The group observes, however, that by and large the response of the churches has been inadequate and has, in some cases, even made the problem worse. As the WCC executive committee noted in 1987, 'through their silence, many churches share responsibility for the fear that has swept our world more quickly than the virus itself'. Sometimes churches have hampered the spread of accurate information or created barriers to open discussion and understanding. Further, churches may reinforce racist attitudes if they neglect issues of HIV/AIDS because it occurs predominantly among certain ethnic or racial groups. These groups may be unjustly stigmatised as the most likely carriers of the infection. In the early days of AIDS awareness and research, Johnson (1987:108) began investigating the inflammatory attitudes and prejudices he noticed were associated with HIV/AIDS. After reviewing the scientific information available at the time (even in the 1980's), he considered the reaction of the population to be seditious, The prejudice described here is greater fear and rejection of AIDS victims than would be considered reasonable based on the present evidence concerning the threat of AIDS carriers to the public health. In his study focusing on the intolerance of the church towards AIDS victims, Johnson found that those who met a certain profile were most likely to exhibit prejudice against those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. Using quantitative methodology, he found that those meeting the following four criteria were the most likely to show evidence of intolerance of AIDS victims: 1. Lowered educational levels 2. Political conservatism 3. Self-Esteem issues 4. Religious Fundamentalism Although this study was done in the heartland of America, there are some interesting characteristics that cross national and cultural boundaries. The church has seemingly confused the enemy when considering the big picture of the HIV/AIDS issue. If we choose to use military language in this context and describe the virus as the 'enemy', we must also make it very clear that the person carrying the virus is not the enemy, but a co-fighter against it (WCC 1987:84, 99). Observing the response of the church, it appears that the person carrying the virus has indeed been considered the enemy. Many times, it seems that those churches commonly known as the 'liberal mainline denominations' were in the forefront of the war against AIDS, while those in the more conservative camps remained sidelined, denying any role of the church in the AIDS epidemic. Scientific research has shown Christian opinion to have a palpably harmful effect. Conservative religious views tend to lead to fear, prejudice, and discrimination toward AIDS sufferers concludes a study which analysed the determinants of fear of AIDS among Australian college students. Greater knowledge is associated with lower fear of AIDS. The stepwise analysis indicated that more frequent church attendance was associated with higher fear of AIDS (Wallack, quoted by Mertz 1989a). One in ten respondents (of all staff of a large metropolitan hospital in Manhattan) agreed that AIDS is God's punishment to homosexuals, 6% agreed that patients who choose a homosexual life-style deserve to get AIDS (Wallack, quoted by Mertz 1989b). From man's beginning all of the major world religions have taught mankind to care for those who are suffering and in need: In each religion, there is the concept or idea of community and connectedness. From the creation stories of all religions, the idea of coming from one family or place of origin is central. 'This concept is at the heart of the conflict of how to relate to individuals infected with HIV/AIDS. Some people would like to pretend that these individuals do not exist. Others imagine they could have no connection to an HIV infected individual. It is similar to the disease of leprosy in ancient times. Lepers were considered different and outcast. To touch or interact with them was considered unclean. Much of the discomfort was that leprosy was a visible, disfiguring disease. Disease was seen as a direct punishment from God for some sin, rather than as a natural consequence of being human. Today many people still suffer from this misguided theology (AIDS Interfaith Network 2002). When evaluating the response of the church to the HIV/AIDS crisis, one must give more than a cursory glance at the theology which many feel supports these attitudes (5.4). The Bible is explicit when it talks about sin and its consequences. Since most individuals infected with HIV/AIDS have received the disease sexually (or through intravenous drug use in the Western world), both practices that are equated with sinful practices described in the Bible by most Christian theologians; the disease is therefore equated with sin. As the AIDS crisis became more known and understood, the church (1.4.10.3) as a whole along with individuals who were grappling with what their role might be, had difficultly in discerning a proper stance in how it should handle this world calamity. This paradoxical viewpoint is expressed in a paper by Dr. David Roy, which was published in 1989, when the larger picture of the impact of HIV/AIDS was only becoming apparent (Hallman 1989:144): ...religious moralizing and a perfervid commitment to principles blinds one to person and sets up a static so violent as to swamp all frequencies for sensitive and suffering presence to, and effective communication with, AIDS patients. Understanding the problem of HIV/AIDS requires a certain amount of openness on the part of the church. In some areas of the church, particularly those groups associated with fundamentalism or separatists, concepts such as openness to new ideas and opportunities for educating those in the church have historically been met with responses ranging from indifference to open hostility. Education has sometimes been viewed with such suspicion that it has been equated with an invitation to defilement and compromise of beliefs. In the history of the Baptist Church for example, there is a group of separatists who were noted to be decisively 'anti-education,' particularly in the area of their clergy. They believed that 'if God wanted educated preachers...He would call educated persons' (McBeth 1987:287). Considering Christian universities and schools of higher learning as places that were associated with 'liberal' ideas, many people in these groups misunderstood the role of the church in the larger, contextual world situation (1.4.10.3), and instead looked disdainfully at formal education being convinced that they could only stay pure to the truth of the Bible if they refused to consider any new ideas that might be 'contaminated' by the world. This type of attitude leads to fear, sometimes even to the point of paranoia, and denial. Rasmussen (1993:17) puts it ingenuously when he says, Religious passion is often the most volatile kind, and most deadly; it is matched only by moral convictions held with religious fervour. This phenomenon is not limited to the Western church, but is also very evident in the African church. Refusing to talk seriously about the issues (such as condoms, etc.) has caused the church to lose credibility in the eyes of the community, indicating a real loss of vision as to its primary purpose (1.4.10.2). It is not necessary for the church to espouse these ideas in order to be able to discuss them. For example, the church does not have to embrace the use of condoms in order to be able to talk sensibly about their use, and to give thought out, intelligent reasons as to why the church does not promote them. This could be a vehicle for education and reinforcement of biblical living; but by denying any and all dialogue, the church has instead undermined their own credibility. This is evidenced in the statistics cited by Forster in his research on Religion, Magic, Witchcraft, and AIDS in Malawi where he found that ministers of religion were seen to be not only among the least reliable as a source of information regarding HIV/AIDS, but they were also not perceived as being particularly credible nor trustworthy in terms of AIDS messages (emphasis mine) (Forster 1998:338). With few exceptions, as noted above, most Christians (and particularly those in what would be defined as the 'conservative camp') chose the option of denial. By denying that the problem was involving the church, and considering that it only involved those sinful people who deserved such a punishment, they were able to continue on with 'business as usual'. Care for the wounded, the downtrodden, the destitute; these have always been seen as works of the church. The issue therefore, was not whether or not the church should care for the suffering, but rather the question became twisted to determine whether the church should care for those who were suffering from something that was a result of their own sinful acts (5.6). Responding with denial is not unique to the church, as the crisis has been treated with denial at both the church and national level of most Sub-Saharan countries at one point or another. It has only been in recent history that the Church as a whole, has begun to recognize that this is an issue that cannot be ignored or denied. The church has been forced to be involved in critically examining the present reality of AIDS (1.4.10.4). As ministers look out over their congregations, they can count the vacancies left by those who are suffering from this horrific plight. They know from their own schedules, that more and more time is used in visitation to the sick and the dying. Funerals are commonplace among the general community as well as amongst the Christian Church congregations. AIDS is not selective in who it attacks. The church cannot deny the fact that as many of its people are suffering and dying from this dreaded disease as those outside of the church. The Church has been guilty of another aspect of denial as well. Instead of overtly denying the problem exists, it has sometimes been responsible for using 'religion' to so warp the image of the problem or its solution, so as to mould it into something they can view with righteous indignation. Often the malformed character of a community and its malformed convictions are a downward spiral fed by nothing so much as a homogeneity of membership and outlook and unspoken, tight consensus. The community then reads Scripture - and the world - in ways that reinforce its distorted character, and this only undergirds its most oppressive exegesis and moral convictions. That, . . . is exactly what happened in the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa and in the use of the Bible to justify slavery, racial segregation, and racism itself in the United States (Rasmussen 1993:17). For the Church to understand the role it needs to play, it must stop asking, how did you get it (1.4.13)? And start asking, how can we help? What can we do (Pick 2003:10)? In recent years, various churches have made notable strides in their stepping forward against this disease. As early as 1994 Missionalia Magazine was publishing articles identifying the challenge and opportunity the AIDS crisis was opening for the church, This creates both a challenge and an opportunity for churches to make a unique contribution. Churches, more than any other institution in the country, are in a position to influence community attitudes, provide education about AIDS, diminish prejudice, provide care and nursing (Nicholson 1994:228). This can also be seen in such cases as the Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa, which united with the Reformed Presbyterian Church of South Africa in September 1999 to form UPCSA. As part of this union, they identified three main thrusts: church growth (including evangelism); discipleship and ministry (including lay training, ministerial formation, children's ministry, youth); justice and social responsibility (including community development with special concern for children and youth, the environment and AIDS) (UPCSA 2000). The Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) established an AIDS office in 2000 to coordinate and oversee the various pastoral projects that were beginning to develop as a response to the pandemic (Bate 2003:197). By 2002 there were eighty different HIV/AIDS pastoral care projects operating under the auspices of the SACBC AIDS office (:198). Others have followed in similar footsteps, such as this statement made by the Lutheran Church as reported by the World Council of Churches Ecumenical News International's Daily News Service, 8 May 2002 describing the events that took place as they met in Nairobi in May of 2002, '...our churches have not always been safe or welcoming places. In some cases Holy Communion has been refused to people living with HIV/AIDS, funerals of people having died from AIDS have been denied and comfort to the bereaved has not been given. We repent of these sins'. The Lutheran leaders vowed, to 'put our words into deeds following the example of Jesus Christ by making our churches safe places of support and community for those living with and affected by HIV/AIDS (Ross 2002:17). Steps such as these are indicatory of the move forward that is currently being made by the Church as a whole, and in Africa in particular (3.9.5). The African Church is beginning to see the impact of this disease and making definitive steps to address the issues surrounding it. Francis Mkandawire, head of the Evangelical Association of Malawi, was quoted during an HIV/AIDS conference in Malawi as saying (Mkandawire 2002): Yes, we are doing something, but we can do so much more... This is the first conference for HIV/AIDS2, but the disease has been in Africa for 20 years already! In other parts of the world, such as the Western world, AIDS remains an issue of a different sort. In the USA by the end of 1992, 85% of all persons with AIDS were either gay men, or IV drug user, or both (CDC 1993). AIDS in Australia is a nearly exclusively male disease: 97.2% of all persons with AIDS in this (Australia) country are males (Australian HIV Surveillance Report 1993) which suggests an even greater concentration amongst gay-men than in the USA. The situation in Europe is not fundamentally different (Bundesgesundheitsamt 1993). It has become obvious that the predicted heterosexual AIDS epidemic has not happened, and is highly unlikely to materialize (Chapman, et al 1993). Bearing this in mind, it must be understood that the ramifications of the HIV/AIDS is a very different disease in many ways in the Western world. Although the role of the church should remain the same, its perceived responsibility is in many ways more clouded in the West. This is due to the fact that in addition to evaluating the struggles with the issues present in the African context -- such as promiscuity, cultural biases, etc., the Western Church has also to face the difficulties inherent with the sorting out of issues such as the Christian response to the 'homosexual' issue and the desperation associated with drug use and abuse. It is not the purpose of this work to make any judgments or determinations about the issue of homosexuality, but it must be pointed out that due to the prevalence of AIDS amongst these two groups (homosexual men and IV drug users), in the Western Church, it is often even slower to embrace and respond to this issue. As recently as 2001, a survey by Barna Research on attitudes within the church (in America) published in Christianity Today magazine stated that their findings demonstrated the following: An evangelical Christian is no more likely to support AIDS-related causes than a non-Christian. The survey of 1,003 American adults revealed 8 percent of non-Christians were certain they would donate to help AIDS orphans, compared with 7 percent of evangelical Christians.... A scant 3 percent of evangelicals said they would definitely give for AIDS education and prevention, compared with 8 percent of non-Christians (Stearns 2001:100). 1.3 CONCLUSION ECCLESIASTICAL RESPONSE: In conclusion, the historic response of the Church has been less than laudable. Although there are certainly exceptions, (and we can be thankful for those), it is apparent that as a whole the Church's response to the pandemic of AIDS can be seen as evolving through several attitude echelons. Beginning first with honest ignorance as this disease in its initial stages, so it became recognized as a threat to humanity, the progress of the Church could be followed as it began moving into a phase of selective denial. Peering through lenses designed to filter out those areas with which it could not yet cope, it looked with obvious discomfort at such issues as homosexuality, promiscuity, and even the failure of the Church to make a significant enough impact on the lives of individuals so as to cause them to live a lifestyle congruent with Biblical principles. While the holocaust of AIDS began to wreck havoc on the world, particularly in underdeveloped areas such as Africa, the extensive network of the church maintained its distance in a vain attempt to keep itself uncontaminated by the stigma associated with this disease. As the Church looked on, it was forced to watch as its own congregations became entangled with the dreadful effects of HIV/AIDS. It watched as its members began to die en masse. No longer could it hide under the cover of its own self-righteousness as it was forced to admit that it was conducting an ever-increasing amount of funerals for those within its own membership. With the horrific evidence mounting against it, the church began to question its hermeneutic regarding the proper 'Christian' response to this plague (1.4.10.6). As the world began to attack the issue of HIV/AIDS with the only tools it had, the church sat silently aghast (Warren 1996) while sexual issues and concerns once considered to be private, were being shouted from the mountaintops. The condom was heralded as the answer to the problem: Condom programming is a management system developed to respond to this crisis systematically at global and national levels. Condoms are an essential reproductive health commodity, and the UN Population Fund supports programmes that not only supply them but also build a country's capacity to meet its own reproductive health needs. Condoms are an effective method of preventing HIV/AIDS infection for both men and women. They also prevent sexually transmitted infections (STIs), reducing the risk of AIDS linked to STIs (UNFPA fact sheet 2000). Particularly because of AIDS, most countries need to do more to encourage condom use. Governments, health programs, manufacturers, donor organizations, retailers, and health care providers must work together to assure that condom supplies, information, and services meet the growing need (Smith 2002). While there are some exceptions (Rosas 2003), Condoms promotion, sexual and reproductive health of young people and faith-based approaches should be placed at the centre of the discussion. .... Most important: allow young people to express their opinion about if they want to listen about sex and sexuality and condoms to prevent HIV and other STIs and pregnancies. In response to the world's answer to HIV/AIDS - the condom (Smith 2002), the church as a whole has refused to cooperate with NGO's and other world organizations as they desperately sought some way to offer hope to the suffering masses. As stated by the AME, the largest black Christian denomination in America, 'If we don't do something, most of the other issues facing the church will be of little consequence (Crunutte 2000).' Slowly, with reluctant acceptance of responsibility, the church has begun to arouse. Like wakening a sleeping giant, the church is working to absorb an awareness of the problem. And like the sleeping giant, the church is now clearing the cobwebs from the corners of its mind attempting to look squarely into the problem (1.4.10.4), seeking out a solution. An example of a positive, proactive stance of the church in Malawi has been the development of a four year Why Wait? curriculum based upon biblical morality, which is currently being used in 80% of their secondary schools (AJET 2000:104) to counteract not only the moral ramifications contributing to the spread of HIV/AIDS, but also to provide biblical alternatives to cultural practices (4.1-15) which promote the spread of the disease. Recognizing it's vast network and the powerful forces, the church is beginning to assemble its forces and look for an appropriate biblical response to this crisis. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:3-9 NIV) In his informative book on HIV/AIDS and its relationship to the Church, Pick (2003:48) underscores the implications of the church's responsibility in this crisis, Our calling is not merely to render a type of charitable service to AIDS sufferers - it entails a lot more. As the community of believers, we dare not ignore the fact, however painful, that this destroyer is within our own 'body' - the Body of Christ. Looking back to the charge made to the faith community by Mendis (1987:42) as he addressed the challenges made to the church during the early days of AIDS, one can only be stricken by the reality of the ground that has been lost as they lost sight of their role as God's message to the globalised world (1.4.10.3). Referring to Jesus' words describing believers as the light of the world, Mendis (1987:42) relays this challenge to the church in 1987: The Church is truly a city on a hill. The eye of the unbelieving world is constantly upon it, looking to see if its actions will match its much-professed beliefs. How the church reacts to the AIDS patients in its midst will be clearly seen by the unbelieving world. .... If they reject and isolate the AIDS patient, if they drive him from among them, if their behaviour is no different from, if not worse than, that of the world, then their light will flicker and grow dim, and God will be dishonoured once again by the conduct of His Church. One can only look at the history of the church's response with regret and determination that when another decade or two have passed, the heritage that we are now creating, will tell a different story as the church moves forward sharing the hope of an eternal future (1.4.10.7). 2.4 SUMMARY Commencing from the first chapter where the research hypothesis was developed came the identification of the problem: Can the relationship between the local church and the HIV/AIDS community be altered when provided with the opportunity to learn about each other in safe, non-threatening ways using the vehicle of Home Based Care as the point of entry? This second chapter has been designed to give an accurate perspective of the problem by providing a comprehensive assessment of the historical perspectives surrounding the matter of the church's response to this current HIV/AIDS crisis, as well as the role it has played in other historical cataclysmic periods in its past. One can only grasp the depth of the problem and understand the complexities and ramifications of the issues surrounding it when the contextual historical situation is considered. Trying to make the current issues stand-alone outside of this consideration would give a lopsided view (at best) of the crisis at hand. From this foundational historical framework, the next juncture will be to examine the generalized African context, from which the unique problems associated with the contextual situation will be explored, as it is essential to grasp the distinctively African qualities that factor into the pandemic of HIV/AIDS (chapter three). This continental picture will then be further focused and directed toward the more specific milieu of Malawi, and Lilongwe in particular, where the study now being examined takes place (chapter four). Special attention will be given to the various traditional and tribal customs that contribute to the continuance and proliferation of the problem. Once these foundations have been laid, and the complexity of the AIDS phenomenon is more readily understood from the African perspective, the theological ramifications will be explored (chapter five), looking into the role of Practical Theology as it fits into the surfacing issues. At this point, with an understanding of the historical and contextual situations, a broad understanding of the situation can be appreciated. Attention will then be turned to the methodology (chapter six) of the physical project under study with careful description and explanation as to the research methods used to reach the final conclusions and evaluation of the project (chapter seven), followed by recommendations with the projections for the way to utilize the information gained in a way to make a meaningful contribution in the war against AIDS. 1 AIDS and leprosy are comparable in that both diseases carried not only the death penalty, but also the aspects of alienation, estrangement and prejudice. There is also some of the same shame due to the conception of leprosy being attributed to sin. The point of departure from the comparison comes when considering the fact that leprosy was a contagious disease that could be transmitted by close contact, so those suffering from leprosy were a real endangerment to the general public and therefore they were kept ostracized and isolated for the public safety. AIDS on the other hand, cannot be spread by casual contact, but is almost entirely contracted by sexual behaviour. 2 Forster reports findings from the National AIDS Control Programme Annual Reports confirming that AIDS was first confirmed in Malawi in 1985; by 1991 figures of thirty per cent seropositivity were being recorded, and one year later AIDS had become the leading cause of Adult death in Malawi. 68