wfn.org | Church can play role in war on AIDS, bishop tells Congress

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Feb. 28, 2002   News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville,
Tenn.  10-21-31-71B{082}

By the Rev. Dean Snyder*

WASHINGTON (UMNS) - The global war against AIDS cannot be won without the
church, a United Methodist bishop told a congressional briefing.

"Religions, denominations and churches cannot conquer AIDS alone, but it
will not happen without us," said Bishop Felton Edwin May of the
denomination's Washington Area. "Religion more than any other influence
shapes the values of individuals and societies. It touches more individual
lives more directly and more consistently than any other institution."

May made his statement during a congressional breakfast briefing sponsored
by the House International Task Force on HIV-AIDS on Feb. 26.

The bishop was one of four speakers for the briefing on "The Faith-Based
Community Responds to HIV-AIDS," attended by 90 congressional staff members
and representatives of Capitol Hill advocacy groups concerned about global
AIDS.

Panelists emphasized the importance of churches and faith communities in
efforts to address the global pandemic. 

Dr. E. Anne Peterson, a physician and former missionary to Africa, now
serving as assistant administrator for global health for the U.S. Agency for
International Development, said her agency has worked with faith-based
organizations in the fight against AIDS since 1986. "It is a growing
partnership," she said. 

Nik Fahmee, director of the Malaysia AIDS Council, said his organization's
efforts to educate Muslim clerics have been an essential part of its
strategy to lessen the stigma that prevents open discussion of the causes of
AIDS. A fatwa, or decree issued by Malaysia's Muslim leaders, endorsed the
use of condoms by married couples when one or both partners is HIV-infected,
representing a major breakthrough in AIDS education in his country, he said.

Pernessa Seele, founder of Balm of Gilead, a Manhattan organization
providing AIDS education and prevention within the African-American
community in the United States, announced new initiatives by her group to
coordinate similar efforts in Africa. "The faith community is unparalleled
in its ability to reach African people," she said. 

Panelists and participants in the briefing expressed concern about the
difficulty religious groups sometimes experience accessing public funds to
support global AIDS ministries. Peterson noted that few religious groups are
expected to receive funding from initial grants being made by the Global
AIDS Fund, a $1.9 billion international project initiated by UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Stressing the importance of clinics, schools and missions operated by church
groups in the nations most impacted by AIDS, May urged governmental leaders
to make sure bureaucratic procedures are not allowed to hinder the fight
against AIDS 

He encouraged them to wage war against the terror of the disease. "This
terror generated by HIV-AIDS must be hunted down and eliminated, never to
live again," he said. 

"We need to think consistently and in the same thought patterns when we wage
this war as when we wage another," he added. "We have managed to appropriate
billions of dollars in the twinkling of an eye. A death is a death. A human
life is a human life."

The church has a unique role to play in the fight against AIDS, according to
May. "Religion serves as the conscience of government and commerce," he
said. "It is a source of courage to those in hard places and a source of
comfort to those who have no other hope. It offers forgiveness and new
beginnings to those who have pursued self-destructive paths. 

"Religion cannot face the plague of AIDS without government and business by
our side," he said, "but neither can you do it without us."

Following the briefing, Mark Harrison, an executive with the United
Methodist Board of Church and Society, said his agency has issued an action
alert asking United Methodists to support a 2003 federal budget allocation
of $2.5 million for global AIDS programs. 

Peterson said she believes Congress is willing to allocate increased funding
to fight global AIDS but that congressional members are waiting to see how
successful the first round of Global AIDS Fund grants will be. "We need to
do a first set of grants to show that this is a viable process," she said.

"We are thinking inside the box," May replied. "We need to take steps
quickly and effectively to save lives."
# # #
*Snyder is editor of UMConnection, the newspaper of the Baltimore-Washington
Annual Conference.

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United Methodist News Service
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