wfn.org | Churches Told to Put Aside Differences on Sexuality to Fight AIDS

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26-September-1996 
 
 
96362        Churches Told to Put Aside Differences  
                    on Sexuality to Fight AIDS 
 
                         by Stephen Brown 
                  Ecumenical News International 
 
GENEVA--Churches worldwide have been challenged to put aside their 
theological and ethical differences about sexuality and become "actively 
involved in the global struggle against AIDS." 
 
     The response of the churches -- "by and large" -- to the impact of 
HIV/AIDS "has been inadequate and has, in some cases, made the problem 
worse,"  according to a major report, two and a half years in the making, 
drawn up for the World Council of Churches. 
 
     Many churches have shown "courage and commitment" in their work with 
people living with HIV/AIDS, but others "have helped to discriminate 
against persons affected by HIV/AIDS, thus adding to their suffering," 
according to the report.  
 
     Christoph Benn, moderator of the WCC consultative group that drew up 
the report, told a meeting in Geneva of the WCC's Central Committee Sept. 
14 that the world was waiting "for encouraging words from the churches." 
 
     The World Council of Churches has 330 member churches around the world 
from the main non-Catholic traditions, with widely differing views on 
sexual ethics.  
 
     After a meeting in January 1994 of the WCC's Central Committee, which 
accepted that WCC member churches had "difficult ethical dilemmas" in 
responding to HIV/AIDS, a study was commissioned on the theological and 
ethical dimensions of HIV/AIDS and "how the pandemic affects the human 
community, particularly in the area of sexuality." 
 
     Benn, a German Lutheran theologian and medical doctor, said that while 
many churches and Christians had made a positive contribution in the 
pastoral care of those living with HIV/AIDS, others had contributed to a 
climate of "discrimination, misinformation and fear." 
 
     But the report was challenged by a prominent Russian Orthodox leader 
-- Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk -- who said that it seemed to "avoid the 
question of personal ethics and personal sinfulness."  
 
     Metropolitan Kirill said that the report seemed to find the reason for 
"sexual wickedness" only in social conditions. He then spoke of God having 
"punished human beings." 
 
     The WCC Central Committee voted Sept. 20 to "receive" the report -- 
and to make it available to its member churches -- and to "adopt" a shorter 
statement, including a series of recommendations based on the report's 
conclusions. 
 
     According to the report, the fact that homosexual men in 
industrialized countries were among the first to be affected by HIV/AIDS, 
followed by intravenous drug users, had led to prejudices that "are still 
alive today, despite the fact that more and more groups are being 
affected," including women, children, heterosexuals and those who have not 
been sexually active.  
 
     "Sadly," the report says, "many Christians and some churches shared in 
the promotion of negative, judgemental and condemnatory attitudes." 
 
     The report points out that, according to World Health Organization 
figures, by mid-1994 about 80 percent of all cases of AIDS were in less 
industrialized countries -- 60 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, 15 percent in 
Latin America and the Caribbean, and 6 percent in Asia. 
 
     "Globally speaking," heterosexual contact accounts for 70 percent of 
HIV infections, homosexual contact for 15 percent, injecting drug use for 7 
percent and the transfusion of blood and blood products for 5 percent. 
However, transmission patterns are not uniform, since heterosexual 
transmission accounts for 90 percent of infections in sub-Saharan Africa 
and in Asia, and only 10 percent in North America and Europe. 
 
     But the link between "sexual promiscuity" and HIV transmission between 
heterosexuals has "entrenched self-righteous, negative judgements about 
people living with HIV/AIDS," the report says. 
 
     The report points to a variety of measures that can be taken by 
churches to "stand with persons who are affected by HIV/AIDS," including 
working for better medical care and improved counseling services, defending 
basic human rights, ensuring that accurate factual information is available 
within the church and to the general public, and ensuring that "a climate 
of understanding and compassion prevails." 
 
     Churches are also urged to "recognise the linkage between AIDS and 
poverty, and to advocate measures to promote just and sustainable 
development" given that nine out of 10 people with HIV live in areas where 
poverty, the subordinate status of women and children, and discrimination 
are prevalent.  The report urges that special attention be focused on 
"situations that increase the vulnerability to AIDS, such as migrant 
labour, mass refugee movements and commercial sex activity." 
 
     The issue of the role of condoms in preventing HIV transmission has 
also been controversial, since a number of churches or church leaders 
believe that "the promotion of the use of condoms might have the effect of 
increased promiscuous sexual behaviour." 
 
     Although the report does not make a formal recommendation on the 
issue, it asks churches to consider whether they "should not ... recognise 
the use of condoms as a method of prevention of HIV" in the light of 
scientific evidence showing that the provision and use of condoms help to 
prevent HIV transmission. 
 
     One member of the Central Committee, Anne Louise Tveter of the Church 
of Norway, called on the churches to show solidarity with women "who know 
that their men are not being faithful to give them the right to say no, and 
to demand that their men use condoms." 
 
     Angelique Walker-Smith of the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., 
called on the WCC to condemn "any stereotyping of people of color," who 
were described in the U.S., she said, as the "primary carriers" of 
HIV/AIDS. 
 
     During his presentation to the Central Committee, Benn paid tribute to 
one of the members of the WCC consultative group on AIDS, Ernesto Cardoso 
from Brazil, who was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1990 and who died at the 
end of 1995. 
 
     Benn later told a press conference that the "experience from many 
countries was that you have to create an atmosphere of trust" to discuss 
the issues surrounding HIV/AIDS. "As long as it is hidden under the floor, 
it provides the conditions for it to spread." 
 
     Another member of the consultative group that drew up the report, 
Professor Jacob John from south India, who is a member of the Malankara 
Syrian Orthodox Church, told the press conference that he believed the 
report could have a positive effect beyond the Christian community. 
 
     Although Christians were a "minuscule minority" in India, he said, 
"the Christian voice is listened to quite avidly." 
 
     Although India had at first hoped that the issue of HIV/AIDS would go 
away, "it's not going away -- it's growing," Professor John said. The 
report should be made available to people in other religions and in 
government, he said, adding that he hoped it would "galvanize" national 
policy makers. 
 
     Benn told Ecumentical News International that the "main message" of 
the report was that churches should combat discrimination, welcome people 
living with HIV/AIDS into their communities and facilitate open discussion. 
 
     In all churches, whatever their confessional background, there had 
been a reluctance to come to terms with HIV/AIDS as long as they were not 
confronted with affected individuals, Benn said. "Once the epidemic grows, 
then there is much more willingness to see it as an issue affecting the 
church," but by then it was "already too late. 
 
     "We have to reach churches which do not see it as affecting them ... 
before it is too late," he said.  

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