5.3 Attitude towards HIV and AIDS and People Living with HIV and Its Impact
5.3.3 Critical Reflection on the Attitude to HIV and AIDS and PLWHA and Its Impact
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5.3.3 Critical Reflection on the Attitude to HIV and AIDS and PLWHA and Its Impact
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because of a lack of theological resources to deal with the magnitude of the crisis, they resort to what they know. Namely, if bad things happen to people, they must have done something wrong (:81-82).
This statement suggests that the only theological resource on HIV and AIDS the church leaders in Vulindlela have is the retribution theology which urges them to perceive that PLWHA must have done something wrong. She also refers to the mixed attitude (dilemma or contradiction) of these leaders who pastorally do not condemn PLWHA, while when preaching become harsh in condemning them. It is therefore likely that like these church leaders in Vulindlela, the negative and mixed attitudes towards HIV and AIDS and PLWHA among leaders and members of the FMSKZN are informed by the theology of retribution.
5.3.3.2 History of Sexual Ethics in Christian Religion
The association of HIV and AIDS with sexual immorality may have resulted from the ethics of sexuality developed during the history of Christian religion. Gruber (2010), Richison (2008), and Schmid (2005) suggest that current Christian sexual ethics were inherited from the attitudes of the church‘s forefathers about sex as shaped by ancient cultures such as the Greek, Roman, Persian, and Judaist teachings and traditions. Schmid (2005:2) specifies that Early Stoic teachings considered all passions as irrational and as leading to unreflected action and thus as deserving to be avoided. Under Pythagorean influence sexual relations were limited within marriage for the purpose of procreation only. Schmid also mentions that the influence of Judaism was the consideration of sexuality as God‘s first commandment on condition that it is performed with the intention to procreate in order to guarantee the survival of the nation.
Two tendencies already arise from these teachings, the tendency to take sexuality as a defiling matter and to reject it, and the tendency to accept sexuality under restrictions. Proponents of the tendency to reject sex were also said to have associated it with the curse of the human being through Adam and Eve (Gruber 2010). When exploring literature on the forefathers‘ attitudes towards sexuality, ramifications of both tendencies become evident. Gruber (2010) informs that John of Damascus said: ―Adam and Eve were created sexless; their sin in Eden led to the horrors of sexual reproduction. If only our earliest progenitors had obeyed God, we would be procreating less sinfully now.‖ Clement of Alexandria adds that: ―… the first man of our race did not await the appropriate time, desiring the favour of marriage before the proper hour and he fell into sin by not waiting the time of God‘s will…‖. It seems here that though these forefathers were acknowledging the necessity of sexuality in human life (for reproduction) they were regarding it as the result of sin. According to Gruber (2010), it is this association of sex with sin
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which led them to prefer celibacy as a sign of piety and motivated some of them such as Tertullian, Jerome and Augustine to promote teachings that viewed human sexuality as
‗detestable and unholy.‘ For Richison (2008), those who did not go to that extreme, like Thomas Aquinas, have at least tolerated sex but for the reason of procreation only.
However, though these tendencies were visible among the forefathers, the church did not formally show any concern about sexuality until the Synod of Elvira AD 309 (Schmid, 2005). As Schmid (2005:3) recounts, when Christianity was officially accepted after the persecution, it received many new adherents from imperial religion who brought with them their former lifestyles. Schmid maintains that at the time the church was also influenced by the urbanism of former rural areas. Therefore, in order to re-establish the respectable image of the church, the Synod restricted sexuality to a heterosexual monogamous couple for reasons of reproduction only. Schmid specifies that it was not before the 15th century that the enjoyment of sex for romantic reasons among couples was accepted (:3). For Richison (2008) and Schmid (2005:3), it was only with the church Reformation that sex and marriage were deemed as worthy notions embedded in God‘s plan of creation. But here also sex was limited to heterosexual monogamous couples. When regarding the above-mentioned mixed attitudes to PLWHA displayed by the church leader in the FMSKZN, it becomes clear that this sexual restriction still prevails in this Church and causes leaders and members to consider that sexuality outside the heterosexual monogamous married couple paradigm is a sin and associated to the spread of HIV and AIDS.
Therefore the attitude of the FMSKZN towards HIV and AIDS and PLWHA is mostly negative and results in associating this pandemic with the sin of sexual immorality. Such attitude may have resulted from retribution theology developed from ancient Israel as well as the Bible. It may also have been nurtured by sexual ethics as developed in the history of Christian religion. This attitude prevents PLWHA from freely expressing their needs or standing in their dignity, and the Church from engaging in addressing the pandemic, thus becoming an obstacle to the church‘s fulfilment of the missio Dei in the context of HIV and AIDS. An effective response of the FMSKZN to HIV and AIDS will be explored in chapter 6. It is in chapter 7 that negative attitudes are reviewed to examine how the Wesleyan perspective of health and healing can serve as an inspiration for the emergence of an alternative to the contemporary dysfunctional model of care. In the next section, the knowledge and attitude of the FMSKZN towards gender and its influence on the spread of HIV and AIDS are explored.
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