5.2 Attitude towards the Necessity of the Church to Respond to HIV and AIDS
5.2.2 Reflection on the Participants‘ Attitude towards the Necessity to Respond
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about HIV and AIDS as a way to create awareness amongst children, as well as the youth who should participate in organising events and other activities within and outside the Church. It appears that everybody in the Church is expected to be involved in responding to the pandemic.
It is also noticeable that few of the comments focus on issues that relate to HIV prevention.
After this overview of the participants‘ responses as to whether, why and how the Church should respond to HIV and AIDS, it is important to interrogate the meaning of their comments within the existing knowledge of HIV and AIDS and the response of churches to the missio Dei.
5.2.2 Reflection on the Participants’ Attitude towards the Necessity to Respond
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Similarly, in this terrible time of HIV and AIDS, it seems right to say with Nicolson that the fight against AIDS has become a vital task of the church and that any church not prepared to engage in that fight will thereby ‗compromise its essential nature‘ (Richardson, 2009:143; 2006:41-45).
Richardson‘s point is that the church which does not engage in HIV and AIDS during the present time loses or at least denies its identity as a Christian faith community.
Richardson shares this view with other scholars. Kimweli (2008) suggests that the distinctive and crucial role of the church in responding to HIV and AIDS is to represent Jesus Christ. In their explanation, Kimweli takes the church as God‘s people and a requisite to ―provide a climate of life, acceptance and support for those who are infected or affected by HIV and AIDS‖ (:63). In the same way, Demissie (2008) refers to Jesus‘ ministry of healing to advocate that the major contribution of the church to the problem of HIV and AIDS is to be a community of healing and compassion. Quoting Howell, they agree that this contribution is never optional (:2-3).
Moreover, according to the World Council of Churches (hereafter WCC) (2007:8), it is with reference to Jesus‘ ministry in which he unconditionally healed diseases, restored life to the lepers and aligned Himself with the marginalised that churches have realised their duty to witness love and compassion to people infected and affected with HIV and AIDS (see also Dube, 2003).
Therefore, it becomes a common understanding that Jesus Christ and the church‘s identity as a Christian faith community are the ultimate references that compel the church to engage in responding to HIV and AIDS.
Secondly, literature informs that the church is expected to respond to the pandemic because of what it does. For Richardson (2006), the church has three intertwined functions: worship, the Eucharist and diakonia. In the context of HIV and AIDS, he insists on the importance of diakonia and repeatedly warns that the church, without this function ―is not a church or at least seriously deficient,‖ or ―at least not fully‖ a church (:45, 47). As to the meaning of this function, he uses the definition from the Church of Norway explaining it as, ―the care of fellow humans and the work to promote fellowship, especially the service which in a particular way is directed towards people in distress‖ (:46). To highlight its significance, he embraces the insight from Kjell Nordstokke that distinguishes it from other social initiatives of the church. He underlines that diakonia aims ―to promote fellowship and is directed towards people in distress‖ (46). In this way, his argument is that the church has the obligation to care for people in desperate conditions, in suffering and in disadvantage, some being PLWHA (:48). In concluding his article, he clarifies that this function goes beyond individuals, families, and the church‘s boundaries to also include political and economic issues (:50). Therefore, with Richardson‘s view, it is clear that
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the diaconal function is an important component of the church‘s ministry, and that through it the church is expected to care for people threatened by HIV and AIDS unselectively and unlimitedly.
Richardson‘s observation is echoed by Demissie (2008) who considers the practice of this function as living out koinonia in the true sense as opposed to simply engaging in routine good works (:11-12). In Demissie‘s view, PLWHA see the church‘s embrace as God‘s arms holding them and this allow them to rediscover human life as God‘s gift (:11).
These authors therefore allow realising that in addition to being a Christian faith community that bears witness to the life and the ministry of Jesus, the church is also assigned to fulfil the diakonial function which constitutes another reason to engage in addressing HIV and AIDS.
It is thus noteworthy that these scholars‘ reflections on reasons that engage the church into responding to HIV and AIDS agree with the understanding of Jesus‘ healing ministry as core component of the missio Dei as explained in chapter 3 of this thesis. However, they differ from the fieldwork results of this study on two points. Firstly, they find Jesus‘ life and ministry as motivation or theological rationale for the church‘s involvement in HIV and AIDS while most of participants in this study, including theologically trained pastors, find motivation in mere social life and human suffering. Therefore, taking the observation of Nordstokke and Demissie seriously, as discussed earlier, such social motivated involvement is likely to result in ordinary social actions or good works instead of being true diakonia.
Secondly, these scholars understand that the diakonial function of the church that comprises addressing HIV and AIDS is wider than individual, families and the church‘s boundaries.
Conversely, since the majority in of participants think that the Church has to engage in addressing HIV and AIDS ‗because it is also threatened,‘ they do not perceive the necessity to intervene beyond the Church‘s boundaries or to become involved when the threat remains outside the Church‘s membership. This implies that according to these results, the Church‘s main motivation is to protect its members instead of bearing witness of Jesus in the world.
Therefore, this seemingly lack of a link between caring for human life and accountability to God and the neglect of concern about the community outside the Church‘s boundaries constitute obstacles to the participants‘ reflection of missio Dei in a time of HIV and AIDS.
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5.2.2.2 Lack of Vision of Prevention and Long-Term Strategies
Participants also present various thoughts on how the Church should respond to HIV and AIDS. However, some challenging points can be raised from their suggestions. Therefore, it is remarkable that they generally propose responses related to the care and treatment of PLWHA.
This means that HIV prevention does not feature clearly in their understanding of responding to HIV and AIDS. In chapter 2, it was shown that the neglect of prevention strategies is also an issue for the South African government‘s budgeting for HIV programme. As earlier specified, a big amount of money is allocated to care and treatment while an insignificant amount is allocated to prevention (See Fröhlich, 2011:11; Whiteside, 2010:418; Low, 2011:20; Stats SA, 2007:111- 112). Neglecting the aspect of prevention while dealing with health, is missing the point because it does not guarantee any expectation that the problem will be resolved. But what do theological discourses say as to how the church should respond to this pandemic?
The response to this question may be found in chapter 3 where the ‗SAVE‘ as a comprehensive strategy of addressing HIV and AIDS proposed to churches by the ANERELA (See Heath, 2009:71-72; PACSA, n.d.:12) was presented. Other theologian scholars provide insights that can be linked to this strategy. Referring to the theological rationale concept, Richardson (2006) suggests that inadequate understanding of the nature of the church renders its action impotent (:49). The idea embedded in his point is that any church that needs to respond to HIV and AIDS has first to define, understand and respect the theological rationale for this action.
In the same manner, WCC (2007) has conceived a HIV and AIDS curriculum for theological education institutions in Africa. Among the ten modules developed, three are dedicated to defining HIV and AIDS‘ theologies. These are: the theology of life (Dibeela, 2007; WCC, 2003;
Ruele, 2003), theology of compassion (Dube, 2007), and the theology of healing (Hadebe, 2007).69 It therefore appears that like Richardson, the WCC appreciates that any church that needs to address HIV and AIDS has to have a sound theological rationale for this action.
Still in learning from the WCC, another way of responding to HIV and AIDS is to develop programmes. Through all ten modules developed in the theological education institution curriculum, eight cross-cutting issues are covered. These are,
69 Other seven modules focus on gender and religion (Phiri, 2007), sexuality (Ngure, 2007), the Bible (Old and New Testaments) (Nadar, 2007; Dube, 2007), indigenous religions (Chitando, 2007), pastoral care and counselling (Leshota, 2007), as well as preaching and liturgy (Leshota and Hadebe, 2007).
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Socio-economic (poverty); Gender (men and women‘s power relationships in society); Age (the impact of HIV&AIDS on children, youth and the elderly);
People Living With HIV&AIDS (PLWHA) (prevention and care); Stigma (examining its impact and planning to minimise it); Cultural perspectives (the advantages and disadvantages of culture); Biblical and theological perspectives (to use the churches‘ resources); and Liturgical approaches (to speak to the heart and change attitudes) (Dube, 2003:215-216; WCC, 2007:12).
This means that according to the WCC, programmes relating to these eight issues are of great importance in the response to HIV and AIDS. In observing them, one can remark that they all can accommodate both prevention and care. In addition, they comprise short-term interventions such as care and treatment as well as long-term interventions such as poverty alleviation, gender equality and theological perspectives. From this observation, it is clear that in the view of the WCC, any programme of the church aiming at responding to HIV and AIDS should comprise both prevention and care strategies extended to short- and long-term periods. However, as observed in the fieldwork results of this study, not only is the theological rationale not defined, but also these dimensions of prevention and long-term strategies are not adequately considered by the participants, which is another obstacle in the fulfilment of the missio Dei in the context of HIV and AIDS.
Participants in this study unanimously agree that the Church should be involved in addressing HIV and AIDS. However, they lack a theological rationale for this engagement, are less concerned about the suffering of the general community and display inadequate perspectives about preventive and long-term strategies.