AIDS and the church in Africa

Christian Century, August 2, 2000

The most recent figures released by the United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS sketch a dismal portrait of the continent's future. Of the 35 million people worldwide infected with the HIV virus, an estimated 60 percent--24.5 million--live in Africa. Opportunity for hope is slim. The expensive drugs available to AIDS and HIV patients living in wealthy countries are an economic impossibility for people in developing countries. In May five major pharmaceutical companies, including Glaxo Wellcome and Bristol-Meyers Squibb, offered a glimmer of hope by agreeing to reduce the cost of some drug treatments for infected people living in developing countries. But health officials point out that many African countries still have no health-care system able to distribute the medicine or monitor patients to ensure that the medicines are effective.

In South Africa, where about 20 percent of the people are infected with the virus, the government has refused to cover the cost of life-saving drugs that could prevent mothers from passing the HIV virus to their children. Some say South African President Thabo Mbeki himself is a stumbling block to stopping the spread of AIDS. Mbeki has publicly questioned the link between the HIV virus and AIDS. His speech at the Durban conference's opening ceremonies, criticized by many for failing to acknowledge such a link, prompted hundreds of conference participants to walk out.

For years the majority of churches in Africa remained on the sidelines as the AIDS epidemic mushroomed, hesitant to tackle a subject that required frank talk about human sexuality and other subjects long considered taboo in the religious community, said Dortzbach. "For a long time the church has not wanted to address effectively issues like sex or male/female roles, so there's also a lot of stigma surrounding this issue that the church has helped create that we need to come to grips with," she added. "I also think churches sometimes have chosen not to be aware of AIDS--there's been sort of a self-righteous attitude that this can't be in our church, and that's true in the United States as well. But now the epidemic has grown so much the church is finally realizing it's something we can't ignore."

Calver agreed. "Church leaders in Africa have been coming to a growing recognition of the AIDS dilemma, and now they're waking up to the problem," he said. "Now they desperately need the resources to fight it." That's where faith-based relief organizations step in to help, said Dortzbach. "Our work is set out for us, but the church is the institution that will be there for the long haul. The church is God's instrument in a crisis like this; we have no choice but to help." --RNS