 Church can play role in war on AIDS, bishop tells Congress |
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by the Rev. Dean Snyder |
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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." *Snyder is editor of UMConnection, the newspaper of the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference.
Date posted: Feb 28, 2002 |
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