CT: What are some of the most common misunderstandings on AIDS within the Christian community?
ML: Because AIDS is transmitted through sexual relationships often outside or before marriage and is also associated with homosexuality and intravenous drug use, there was a perception that it's only a sinner’s disease. And for a long time, particularly in Africa, there was even a denial that Christians would even get AIDS. I think that there is also a sense that to accept and to love people with AIDS, even though many of them get it without any behavior that we would call sinful, is to condone the behaviour itself, and therefore it's better to choose holiness from the church's perspective than reach out to those people. Finally, in some cases, it was associated with some curse from God or some direct punishment for sin and the hesitancy to become involved in relationships to people they thought were cursed or uniquely set aside for punishment
CT: What critical facts or other information do people not know of concerning the pandemic?
ML: Originally, there was very little knowledge as to how AIDS was transmitted and therefore a great deal of fear. That knowledge is very high now in many countries. There's been a lot of education to go on. I think the really key question and the false question that many churches deal with is first of all a pharisaical question - the one that the Pharisees put with the woman caught in adultery. Will you choose holiness or will you choose compassion and acceptance? And to the Pharisees, they were unable to see how you could choose both but Jesus confounded them by choosing both. The woman was brought to Jesus, who was the only one with any moral authority to condemn her, but he failed to condemn her and after the Pharisees had been defeated and went away, he corrected her behaviour.
I think often churches feels that they are faced with a choice when actually they are able to choose both acceptance and love and also are able to intervene in teaching and behaviour change. That is beside the point that for many people who get AIDS – for many women – the only risk behaviour they undertake is having a sexual relationship to their husband. Particularly, you can see that in the fact that for young women, being married young increases their risk of AIDS rather than decreases it even though they're faithful to their husbands.
CT: Can you describe the change you've seen among Christians and churches in dealing with the AIDS crisis? What are you seeing more often now?
