Facing a Pandemic: The African Church and the Crisis of AIDS

Introduction

Introduction The HIV/AIDS pandemic that has struck the global community has brought fear, shame, stigmatization, discrimination, isolation, economic hardships, illness, pain, despair, and death. In this book, I will use the theological motif imago dei to rethink the obligations and responsibilities of Christian churches in Africa in a day of HIV/AIDS. I use the term church to refer in general to the Christian tradition in Africa: the historic churches, the so-called mainline churches and their denominations, as well as the African-initiated churches (AIC). My reflections draw from and remain within the Christian tradition, which H. T. Englehart has argued lives in the revisionary hope of recasting the past of the moral and social vision shaped by the Enlightenment and defined by the dominant spirit of the twenty-first century. This Christianity affirms at its core a theology rooted in discursive reflections-cum-critical interpretive appreciations of the Bible as one text among others, all guided by an embrace of the moral [visions] of our age.1 I am motivated by the fact that is now clear that the HIV/AIDS pandemic is not a mishap taking place out there in the “world” while the church and its members are shielded and protected and can sing, “under his wings, what a refuge in sorrow! How the heart yearningly turns to his rest! Often when earth has no balm for my healing, there I find comfort and there I am blest.”2 HIV/AIDS is decimating the African church one member at a time. This disease continues to elude all attempts at treatment in 1 2 Facing a Pandemic areas where treatment is available. The church is part of a rich human story and cannot merely stand by and watch HIV/AIDS continue to kill. My reflections are drawn from research in Cameroon from 2001–2006 and from a sustained theological reflection and interpretation of the church’s response to the crisis in many different parts of Africa. Cameroon has been the focus of this study for several reasons. Some researchers continue to claim that the HIV virus might have first jumped from a monkey to a human being in Cameroon, a view many Cameroonians reject. I do not pursue this question here because that is not my primary concern, although I believe that an investigation of the origins of a virus like HIV/AIDS could give us clues to new forms of therapies. I have followed the work and interacted with members of the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Board. At the beginning of the pandemic, the level of seroprevalence in Cameroon was low, but neglect and denial has caused the rates to go up; the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Board has shown remarkable leadership in dealing with the HIV/AIDS crisis. I agree with Alexander Irwin and his colleagues, who argue: “there is nothing intrinsically African about the key factors driving the spread of HIV/AIDS—above all poverty, socioeconomic inequality, instability and armed conflict, and the disempowerment of marginalized groups.”3 I seek neither to unmask something uniquely African about the HIV/AIDS crisis nor to conceal its reality.4 I offer no united African response because each community must come to terms with the disease, but I do believe African communities can learn from each other. My purpose is to highlight a theological perspective that communities should take into consideration as they use various forms of discourse and narrative to scale up the fight. HIV/AIDS is not, as some would have it, a disease spread from a few “highly sexually active female prostitutes to males.”5 It is a complex disease that has affected people in all sectors of society and calls for a multifaceted understanding and response because it has increased our perception of vulnerability as a human community.6 I argue that the theological motif, the imago dei (the image of God), should be employed by the Christian church as it fights HIV/AIDS alongside other communities. The imago dei provides an opening to discuss what it means to be human and to have dignity and rights. I do not imply that the Christian view of personhood precedes other views on this subject, or that it is the only valid way of conceptualizing and organizing community response to HIV/AIDS. Rather, I call on Christian churches to use this motif as a basis for a broad-based conversation with other communities. Theological ideas that are brought to the table in an open...