GC VP Pardon Mwansa on Africa and AIDS
17 June 2008
GC VP Pardon Mwansa on Africa and AIDS
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General Conference Vice-president Pardon Mwansa gives a great example of graceful, pragmatic thinking on Adventist work on the HIV/AIDS crises in Africa.
I met him briefly at a conference in Silver Spring and found him to be a very thoughtful leader. For example, see this terrific exchange on AIDS prevention in a longer interview conducted by Ansel Oliver at the Adventist News Network:
ANN: What about prevention?
Mwansa: Prevention is extremely critical. With due respect to all ideals, I tend to [side with] people who are practical -- meaning: this world is not full of people who read the book of Romans and the book of Genesis and Luke. This world has people who watch television and listen to music that doesn't teach them about Christ. And such people, the first thing when they are confronted with a situation in which they can contract AIDS, they don't think about a statement in Luke chapter four. They think about their desires and feelings. So I always say, when it comes to prevention we should cast as many nets as we can ... with no exclusions.
ANN: What nets are we not casting out that we could?
Mwansa: For example, I've heard church, religious people say to teach people to change their behavior and [that using condoms] is wrong. That's only so if a person thinks about right and wrong. The truth is this world does not think about right and wrong. So when I say cast the net as wide as we can, basically it's [to] use everything we can to save anybody who needs to be saved.
ANN: You said in previous interviews that you address this issue with your own children about the choices they're free to make. Would you advocate a "casting all nets" approach for them?
Mwansa: I talk to them about choices very, very strongly. I say to myself, if I have talked with them about choices and they are in a situation in which they failed to make the right choice, I would still want them to use something that would prevent them from contracting HIV/AIDS. That's not to say I don't believe in teaching, it's just that I want to prevent the worst disaster that can come. And, to be on a practical platform, people in the church are not beyond sin. Even people in the church do sometimes lose grip on the "thus sayeth the Lord." And when people lose grip, I think wisdom calls for us to still save them from the disasters and consequences of behavior by any lesser evils available.
ANN: You've said AIDS still carries a stigma in some parts of the world. How can that be overcome?
Mwansa: Sometimes only when it is in their house. You see, it's one thing to have an HIV/AIDS patient in the hospital. It's another development to have it in their home. When a person with AIDS is in your house, you don't quickly see an immoral person, even if they were immoral, by the way. You are likely to see a child, a brother, a sister who needs help. I think that we need to operate on a template of care rather than judgment.
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Comments
Several years ago I got a mailer from ADRA - wanting money, of course. But in that mailer they made very clear - that ADRA did not support giving out condoms or providing birth control for women. ADRA fell off the screen for me at that time.
Donaa, how about a "clean needle" program for junkies like some inner cities do here in America? How about agreeing to Abortion when, OOPS, it happens? How about child predators, believe in recedivism rates or forgive?
Pick and choose guys!!!
RDS - I have no problem with the clean needle program - it is but one of many ways to stop but HIV and other blood borne diseases. I taught classes in AIDS and sexually transmitted disease prevention for years.
I also have no problem with legalized abortion. I am old enough to remember the horrible situation that existed for women's health prior to 1970. I believe one of the best ways to eliminate abortion is good sex education and readily available contraception.
Having also worked in the criminal justice system for 30 years I am well aware that recidivism rates for sexual predators is extremely high. We can and should forgive them (forgo revenge) but carefully monitor and restrict their access to children.
Now what did you mean by "pick and choose'? And who are the guys you are referring to?
Donna, by guys, I meant those posting on this issue, or concerned about it. But when dealing with prevention of disease, separate it from a position a church with its doctrines should take. Don't expect the church anytime soon to support sodomy for any reason, especially with Africa ravaged with its use. Don't expect them to say, before engaging in Sodomy, be sure to use a condom. Won't happen. Now you as a private citizen, assuming an RN?, can certainly say that, but the official position of the church has to be supported by the Bible, not the most current research on Sodomy, Sheeesh!!! [as Alexander is know to say]
It seems like we often require that people clean up their act before we will be willing to extend God's grace to them. Seems just backwards from how Jesus worked.
Mark
I believe that a person can come to Christ that has AIDS and hasn't sat through Donna's Prevention Class on AIDS. All they have to do is believe on Jesus. There is some repentance and committing one's life to Jesus, isn't there? Otherwise what is our evangelism all about??
Someone will correct me, but I have been under the impression from reading about AIDS that "innocent women and children" are suffering because a woman, married or single, is not able to force her partner to use condoms.
The AIDS epedemic affects women much more quickly and easily, and is transmitted to her children, who are also innocent.
The church (RCC) has taken a position in the past, as has the SDA, that condoms only encourage bad behavior. Like the interviewee, we should be pragmatists, not idealists. Anything we can do to prevent future infection and not do so, is criminal. Just as all healthcare professionals are required to treat all patients in ER, their behavior: drunk driving, gun use, and more, should never be a reason for refusal for treatment.
Disease means Dis ease, the entire person is "sick". Loma Linda has a motto: "To Make Man Whole". That taks a whole, man, of which there is only one Jesus Christ. We have the power to contain infectious diseases, we have the power to present Jesus Christ. To those given those powers and not use them to advance the Kingdom of God and to relieve suffering and to prevent the spread of disease are certainly not about their Father's business. Of course this is not a numbers game so it has little appeal to mission boards. We want to fill football stadia. Health care is just plain hard work and seldom appreciated. I worked with children with facial clefts for 16 years and in all that time I have have received just one letter of thanks. Of course I still have it.
Never-the-less, I must mention 'Stinky" A little grade school boy with a bi-lateral cleft of the lip and palate in which successive surgeries were unsuccessful. He had a foul discharge from his nose that was so bad that the teacher had to isolate him from the rest of the class. He finally came to my attention. I examined his mouth, the large gap in the roof of his mouth and found a large foreign body that I could not remove with my dental instruments. Next door was an ENT specialist. I took the boy over. The physcian swiftly removed a large enchrusted cotton roll full of green pus.
There was a little bleeding and the boy was released. I saw the boy and mother in a week. Both were beaming. No longer was he "stinky" and he was back in the classroom line-up.
Even the obturator was less of a climax to the removal of the foreign stinking mass. I didn't get a letter but I did make several life long friends. Tom
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