World AIDS Day 2009 Poster and Prayer of Confession for the Church

Tomorrow is World Aids Day (Dec 01).

Almighty God, whose compassion is known throughout the world and whose love has endured across the centuries, we humbly come to You seeking forgiveness for our pride and pardon for our many mistakes.

As a Faith, we have failed to live by the words of Christ Jesus our King.

As the Church, we have mistakenly chosen to condemn other people to loneliness, suffering, and unbelief because of our self-righteous ways and bitter words.

As Christians, we have walked away from those who have HIV/AIDS. We have created a new class of lepers and pariah by withholding our love, protecting our religious values, and shunning those who needed our understanding and compassion.

Lord God, forgive our failures and help us to seek the pardon of those people we have offended most. Chide us for being spiritually and emotionally blind. Challenge us to become healers and helpers, supporters and servants to those whose hearts we have hurt and whose spirits we have damaged.

Sacred Savior, as the Church, we brought this upon ourselves. We failed miserably because we loved conditionally. We are ashamed of our arrogance and attacks. We are guilty of godlessness and insincerity. We are the hypocrites who smugly condemned others to hell, instead of graciously attracting them to heaven.

May this World AIDS Day be a time of remorse and atonement, as well as a call to compassion and mercy. May we be allowed to return to the embracing fold of humanity and be accepted in the global community as humble and contrite servants wherever we can help those afflicted by this disease, as well as becoming honest and combative soldiers in the fight to find a cure for HIV/AIDS.

In Christ’s Holy Name, we sorrowfully confess and humbly pray. Amen.

John Stuart is the pastor of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. 

A larger version of the poster can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/traqair57/4134107040/sizes/l/

A World AIDS Day 2009 Poster

My poster for this year's World AIDS Day

A Call to Stop Using the 'H' Word

I think that its time for people on either side of the gay debate to stop using the “H” word. It’s very easy for some people to intolerantly call other ‘homophobes’ as a means to diminish their views, make them feel guilty, and silence their opinions.

It’s used in the same intolerant and bigoted way that the ‘n’ word was expressed to subdue a whole race of people, to make them feel inferior, and to silence their protests.

‘Homophobe’ is used to destroy dialogue and people in just the same way that ‘fag’ and ‘queer’ have been expressed to label people with different lifestyles and ideas. Those words should also be eliminated in the interests of having a constructive dialogue.

I have been called a ‘Homophobe’ because I am not convinced about the ordination of actively gay people. I struggle with that issue on theological and biblical grounds, and not because I fear homosexuals. In fact, I very dearly love my younger brother and also one of my nephews in Scotland. Both of them are gay.

I have also sat, prayed, and held hands with gay men who were dying of HIV-AIDS.

I have annually supported WORLD AIDS DAY each year for many years and have been deeply moved by testimonies of gay Christian people.

I have done all this and yet when I express my struggle over gay ordination, I am labeled, quite unfairly and bigotedly, as a homophobe.

If we are going to get anywhere in this dialogue, then we all need to stop using the ‘H’ word.

John Stuart is the pastor of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee.

4 Minute Devotions: World AIDS Day - Past Mistakes

Today is World AIDS Day, a day of supporting those who suffer from HIV and a time to seek a cure. It’s also a day when the Christian Church needs to repent of our unpleasant and uncaring past.

Revelation 14:19 The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God's wrath.

In the early eighties, when we first diagnosed HIV/AIDS, a majority of evangelical church leaders preached that this was the result of God’s wrath being unleashed upon the homosexual community. Pastors gleefully berated the gay community and scornfully sentenced homosexuals to a slow, agonizing, and isolated death. Instead of recognizing the disease as an opportunity to show Christian compassion, churches delighted in demonizing, leperizing, and shunning a whole community of people who needed love, comfort, and acceptance.

The consequences of the mistakes that the church made way back then are still with us today. Because we allowed false prophets of hate to take over our pulpits, we lost all credibility. A whole generation has grown up since those hellish days, and now the church is faced with its own terminal condition, brought about by our reckless rhetoric and inhumane attacks on those who were defenseless, destitute and dying.

Perhaps we will never regain the trust of society because of our persecution of those whose lifestyles were different from ours. I guess it all depends upon whether we are willing to listen to our critics, or if we only want to hear what we say about ourselves.

Today is World AIDS Day and many people of different faiths, including Christians, are praying for the victims of this disease. If every Christian Church was to see this as a day of repentance for our past abuses, and act upon it by supporting those who suffer though AIDS around the world, then just maybe our planet would be able to see Jesus. At the moment, most people cannot see Christ because of the Christians that get in His way. For once, myself included, we need to step back and let the true Christ emerge – the Savior of the Dying, the Healer of the Nations, and the Loving Lord of all the Earth.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, forgive us for allowing our pride and prejudices, our self-righteousness and severe spirituality to hinder Your work amongst the lost and unloved, the diseased and dying. Help us to see every person as a child of God in need of hope, love, and care. Keep us from demonizing those whom we do not fully know or understand. In Your Holy Name, we pray for the complete healing of AIDS throughout the entire world. Amen.

All Clergy Should Undergo HIV Tests, Says UN Adviser

CHURCH LEADERS should con­sider being tested for HIV to help banish the stigma attached to testing, an expert at UNAIDS (the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS) has said in advance of World AIDS Day next Monday.

A Lambeth Palace spokeswoman, responding on Wednesday, said that African bishops had already had themselves tested as an example to others, and that the Archbishop of Canterbury believed that church leaders should take a lead in educat­ing people about the issues.

In part of a statement expected on Monday, Dr Williams will say: “Recognizing that people living with HIV is us not them, whether its leaders and congregations, congrega­tions and ‘outsiders’, it’s us. It’s all of our business . . . church leaders and church congregations taking responsi­­bilities for educating the wider public.”

Sally Smith, the Geneva-based UNAIDS partnership adviser who called for the testing, said: “This is an important way for religious and community leaders to break down the stigma often associated with HIV and testing.”

Everyone should know their HIV status, to make informed health decisions, she said in an interview published in full on the Church Times website today.

Read the rest of the story here…

Alleviating AIDS

For the Church to be effectively involved in AIDS ministries in our communities, Christians have to begin the journey of healing by showing contrition for past and present condemnations of those in the margins of society.

Ephesians 2:4,5 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions-it is by grace you have been saved.

Tonight, I will be preaching at a special service to commemorate World AIDS Day in our town. People from different churches across the city will gather together to share their sympathy for those victims and families of this terrible disease. There will be no judgment or criticism of lifestyle choices; instead Christians will come together to show remorse for past intolerances and seek forgiveness of those we once castigated.

Families and friends of deceased AIDS sufferers will be in attendance. Some AIDS patients will also be there, possibly giving testimonies about what they have endured. It will be a sacred time to remember that we are all human and frail, in need of support and love, looking for God’s favor and compassion. In God’s eyes, we are all the same, and by His grace, we can all be saved.

I hope and pray that after the service hearts and minds will be changed, prejudices will be diminished and self-righteousness will be vanquished. A lot of the sorrow and pain that has been experienced by the AIDS sufferers’ community has been borne out of the criticism, indignation, and condemnation of the Christian Church. No one set out to get AIDS and the God that I serve didn’t punish people with it. If anything, it was an opportunity to show compassion and embrace those on the margins of society. We failed miserably as a faith, so we have a lot of contrition, repentance, and healing to experience before we will be trusted by the diverse sector of our community.

So let’s use this time to examine our own prejudices, inhumanity, and intolerances that we all have. Let’s place them before the Lord and ask His forgiveness. Only then can we begin the hard work of healing the world.

Prayer: O Lord, we have transgressed in Your sight and created divisions in the world. Instead of showing compassion to those on the margins, we showed contempt. Instead of asking what would You do to help, we condemned others to hell. Forgive us for failing to be Christian. Help us now to heal and be healed. In Your Holy Name, we humbly pray. Amen.