New public service advertisments that highlight children orphaned by AIDS aim to spur more Americans to action. But some Christians say that too strong a focus on orphans risks overlooking how their parents became infected.
The U.N. Foundation previewed the "Apathy Is Lethal" campaign of television, radio, and print ads at the Barcelona XIV International AIDS Conference in July. The spots compare the 14 million children currently orphaned by AIDS with the equal number of children in the United States under age 5. The foundation administers Ted Turner's 1998 gift of $1 billion to the United Nations.
But Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane of Cape Town, South Africa, thinks people should focus on the attitudes associated with the deadly disease. "Our greatest challenge is stigma," he says. "Stigma makes people afraid to talk about AIDS, makes those who are suffering into outcasts, and prevents people from wanting to know their status." Southern Africa, which Ndungane oversees as an archbishop, has 28 million cases of AIDS—or 70 percent of AIDS cases worldwide.
Stigma has contributed to a crisis that continues to worsen. UNAIDS, the joint United Nations program on HIV/AIDS, projects that without drastically expanded prevention and treatment efforts, 68 million more people will die of AIDS by 2020. Of the 40 million currently infected men, women, and children, 95 percent are in the developing world. While some promising programs exist that encourage young people to delay sex until marriage, people aged 15 to 24 account for half of the 15,000 new hiv infections daily.
Despite the horrific statistics, a 2001 World Vision survey revealed that evangelical Christians may be unconcerned about AIDS in other countries. They were significantly less likely than non-Christians to give money for AIDS education and prevention programs worldwide. And while evangelicals were twice as likely to support poor children overseas, they were less likely to support AIDS orphans.
"The results are deeply troubling," says World Vision's president, Richard Stearns. "Regrettably, this fits into a general landscape of a nation with decreasing support for problems outside its borders."
A recent poll by The Washington Post, the Kaiser Foundation, and Harvard University suggests Americans doubt the efficacy of intervention programs. Three in four American respondents said they support a Bush administration proposal to spend $500 million more annually in Africa over the next three years to fight the transmission of the virus from mothers to their children. But only 40 percent said that increased funding would make a significant difference in prevention.
Books & Culture Corner: An Open Letter to the U. S. Black Religious, Intellectual, and Political Leadership Regarding AIDS and the Sexual Holocaust in Africa (Jan. 24, 2000)
While we pray for peace, we need moral clarity about this war.
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The plan would organize UMC churches in four global regions, with each given more leeway around same-sex marriage and other theological issues.
