From the Revd Andrew Symes
Sir, - Mrs April Alexander (Letters, 24
October) advocates a much more positive attitude towards
homosexual practice from Anglicans in order to reduce the number of
deaths from AIDS in Africa. Quoting a report from Lord Fowler, she
implies that the current church teachings on sexuality are actually
responsible for the high AIDS death rates, because "prejudice"
prevents people from seeking treatment.
I worked for more than 12 years in South Africa during the worst
time of the AIDS epidemic in some of the communities most directly
affected, and it is certainly true that education about the disease
is important in helping communities to encourage safe disclosure,
enabling people to come forward for testing and to receive the
ever- improving treatments without fear of being shunned. The
Church, although not perfect, has been an important source of
psychosocial support and other key elements in the combination of
interventions needed to fight the epidemic.
Mrs Alexander must surely realise, however, that HIV/AIDS in
Africa is not spread by stigma and prejudice towards gay people,
but by promiscuous and often coercive sexual practices, almost all
of which are heterosexual. Campaigns designed in places such as
London and New York to promote "safe sex", i.e. condom use, and a
more "open", i.e. Western-style, attitude to sex among young people
do not address critical contextual issues and beliefs.
In a case with which I am personally familiar, data showed that,
tragically, such a campaign resulted in a significant drop in the
age at which schoolchildren who were exposed to the information
reported becoming sexually active. In other words, well-meaning but
ideologically driven and culturally inappropriate Western
intervention can increase risk of HIV rather than reduce it.
Moral guidance from the Church plays a very important part in
protecting young people in contexts where poverty, violence, and
disease are endemic, health-care is poor, and condoms are
unreliable in supply and quality. I suggest that Mrs Alexander
thinks very carefully about the potential cost of advocating the
"social experiment" of relaxation of traditional bound- aries
around sex and relationships by the Church in an African
context.
The Christian faith balances clear moral guidelines (e.g. sex
within marriage and abstinence outside it; and loving rather than
coercive and abusive relation- ships) with realistic pastoral
awareness of the sinful nature in all people, the availability of
forgiveness, and particular compassion for the many millions
infected through no fault of their own. Anglicans in Africa have
not always lived up to this, but they must be encouraged to
continue to preach sexual self-control within biblical boundaries
and compassion for the sick rather than see these as mutually
exclusive. The best hope for the suffering in Africa is for the
Church to be the Church.
ANDREW SYMES
Anglican Mainstream
21 High Street, Eynsham
Oxfordshire OX29 4HE
