The choice between preventing AIDS by teaching abstinence or by distributing condoms is a false choice, Democratic senator Barack Obama of Illinois said to a mostly evangelical conference held at the southern California megachurch founded by pastor-author Rick Warren.
Both methods for dealing with HIV/AIDS should be used to their fullest extent, said Obama, a man increasingly touted by admirers as presidential material.
Ten years ago, the World Council of Churches said the AIDS pandemic “exposes the complicity and complacency of churches, challenging them to be better involved, more active, and more faithful.” As World AIDS Day arrived December 1, religious leaders were cautiously optimistic that the moral and political will to fight the pandemic is finally being mobilized.
Statistics in a new report released by the United Nations were sobering, but religious groups vowed to keep pushing politicians toward increased action—and spending—against the disease.
More than 300 religious leaders have signed up to form a new network of Muslim and Christian groups from 20 Arab countries, responding as a “united force” to the mounting prevalence of HIV/AIDS in their region.
The First Network of Arab Religious Leaders Responding to AIDS was launched in Cairo on November 9 under the acronym CHAHAMA.
“We have developed a plan of action to urgently respond to what is amounting to a region living on the brink of an epidemic,” said Hady Aya, an Antonin Maronite cleric and founder of the Organization for Justice and Mercy in Lebanon.