Some churches shun HIV-positive Jamaicans

They're denied communion, advised against marriage and aren't baptised in church pool

BY INGRID BROWN Sunday Observer senior reporter browni@jamaicaobserver.com Sunday, August 24, 2008

For three years, she found comfort in her church. So involved was the 41-year-old mother of three that she devoted herself to the choir and served as an usher, making several friends along the way.

However, all this started to change the day a less than sympathetic doctor bluntly told her she was HIV-positive before flouncing out of her hospital room.

Unsure what next to do, the mother, whose name we will not reveal, turned to her church for solace, but instead found rejection.


"I told my pastor's wife and she told her husband, who told the deacons, who in turn told their wives," she said.

Before long, almost everyone in the Pentecostal church knew and they slowly began to ostracise her.
"I just started to feel something was different. I would sit in a row and the persons near me would make some lame excuse to switch seats," she told the Sunday Observer.

"I would show up for choir practice and find out they had changed the day and no one informed me," she said.

The stares and whispers became unbearable, and eventually her pastor advised her that it would be best to relinquish some of her duties and allow persons time to adapt to her new status.

This lady's experience corroborates the findings of a Jamaican study that some religious leaders and church members continue to openly discriminate against HIV-infected persons.

The study, presented at the recently concluded International AIDS Society AIDS conference in Mexico, said that next to public health workers, religious leaders are the most discriminatory against infected persons.

Terry-Ann Smith-Frith, procurement officer in the Ministry of Health, who conducted the independent study, told the Sunday Observer that infected persons were not allowed to take communion in some churches where one cup is used for all members of the congregation.

They were also advised against getting married and, in some instances, not baptised in the church pool.

"One young lady had to go to the river to get baptised, as the pastor would not baptise her in the church pool with others," Smith-Frith said.

She said it was even discovered that some pastors did not want to officiate at funeral services for people who died from AIDS.

In addition, religious leaders are still not recommending condom use for prevention of the disease.

The situation is made worse as some infected Christians are shunned when they seek pastoral counselling.

"They are suddenly told they can no longer sing on the choir and that they must now sit in the back of the church," she said.

Pastor Percival Palmer of Wholelife Ministries admitted that discrimination is still very much a part of the church psyche, although perspectives have begun to change.

"Attitude is changing as the information is becoming more available and many persons involved in the HIV/AIDS fight are believers," he said.

"We still believe, though, that the HIV/AIDS disease is a lifestyle problem in the main, so we believe in abstinence, being faithful, and condom usage for persons who know that they are HIV/AIDS-infected," he told the Sunday Observer.

He said the church must respond with compassion and not condemnation, even when the lifestyles of the infected persons are known.

"We condemn lifestyles, but not individuals, because we are created in His (God's) image and likeness and we have to join the fight against HIV/AIDS with compassion and faith now," he said.

However, not all pastors share Palmer's view.

A Church of God leader in St Catherine, who requested anonymity, said pastors have to be compassionate, but they also must be realistic.

"We can't just push certain things unto our congregation, because persons need time to understand the issues about HIV/AIDS, and if they are uncomfortable using the same pool as someone who is infected we just have to respect their wish," he said.

This is especially so, he said, in a rural church like his, where most persons are not fully sensitised about the disease.

"The most some of them know is that when someone has AIDS they just wither and die," he said.

As for prevention messages being taught in his church, he said that will not happen anytime soon.

"We not sending any message to tell our little boys and girls that it is okay to go and have sex as long as they use a condom, because that would be saying sex out of marriage is okay," he said.

Bishop Howard Gregory, suffragan bishop of Montego Bay, said the Anglican church has always had a focus on HIV/AIDS issues.

"We have had the issue of whether persons can take from the same cup and that has been discussed and settled in congregations," said Gregory.

He said leaders who discriminate do not understand the nature of AIDS and how the virus is contracted.

This ignorance, he said, is due largely to the fact that HIV was first linked to homosexuals and was interpreted by many religious figures as the consequence of sin.

"There is a reggae tune which speaks about 'Jah lick them with diseases' and that, I think, is the philosophy which guided some of these persons," he said.

As for encouraging the use of condoms, Gregory said the Anglican church does not have a problem with it as long as it is used within the ambit of "responsible sexual activity and not just for any casual relationships".

John Hewitt, acting bishop of Bethel United Apostolic on South Camp Road in Kingston, said they have baptised infected persons in the church pool.

"We baptise people with AIDS in the same pool because we don't believe people can contract the disease that way," he said, adding that they even prayed for infected persons who returned to say they were healed.

He said they have also adopted a home for children with HIV, and have had health officials coming in to do sensitisation sessions with the congregation.

Hewitt said this is something they would encourage other churches to do, in addition to preaching abstinence before marriage.

The Caribbean Council of Churches, in one of its publications distributed at the recent AIDS conference, said attitudes of condemnatory judgement, negative discrimination and/or indifference towards infected people and their families should be removed.

It said faith-based organisations can, among other things, communicate appropriate messages about prevention of HIV/AIDS.

Kay Warren, executive director of the HIV/AIDS Initiative at Saddleback community church in the US, and wife of author of the Purpose Driven Life, offers a formula for congregation involvement.

The word CHURCH, she said, stands for 'Care for and comfort the sick'; 'Handle testing and counselling'; 'Unleash a force of volunteers'; 'Remove the stigma'; 'Champion healthy behaviour and Help with nutrition and medication'.

Some churches, she said, have given too many negative messages of "you are bad and sinful".


"But the real question is, how do we hold onto biblical principles while reaching out in love to others," she said.
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