AN AIDS POLICY: TWO CHURCHES' SEARCH
What official stance should a congregation take toward members with AIDS?
Peter Pendell and Denis Sawyer
April 1, 1988
AIDS-it's always fatal; there's no known cure. Once confined primarily to homosexuals and drug abusers, it is now gaining ground beyond those groups. Local churches will soon encounter the problem face to face-if they haven't already.
How should a church minister to those with AIDS? To what extent can it let them participate in fellowship without endangering others? Do other parishioners have a right to know who in the congregation has AIDS? What approach best blends caution and compassion?
The accounts below describe how two different churches tackled this issue. The first is Millington Baptist Church in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, a suburban congregation previously unfamiliar with such problems. Pastor Peter Pendell candidly recounts the fears they felt as they sought to minister to a family with AIDS.
Millington Baptist Church
We thought we were safe, tucked away in our corner of the world, telling one another that sex outside marriage and the illicit use of drugs were anathema. We thought the AIDS virus had been stopped at the door by these ushers of chastity and self-control.
But Bill Miller knocked on the door of our church, and we welcomed him. He attended with some regularity, enough so that we learned of his struggle with intravenous drug abuse. After a period of absence, Bill returned with his bride, Jane, and her 4-year-old daughter, Tammy. Just months after Bill and Jane trusted Christ as their Savior, Bill learned that his former wife had tested positive for the AIDS virus. Seeing the possibilities, Bill and Jane, who were now expecting a child, were tested and found to be carriers of the virus. At birth, their son, Michael, joined his parents in that dreaded condition.
The situation drew our leadership into the most ...
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