Calvin Morris was professor of pastoral theology at Howard University Divinity School and assistant pastor of Gibbons United Methodist Church near Washington, D.C. when this article appeared. This article is adapted from a speech he delivered at a conference in Philadelphia on AIDS in the Minority Community: The Church's Response." Although Morris was addressing a black and Hispanic audience, and his remarks were largely directed toward the black church, his challenge to care for people who have AIDS is one that all churches must hear.
-- The Editors
PASTORAL CARE, BROADLY DEFINED, IS THE spiritual caretaking of people, both individually and collectively. Historically speaking, black churches have been the protectors of those for whom protection was lacking.
The biblical record most graphically pictures this care with the symbol of the shepherd who watches over the flock in its wanderings, meanderings, and pasturings. The shepherd protects the sheep from danger, is concerned about their welfare, seeks them when they stray, knows them by name, salves their injuries, and tends to them when ill.
The shepherd also quiets their fears and soothes their anxieties in the face of danger. The shepherd, who according to the psalmist is the Lord God, is ever present to walk alongside those who face the valleys and shadows, and to comfort those who mourn. In all these things we image and model the Good Shepherd's promise, "Lo, I will be with you always" (Matthew 28:20).
The black church's response to people with AIDS, and to their families, lovers, and friends, has on the whole failed to image that Godly presence, and has turned its back on as well as its ear to the cries of those who suffer from AIDS. There are many reasons for this reality: unwarranted fear; judgmental theologies; discomfort with discussions of sexuality and death in the broader culture as well as in the black community; generations of silence and antipathy between the black church and the black gay community; homophobia; the tacit agreement between gays in the church, their congregations, and pastors that as long as gay members are circumspect, silence will reign; the isolation of drug abusers and particularly intravenous users from the church; and the black church community's wearied assertion that "we have enough problems with which to contend, without the added burden of AIDS."
None of the above reasons, however strongly believed and held they are, can justify the black church's retreat from its biblically grounded and historically centered command to care for all of God's sheep. Unlike some professions in which there may be some choice about who will be served, pastors are compelled to serve all, particularly the oppressed, the downtrodden, and the forgotten. The call of Christ summons us to compassion, not judgment, for those who suffer with AIDS. As Jesus healed the outcasts -- whether the adulterer, the tax collector, the demon possessed, or the leper -- we, the church, are called to imitate the behavior of our Lord.
The heritage that is central to the black religious tradition also challenges the church to respond to black and minority communities where AIDS is rampaging. That heritage, which hearkens as far back as the founding of the Free African Society by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones in Philadelphia in 1787, instructs us that the well-being of the community, sectarian or non-sectarian, must be central to our concerns.
The church is called to care for the whole family of God, whether churchgoer or non-churchgoer, saved or unsaved, black, brown, or white, straight or gay, drug abuser or drug free. We can do no other than care for those whom God loves. Pastoral care is the spiritual caretaking of those who come under the love and concern of God.
RECENT STUDIES ON AIDS herald the fact that the transmission of AIDS has increased in the black and Hispanic communities, primarily due to IV drug abuse. These studies also show a concomitant increase of AIDS among black and Hispanic women and their children. Who cares now, and who will care in the future, about these children and adults?
Certainly AIDS among blacks and Hispanics is having a particularly devastating impact when one considers the obstacles we face in receiving available information about the disease and its prevention, and the difficulties many of our people experience when they seek to obtain proper medical assistance and the long-held but misguided assumption that AIDS was a problem of white gay males and, thus, not an issue about which minorities needed to be concerned, one has the makings for a lulled and apathetic community.
When we also consider the deep-seated homophobia within our churches and our communities, a reality that subtly and not so subtly demands closeted silence, we have the prospect of a major tragedy. Without the care ordained by God and extended on earth by the ministries of God's church and people, black and Hispanic people with AIDS will continue to die alone, sometimes bereft of family or church support.
As the disease becomes increasingly identified with poor and minority peoples, will the larger society become indifferent and callous about caring for these people and demanding a cure for AIDS? Will the majority culture say about blacks and Hispanics what some religionists have said about gays with the disease, "They have brought it on themselves and deserve the punishment that comes from God"? Will blacks and Hispanics, as have gay people, find a community willing and able to join in solidarity with one another to garner the resources, programs, and tactics to cope with and slow the rise of AIDS in their communities?
The answers to these questions are presently unknown; yet no answer in the affirmative to the last question is possible within our communities without the central participation of the church. It is still the social, religious, and political center of our communities, and our continued silence becomes an accessory before and after the fact to the deaths of our people.
Ours is the task, however unenviable, of dreaming new dreams, charting new paths, and envisioning new possibilities of pastoral care for our people in this crisis situation. AIDS challenges us as never before to realize, in the words of James Russell Lowell, that "new occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth."
THE PRESENT CRISIS DEMANDS a radical shift in our attitudes as clergy, laity, and the church. Though not exhaustive, the following are some of the things we will need to do pastorally to the AIDS crisis in our communities as pastors and care givers:
- We must examine our thoughts, feelings, biases, prejudices, and fears as far as AIDS and those associated with the disease are concerned. Pastoral care requires continued critical engagement of our personal values, religious beliefs, and theologies.
- We must learn to listen, especially to those from whom we have not heard before, including homosexuals, bisexuals, and intravenous drug users. We must learn to listen with that "third ear," non-judgmentally, in order to understand and accept what is reality for them.
- We must come to the realization that the acceptance of another's reality -- what is real and of value to them -- does not imply that we agree with that reality. Our role is not to judge or reject; we leave that, as we must, to the ultimate wisdom of God. We are here to show God's love by our visible presence. We must become, in essence, incarnations of the Word of God.
- We must be prepared, after prayerful consideration and serious study, to oppose the pejorative labels that often accompany those whom we know little and perhaps fear much: "queer," "faggot," "dyke," "drug addict," "nellie." All such terms dehumanize and objectify others so that they become less human and certainly unlike us. The more the others can become an it rather than a thou to us, in Martin Buber's phrase, the easier it is for us to countenance their pain, ignore their suffering, and shun their marginalized existence. Certainly those of us who have been called "jungle bunny," "shine," "nigger," "coon," and numerous other racial slurs can attest to the dangerous effects of such terms on the hearer as well as the speaker.
- As the church, we must be willing to educate and inform our congregations and the broader community about AIDS and its prevention. We must be willing to leave our comfortable pews and carpeted houses of worship and share information and, perhaps, if need be, clean needles and syringes with IV drug users. We will have to provide opportunities for our youth organizations within our churches to discuss AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases and the ways to halt their spread. We may have to counsel condom use for sexually active people.
Our radio and television broadcasts may have to confront the crisis in our communities with more than the traditional "thou shalt not" -- particularly since so many are! Of course such efforts will, by necessity, need the participation, involvement, and planning of the whole church. The process will not be without conflict and strain, for change is difficult and painful, but compassionate, caring, informed, and dynamic leadership and shepherding can lead the flock into new and safer pastures.
- The church must be willing to be an advocate for those neglected and discriminated against because they have AIDS. We must fight against employment and housing discrimination directed at people with AIDS or those suspected of being HIV infected. We must oppose the efforts of insurance companies to deny coverage to people suspected of being gay or because they are in a certain age group and live in a particular zip code zone. We have lived too long with discrimination, and the rationalizations offered to buttress its villainy, to sit idly by while others suffer unjustly.
- The church must advocate for adequate and caring medical care and treatment for people with AIDS. We must support legislation and funds for home-care services and helpers for people with AIDS. We must advocate the necessary research funds to fund a cure for this dreaded disease. We must also see that adequate funds and materials are authorized for minority-community education and information. Such monies would include training for community counselors and staff.
- We must provide the necessary support for people with AIDS, including visiting them, running errands for them, taking them shopping, paying their bills, writing their letters for them, providing opportunities for them to take short trips if their condition allows, and being willing to act as a prayer partner. Above all, we can be a friend.
- The church must also be sensitive to those who care for people with AIDS, including their families, their lovers, and their friends. The church can provide a listening ear, the shoulder to cry on, and the hand to hold when all else fails. We can offer our faith that God's comforting presence is available to all in death as well as life.
- Just as the church must affirm the right of AIDS sufferers to live, it must just as assuredly assist those who, in the words of that majestic black spiritual, "want to die easy when [they] die, shout salvation to the sky."
Death for those who suffer with AIDS cannot be "easy" if their pastors utter prayers from the hospital doorway, rather than from the bedside, because of fear. Death cannot come easy to the feverished sufferer when clergy are too repulsed by their condition to apply a cool cloth to their burning brow.
AIDS patients can die easy when family and friends gather to hold their hands and speak soothing words of affection and love. They die easy when the church, represented by clergy and laity, incarnate by their presence the affirmation that "Lo, I will be with you always." Thus death might become a comma, preceding an ongoing sentence of eternal life. "I want to die easy, when I die."
Rev. Jesse Jackson, when he was running for the Democratic Party's nomination for president, was interviewed in the May 10, 1988 issue of the national gay news magazine The Advocate. Responding to the question "Have you ever imagined what your reaction would be if you discovered that one of your own children might be gay?" Jackson replied:
[None] of them is. But my position has always been with my children [that] whatever of life's circumstances greet them, I still love them ... I can't be a part-time father [or] love them only when they give me gratification. Real love comes out in the low moments. You must really love people the most when they need it the most. People don't need much love when they've got a tail wind blowing. They need love when they are facing headwinds and cross winds.
People with AIDS and their relatives, lovers, and friends need the compassionate and loving response of the church as they encounter headwinds and crosswinds in their lives. Perhaps in doubt, often in fear, undoubtedly in pain, and assuredly in grief, people with AIDS and their loved ones need to know if the church or anyone cares.
Dying with AIDS, someone might ask the hymnodist's question, "Does Jesus care when my way is dark with a nameless dread and fear as the daylight fades into deep night shades? Does he care enough to be near?" Or perhaps having experienced the death of a son, husband, father, daughter, wife, sister, grandchild, lover, or friend, someone bent with grief and inexplicable sorrow might also ask, "Does Jesus care when I've said goodbye to the dearest on earth to me and my sad heart aches 'til it nearly breaks? Is it aught to him? Does he see?"
Responding with faithful assurance, the hymn writer challenges us to image our Christ as we respond to God's people imperiled by AIDS. The song-poet turns the question mark into an exclamation point and triumphantly asserts:
O yes, He cares, I know He cares!
His heart is touched with my grief;
When the days are weary, the long nights dreary,
I know my Saviour cares.
Facing a community burdened with the pain, terror, and shame associated with AIDS, the churches can do no less than care in the name of one who died and lives for all.
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