To Meet AIDS With Grace and Truth
Some Presbyterian Church Policies Dealing with HIV/AIDS

AIDS And The Church As A Healing Community
Adopted by the 200th General Assembly (1988) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

The AIDS pandemic calls the church to maturity of proclamation, education, service, and advocacy in response to the human needs of persons who would otherwise be alone and alienated in their suffering. This crisis may also grace the church with appreciation of the spiritual growth that can be experienced by persons facing AIDS. The church as a healing community, empowered by the Holy Spirit, is called to confession, celebration, and action.

We Confess That:

Our own church's response to AIDS has been tardy, despite our 1986 General Assembly's warning that "the rate of infection is predicted to double every nine to twelve months" and its declaration that "AIDS and ARC are illnesses, not punishment, for behavior deemed immoral." We affirm that the church must caution against making moral pronouncements about AIDS and ARC. We further affirm that all peoples are precious to God and urge congregations, governing bodies, and agencies of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to renounce the popular notions of God's wrath toward AIDS sufferers.

We offer Thanksgiving and Celebration for the pioneering and self-sacrifice of persons, including Presbyterians, who have developed research programs and ministries of service that are helpful to persons with AIDS, and for courageous public health officials and disease prevention educators whose work helps to reduce both the sexual transmission and blood transfusion-associated transmission of AIDS.

We Resolve That:

1. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) at all levels, in all places, should be a community of openness and caring for persons with AIDS and their loved ones, working to overcome attitudinal and behavioral barriers of race, social class, and sexual orientation that hamper acceptance of and positive ministry with sufferers from this disease.
2. Ministries in response to AIDS will be developed, whenever possible, in consultation and collaboration with local department of public health and community-based groups which have already identified priorities for action and in linkage with ecumenical and interfaith efforts.
3. Educational efforts must include reliable medical and scientific information, as well as theological and biblical components that enable participants to address issues related to death and dying, human sexuality, and recognition of people's fear and lack of knowledge. Such educational efforts can prepare congregations to respond appropriately when they learn that a member or persons in the community have been infected by the HIV or diagnosed as having AIDS, and can lead to the developing of compassionate, rational policies, educational materials, and actions.
4. Pastors, educators, and other church workers, as well as seminary students, should prepare themselves to provide appropriate pastoral care and counseling to persons living with AIDS or AIDS-Related Complex and the loved ones of these persons.
5. The church's worship life should express pastoral care and hope and provide time for lifting up of special concerns.
6. Presbyteries and congregations should use their human and material resources to respond to the AIDS crisis with support groups, counseling, grants, facilities for recreational activities, and community organization of persons with AIDS.

We Urge Presbyteries and Congregations to:

1. Work for public policies and the allocation of resources to ensure the availability of appropriate medical, psychological, and support services for persons infected by the HIV. The programs should support independence and self-determination for persons with AIDS.
2. Advocate that children infected by the HIV be permitted to attend regular school at every level so long as they are able and wish to do so.
3. Oppose mandatory HIV testing and advocate for the development and use of accurate testing procedures that are voluntary, made readily available to high-risk groups, and which guarantee confidentiality and anonymity as well as counseling services.
4. Support AIDS prevention education throughout community and church life that provides the information required for persons to engage in behavior which reduces or eliminates the risk of infection; because sexual and intravenous drug using activities can begin at a young age, encourage school boards to initiate AIDS education activities at the elementary school level; affirm the necessity for comprehensive health education including human sexuality and drug abuse prevention designed for children and youth; support massive public distribution of factual AIDS educational materials such as the "Report on AIDS of the Surgeon General of the US, Everett Koop, M.D.".
5. Support AIDS prevention throughout the church by advocating the biblical standards of chastity prior to marriage, fidelity within marriage, and abstinence for other single adults.
6. Call for the development of adequate numbers of drug treatment programs to care for persons who are dependent on the use of illicit narcotics; support the provision of detailed information and other resources-learning from exemplary programs implemented in other Western countries-that prevent intravenous drug users from sharing needles, as part of the larger effort to prevent further spread of AIDS.
7. Encourage health care providers to support each other as professional care givers facing personal anxiety and burnout and to serve in ways that regard persons with AIDS as the appropriate decision makers about their own care, respecting their wishes to seek or refuse specific treatments and provisions for decision making on their behalf should they become unable to decide themselves.
8. Urge the implementation and enforcement of policies and necessary legislation to protect the human and civil rights of persons infected by the HIV, persons perceived to be at risk for such infection, and persons with AIDS or ARC; urge through efforts to investigate, document, and prevent prejudice and violence against all persons who have AIDS or are perceived to be at risk for AIDS.
9. Advocate effective protection of civil rights of persons in employment, education, health insurance, and medical care regardless of sexual orientation, in light of the action of the 1978 (UPCUSA) General Assembly that calls upon Presbyterians "to work for the passage of laws that prohibit discrimination in the areas of employment, housing, and public accommodations based on the sexual orientation of a person."
10. Urge church related institutions to join in working toward these social policy objectives and to observe them in practice.

To help the whole church meet this pandemic, we call on the church at large (to) implement the above recommendations and to provide specialized leadership development for preventive AIDS education and knowledgeable counseling ministry with persons who have AIDS; model workplace and medical treatment policies, as well as protection of church personnel in high risk occupations and areas, and acts of public witness that help others to meet AIDS with grace and truth.

AIDS Discrimation Prohibition
201st General Assembly (1989)

A policy on "Right to Work for Persons with Life Threatening Illnesses" was adopted by the 200th General Assembly (1988) [and was included in the July/August 1988 Church and Society, pp. 99 - 100]. The 201st General Assembly (1989) added this language to the policy:

AIDS Discrimination Prohibition: In regard to the life-threatening disease of AIDS and ARC (AIDS-Related Conditions), a person carrying the AIDS virus is not a threat to coworkers since AIDS-ARC are not spread by common everyday contact. For this reason, the AIDS antibody and/or AIDS virus status of an employee of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is not relevant information in regard to the health and safety of his or her coworkers. Therefore, the AIDS antibody test and/or AIDS virus test should not be used as a prerequisite for employment. Knowledge or presumed knowledge of AIDS antibody and/or AIDS virus status shall not be used to discriminate against an employee for any reason.

(Derived from Overture 89-47 from the Presbytery of Baltimore; the original overture that led to this policy was Overture 88-29, from the Presbytery of the Redwoods).

AIDS Not Punishment
198th General Assembly (1986)

Whereas, the 198th General Assembly (1986) did adopt a resolution on AIDS which stated that the General Assembly "declares that AIDS and ARC are illnesses, not punishment for behavior deemed immoral"; and

Whereas, the 200th General Assembly (1988) considered the position paper on AIDS of the Committee on Social Witness Policy, which paper quoted in full the above quotation from the statement of the 198th General Assembly (1986), but in adopting the statement struck the words "not punishment for behavior deemed immoral", and

Whereas, the failure to quote those words, particularly after the originally recommended version contained them, is a clear suggestion that those words are now recanted; and

Whereas, any suggestion that AIDS is "punishment for behavior deemed immoral" is a complete denial of our medical understanding of AIDS and our theological understanding of God's grace;

Therefore, the 201st General Assembly (1989)

1. Restores the words "not punishment for behavior deemed immoral" to the quotation from the 198th General Assembly (1986) contained in the statement "To Meet AIDS with Grace and Truth."
2. Recommends that the Bicentennial Fund and/or other sources of funding be encouraged to support AIDS ministry.

(Derived from Overture 89-48, from the Presbytery of Baltimore).