Wendi,
I feel your heart for Africa.  I will be in India in just a few short months, working in Kashmir at a Clinic we built.  It is a great ministry to feed, visit, love and care but it is not the only ministry.  What we see in Africa is devastating and I have plans in 09 to go to Either the Congo or Nigeria.  Our church family has been very active in Africa and I personally am deeply saddened by it. 

I know many people, evangelicals, have helped politicize the issue of abortion but to lay the blame at their feet as it seems you might be doing is too much for me.  It was not a evangelical who made the Judicial decision to legalize abortion.  It is within the scriptures and our government to take these issues to the government.  We are told to submit to authority and as such we have been given the “right” to protest, to organize, to campaign, to fund, to speak out, to demonstrate all by our government.  These rights are not reserved only for those who are outside the faith.  It is political because that is our system of government, but its political nature does not preclude or eliminate it moral nature. 

I am strongly opposed to abortion and have seen first hand the devastation it causes, here and abroad.  It is harmful to mother and an unborn child.  Had it been the kind of thing in Jesus day like it is today, who knows how Matthew 25 would read.  What I do know is I have been given a mandate from scripture to defend the defenseless and care for the helpless. 

In my life time abortion became the Law of the Land, so did homosexuality, so did prostitution in some places.  This is not an either or but a both and.  We have an immoral law on the books in a country that allows us to stand against that through a political system, to not use what is at our disposal is poor stewardship. 

How many people in Africa have died of HIV/AIDS because of politics?  Should we not petition the world courts to bring change to a system that lets people starve to death because of politics, prevents medicine getting to help people because of politics, allows persecution of and the eradication of and the enslavement of entire people groups?

Or maybe we should sidle up next to each dictator and try to win him to Christ so the madness would stop.  I say we use whatever we have at our disposal.

fishon writes “What can the Hillary do about AIDS? Throw money at it. That is not going to work.” A great deal of money spent in an intelligent way, as part of a plan to get rid of the extreme poverty in those parts of the world, will indeed work. I’m not saying that we should stop spreading the Gospel in places like Africa. (The church is growing in Africa at an astounding rate, by the way...) But they are doing a great job with the Gospel on that continent. They don’t need our help. They do need our resources! Let’s do something!

windi, loving , caring, and educating young people is a very good thing, but if you get that young person saved, one can and will minister to a lot their friends, i have a grand son that got saved when he was nine years old, and he has lived his salvation, he is nineteen years old now, and he still honors the lord. and he has not had it easy in the world, but that made him more determned to do what is right, he will say what god says when confronted with his convictions, he just simply believes god.] but if anyone sends money to help in africa, they better know it is people out there that will take their money and those needy people will never see a dime of it. but there are faithful people that would not take a dime for themself. i sent money once and found out later it was a ripoff, but i believe james roberson is a real man of god that would not do that to people, if he is not it would take someone that really knew him to make me believe he was dishonest.  } i agree with fishon, money is not going to make a difference in aids, it is going to take god for a job like that, but god uses people to get things changed in a country, but the best we can do is like a drop in the bucket, our efforts is like puting a bandade on a cancer and kiss and make it better, BUT GOD can do it if we will get his directions on the matter, you know JESUS did say without him we can do nothing, but with him all things are possible, theres no use trying without him, the smartest people in the world is not smart enough for GODS JOB.one of the wrighters was saying how bad things are, or was that all of us saying how bad things are, but there is some good things too. and that is the FATHER< SON< HOLY GHOST> we have got to look to jesus, there is no other way…

Once upon a time there was a remedy incurable communicable diseases - quarantine.  The problem with HIV is that we do not use quarantine over issues of civil rights.  Once politics entered and interfered with medicine we lost the battle on AIDS.  We have put the civil rights of people to have immoral sex (a major cause of HIV) over the protection of the bigger community.  Until we go back to the old ways - quarantine and lowering the levels of sexual misconduct - we will have this epidemic when Christ returns. 

A real HIV conference would push for a return to morality, quarantines, and the need to push for the protection of society ... we may never find a cure.

Thank you, thank you Leonard.  Dan, your comment is nonsensical. It would be like saying to the southern slave owners in 1861, “you just need to stop this immorality of slave ownership,” and then expecting that the problem could have been solved.  One hundred years later, the American south was still plagued with racism (an immorality, IMO, with consequences just as devastating as sexual immorality.) 30,000 children die every day in sub-Saharan Africa, directly or indirectly because of the Aids pandemic.  Moralizing is unhelpful, and unkind.

A real conference takes us back to Romans 12:1, where we are so moved by God’s mercy toward us that we cannot not act (a double negative seems to work best here).  We simply offer ourselves, because we have been given so much.  We ask “what must I do, for I must do something?” We refuse to waste time speculating and postulating about how these immoral people got themselves into such a mess.  We offer ourselves as living sacrifices, and trust God to take our sacrifice and multiply it, not just to feed the hungry and heal the sick, but also to be part of the solution.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not suggesting that we blindly march off to Africa or write checks without due diligence.  I am suggesting that we give unconditionally, the way Jesus did.  As God, he might have known that the woman at the well would respond to his offer of unconditional love.  We must offer love without such divine insight.  Some will respond positively, some will not, but we offer it anyway, because Jesus did.

Wendi

Wendi,
You like so many, build “strawmen” out of what some of us who have different opinions than you have.
EXAMPLE: You write to me: “To think that people will just accept Jesus and rid their lives of the sin that is causing Aids is naïve at best.  What do you say to a woman who comes to Jesus, but is the fifth wife in a family.  Leave?  Who will care for her and her children?  Where will she live?”
-----"Naive," maybe! But I think Jesus said something about, “Go, make disciples....”
--------And you build the strawman on the question, “Leave.” You will have a very hard time finding me even intimating that.

-----You are correct, just what to do and how to go about helping those with AIDS is a complicated problem. I know this--throwing money [that in most cases will not reach the truely needy] will not take care of the problem. America has for far to long been throwing money at disease and poverty all over the world, and the fact is, they only grow. I am not saying we don’t spend money to help, but that IS NOT the final solution.

You and I, we are not enemies, but we do see things differently. For this particular debate started with me answering the question:

The Watchdoggies are at it again…
One title reads “Warren Invites Another Baby-Killer to Saddleback”.  When will this end?
And my answer was------
“When he stops inviting people of power who stand for unbelieveable immorality to speak.?

I DO NOT believe that Jesus or the apostles taught that the Church and Rome came together to solve the question of disease that ran ramped in their time; or for that matter, poverty. And I see no where in scripture where a ‘shepherd’ of a flock partnered up with a representative of the government to have them come to the church and build a partnership between “light” and “darkness.”

Probably the thing that really gets to me in discussions like this is, [not that it has happened here] those who would say that people like me who see different answers to a catastrophic problem, to be not as caring as much as those who have different answers.
fishon

Fishon, to me, the invitation to Hillary Clinton from Saddleback is very similar to Jesus’ request for water from the woman at the well.  Neither woman has a claim to sainthood, and yet, that does not negate the fact that they both have something valuable to offer.  Warren’s invitation to Clinton may well open the door for a life-changing conversation like the one Jesus had with the Samaritan woman .... or it may not.  Either way, it is the humility of the invitation, the admission of need, if you will, that opens the door to opportunity.  Crossing our arms and saying that “We don’t need your stinking help” is not exactly a conversation starter.

peter. i read about a christian in africa that said he was coming to usa to preach the gospel, that it was needed very badly. i have heard of some great thing of god happen in africa. the people over there does not have a store in walking distance, and medican is few and far between in most places over there, so they just believe god to heal them when they get sick, and depend on HIM to help them eat, and god said to help the christian first. but we all know that aids is one of the worst of desises, but then again i said that a pastor that tell a homosexual that i they are alright to be a homosexual should be put out of the pulpit, then some say i need to have mercy, well the mercy should be for the homosexual to tell him the truth, the truth is mercy ,a lie cant help anyone,WAS JESUS JUSY KIDDING US ABOUT THESE THINGS OR WAS HE TELLING US THE TRUTH. HE SAID THAT THE MAN OF GOD WAS SUPPOSE TO HANDLE THE WORD OF GOD RIGHT not like a sinner would. you got to remember that the word of god is the power of god unto salvation,

i believe what you saying about quarantine and i agree, if i had it i would not want to give it to anyone else, but if that was put on the table you would hear the screems from one side of this country to the other, the problem has got to be handled by god and his people, the government sure cant do it, i have heard some people say that god did this to people, how could god do it he does not have the hiv virus, all he has for us is good, he tells us what can happen if we side up with satan. if i thought god would make me sick with some kind of desease how could i trust him?

Just a question.  If a cure was found for AIDS, would that be a good thing or a bad thing?  Anytime you can stop pain and suffering it must be good, but it would also give an out for immoral sexual behavior.  Such is the case with this issue.  If we only go to save the lost, and do not feed and comfort them, we have failed.  If we send all the money we have, and feed everyone, but do not address their spiritual needs, we have failed.  IF we demonize any political figure instead of praying for them, we have failed.