Homocon

"The evangelical church has pretty much had fingers in our ears, hands over our eyes and mouths shut completely," said Warren, the wife of megachurch pastor and best-selling Christian author Rick Warren, whose interest in HIV/AIDS led her husband to sponsor the Saddleback AIDS/HIV Conference for senior Evangelical pastors that coincides with World AIDS Day. "We're not comfortable talking about sex in general and certainly not comfortable talking about homosexuality -- and you can't talk about HIV without talking about both of those things," she added.

As Christian relief and missionary organizations in Africa begin to increasingly deal with the AIDS crisis across the vast Dark Continent, some members within the church have begun questioning why they weren't doing more in their own backyard, and why the Church as a whole was not rising up to face one of the modern world's great challenges.

An enormous amount of personal wealth and energy are invested in Christian relief organizations across the globe, so to hear Evangelical Christians holding open conversations about tackling AIDS not only in Africa, but also in the United States, is a wonder to behold. In 2003 alone, it's estimated that 66% of all Baby Boomer donations went to Church organizations, and when you stop to realize that the Baby Boomer population is the largest and arguably wealthiest segment of America's population, then it only stands to reason that Church Aid Organizations have a big financial stick with which to pound away at the problem of AIDS in both Africa and the United States.

I'm sure Bono will take the help wherever he can get it.

Yet even though religious media sources such as Christianity Today insist that celebrities like Bono are "unaware of the aids relief work that has been done in Africa for years, both by missionaries and by indigenous Christians," the PR gap is not solely the fault of ignorance on the part of pop-culture spokesmen.

“The problem today is that the Church is the body of Christ, but the hands and the legs have been amputated, and all that’s left is a big mouth,” stated Rick Warren, quoting almost to a tee the criticism often leveled against Evangelicals by the non-Christian population, and with loudmouths like Falwell and Robertson at the head of the line, it's often an uphill battle for Evangelical Christians to overcome the negative stereotyping that results whenever either of them scares up yet another headline.

“Most of the time we’re known for what (we're) against," continued Warren. "I’m tired of that. I want the church to be known for what it’s for, not for what it’s against.”

I'm hearing that type of argument a lot, lately.

Workshops at this year's Saddleback HIV/AIDS Conference will include such topics as "Loving Homosexuals as Jesus Would".

Uhm . . . *giggle*

ADDENDUM:
The picture I used as the centre photo for this post? It's part of a very, erm, unusual French AIDS campaign. Check it out here -- yikes! Ya gotta hand it to the French. The ad campaign is nothing if not attention grabbing.