Jesus and the Stigmatized: Reading the Gospel of John in a Context of HIV/AIDS–Related Stigmatization in Tanzania

By Elia Shabani Mligo and Halvor Moxnes

Biblical scholars often read the Bible with their own interpretive interests in mind, without associating the Bible with the concerns of laypeople. This largely undermines the contributions laypeople can offer from reading the Bible in their own contexts and from their own life experiences. Moreover, such exclusively scholarly reading conceals the role of biblical texts in dealing with current social problems, such as HIV/AIDS-related stigmatization. Hence, the lack of lay participation in the process of Bible reading makes the Bible less visible in various common life situations.

In this volume Elia Shabani Mligo draws on his fieldwork among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in Tanzania, selects stigmatization as his perspective, and chooses participant-centered contextual Bible study as his method to argue that the reading of texts from the Gospel of John by PLWHA (given their lived experiences of stigmatization) empowers them to reject stigmatization as unjust. Mligo's study shows that Christian PLWHA reject stigmatization because it does not comply with the attitude of Jesus toward stigmatized groups in his own time. The theology emerging from the readings by stigmatized PLWHA, through their evaluation of Jesus' attitudes and acts toward stigmatized people in the texts, challenges churches in their obligatory mission as disciples of Jesus. Churches are challenged to reconsider healing, hospitality and caring, prophetic voices against stigmatization, and the way they teach about HIV and AIDS in relation to sexuality.
Churches must revisit their practices toward stigmatized groups and listen to their voices. Mligo argues that participant-centered Bible-study methods similar to the one used in this book (whereby stigmatized people are the primary interlocutors in the process) can be useful tools in listening to the voices of stigmatized groups.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Release date: Aug 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781630876111

Elia Shabani Mligo

Elia Shabani Mligo (PhD, University of Oslo, Norway) is Senior Lecturer in Research, Philosophy, and Religious Studies at Tumaini University Makumira, Mbeya Center in Tanzania. He is the author of many books and articles on contextual theology and research. Some of his books include Jesus and the Stigmatized (2011), Writing Academic Papers (2012), Doing Effective Fieldwork (2013), Elements of African Traditional Religion (2013), Symbolic Interactionism in the Gospel According to John (2014), and He Descended into Hell (2015).

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Jesus and the Stigmatized

Reading the Gospel of John in a Context of HIV/AIDS-Related Stigmatization in Tanzania

Elia Shabani Mligo

With a foreword by Halvor Moxnes

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Jesus and the Stigmatized

Reading the Gospel of John in a Context of HIV/AIDS-Related Stigmatization in Tanzania

Copyright © 2011 Elia Shabani Mligo. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Pickwick Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

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isbn 13: 978-1-60899-706-0

eisbn 13: 978-1-63087-611-1

Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Mligo, Elia Shabani.

Jesus and the stigmatized : reading the Gospel of John in a context of HIV/AIDS-related stigmatization in Tanzania / Elia Shabani Mligo ; with a foreword by Halvor Moxnes.

xx + 454 pp. ; 23 cm. Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

isbn 13: 978-1-60899-706-0

1. AIDS (Disease)—Africa—Religious Aspects 2. AIDS (Disease)—Africa—Social Aspects. 3. AIDS (Disease) in women and men—Religious Aspects—Christianity. 4. Bible—Study and teaching—Africa. 5. Bible. N.T. John—Criticism, interpretation. 6. Stigmatization (Theory)—Lived experience—Africa—Churches, etc. I. Halvor Moxnes. II. Title.

bv4460.7.m30 2011

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

To the Group of PLWHA with gratitude for their willingness to read biblical texts and share their lived experiences to me.

In memory of my brother Charles and his wife, Andzanukye, whose stigmatization from both their own family members and their caring neighbors, before their untimely deaths in October 2002, kindled the ambition for this book.

•

AN AIDS CREDO

We believe in the unity of the body of Christ, that all are part of the body of Christ.

We believe in the equality and dignity of all men and women, and accept each other as equal partners in the body of Christ.

We believe that when one member of the body suffers, we all suffer and that, when one member of the body rejoices, we all rejoice.

We believe in acceptance of ourselves and of each other as we are, in the knowledge of the healing (. . .) nature of Christ in his love for the body, ever remembering Christ’s acceptance of the leper and the outcast.

We believe in our personal Christian responsibility, as members of the body, to reduce the suffering of all members of the body by taking responsibility for our own lives and by accepting responsibility for the care of others.

—Clifford, Theology and the HIV/AIDS Epidemic, p. 18

•

Foreword

Jesus in the Time of AIDS

Foreword: Jesus in the Time of AIDS

In this HIV/AIDS era our greatest theological challenge is to grasp that Jesus is the face of every individual who is suffering with HIV/AIDS and who is threatened by this disease. Whenever and whoever and wherever a person is stigmatized, isolated and rejected because of their HIV/AIDS status, the church needs to grasp that Jesus himself is discriminated and rejected.

—Dube, HIV- and AIDS-Related Stigma, 2003

•

This statement brought to mind the start of the AIDS epidemic in North America and in Europe in the 1980s and how it created urgency in all issues related to what it is to be a human person and what it is to live together in a community. We knew theoretically that our lives are always at risk, but the threat of AIDS showed us the vulnerability even of the strong and young among us. In this first phase of the epidemic men who had sex with men were most at risk. At the time many gay men feared the reaction from family, friends, colleagues and neighbors if they came out as gay. AIDS brought many out into the open at the most vulnerable moment anybody could imagine. We all know the unease about that which is different and the tendency that is inherent in all of us to label the other. AIDS made not only the unknown but also the known and loved ones into others, made them into potential dangers to us and therefore they were stigmatized. Life turned into death, order into chaos and that made it difficult to come to terms with this crisis in the context of Christian faith. The churches and their theologies were not always of help. Sometimes the gospel of faith and liberation was turned into a law of rejection and damnation. It took a long time to sort out from this confusion a credible faith, a picture of Jesus as present, not absent, in this crisis.

It is useful to think back upon—or for many to learn about—this experience of how HIV/AIDS epitomized the threat to life of the individual and of the community. The epidemic represented an enormous challenge to a theology that was supposed to be able to respond to life crises. It is easy to forget this experience in a situation where HIV/AIDS have disappeared from the media headlines in North America and Western Europe. In these parts of the world the epidemic has subsided; HIV/AIDS is still a serious issue but it does not determine our social life or our mental universe. Not so in Africa, especially in Africa South of Sahara. More than 22 million people live with HIV, last year 1.4 million died and nearly 2 million were newly infected; in some countries between 15 and 20 percent of the adult population are infected with HIV. The effects on life expectancy, on household, on healthcare and schools are tremendous. This situation strains the resources of states, societies and local communities, and it challenges the churches to respond with education, comfort, support and faith.

It is from within this context that Elia Shabani Mligo, a theologian from the Southern Diocese of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania has undertaken his study that takes upon itself the responsibility of doing theology in a time of crisis. What can be the role of theology faced with the HIV/AIDS crisis? It is significant that this study is not a theology speaking to people living with HIV/AIDS; at its core it is a theology speaking from the position of people living with HIV/AIDS. The author, a trained exegete, did not want to apply his interpretations of Biblical texts to their situation. The heart of the book is the readings of narratives from John’s gospel done by a group in Tanzania of People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA); it is they who are doing the theology. Therefore Mligo describes himself as a facilitator for the group. The work of the group corresponds to Paulo Freire’s ideas of problem-posing education: people develop their power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves; they come to see the world not as a static reality , but as a reality in process, in transformation¹

This is an apt description of the experience of the group of people living with HIV/AIDS that Mligo worked together with. They found themselves in a world where they experienced stigmatization, but through their Bible study they developed their power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world. Through their readings of stories of how Jesus encountered marginalized people, they found a way to exist in the world whereby they overcame some of the effects of stigmatization upon themselves, and they used the example of Jesus to challenge the process of stigmatization itself.

The main message of Mligo’s book is that people can become interpreters of their own lives and thereby see their world not as static but as something which can be transformed. As interpreters they were also theologians; from their readings emerges a picture of Jesus as the compassionate companion to people living with HIV/AIDS. This is a Christology from below, which is different both from traditional Western Christology as well as from the often patriarchal Christologies based on African traditions.

Mligo serves as a facilitator not only for the group of Bible readers but also for the readers of this book. He introduces the theoretical perspective of stigmatization to help understand the human and social effects of the epidemic. This is a social science perspective that outlines the process of stigmatization; it describes those who stigmatize and the reasons they give as well as those who are stigmatized and the possibilities they have to react. This description makes it possible to see the way the system works, the various roles and possible forms of behavior involved in stigmatization. In the next chapter Mligo helps us to understand how stigmatization functions in Tanzania when HIV/AIDS enters into a social and cultural system of values and taboos. Stigmatization also provides a new perspective to read the narratives in John’s gospel. We are accustomed to reading them with a focus on Jesus in his relations with marginalized people; read in light of the system of stigmatization also the role of the surrounding society and its relations to those who are marginalized appear as important elements in the story.

The hermeneutical result of Mligo’s approach is to include us as readers and today’s churches in the social system of stigmatization and to question our role in it. It is a study that provides important insights and challenges to churches and faith communities not only in Africa, but in all situations where people are stigmatized and suffer from being treated as others. The study also provides insights at the level of theory and methodology in biblical studies and theology. It exemplifies how necessary it is to see theology in relation to important and difficult human issues of our time. If we make the study of biblical texts the basis for our reflections, we need theoretical and methodological perspectives that can help open the text to issues of life and death.

It is in order to say that I have had the privilege to work with Elia Shabani Mligo as his advisor on his thesis and to learn from its insights. One of the strongest moments in this process was when I was allowed to meet with the group of people living with HIV/AIDS who are the main voices in this book and who welcomed me into a sharing of experiences with them. This made me realize that although academic theology participates in an international dialogue among scholars, ultimately our responsibility must be towards our human communities and the issues of life and death that make up the experiences of individuals and of our world.

Halvor Moxnes,

Professor of New Testament,

Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo

1. Freire, Education for Critical Consciousness, 64.

Acknowledgments

The South African sociologist and researcher Jonathann Mou-ton states: To put together a coherent, logical, clear, and persuasive argument . . . usually involves repeated practice, many drafts, and a great deal of effort and even frustration. ² These words apply to much of the process of this book. There is certainly a grain of truth that, in the process of writing, most of our words and ideas emanate from various places: from communities we belong to, from friends we converse with, and from persons to whom we have given our attention and time in order to learn from them. In this case, this book is not a work that emerged overnight. It has been a gradual process. The process benefited immensely from invaluable contributions by many people towards bringing it to its present form. It is not possible to give credit to each one by name. Suffice it to say thanks to everyone, each according to the input contributed.

This book is a revised version of my dissertation for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor submitted to the Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo in December 2008. I am grateful to Halvor Moxnes, professor of New Testament studies at the Faculty of Theology, for his keen professional supervision of the research project, and my academic reporting of the findings. His visit to Tanzania in the time of my fieldwork, and his conversing with the very Group of PLWHA at my research area provided a new impetus to the ongoing Bible studies. I appreciate the works of my PhD adjudication Committee and of the Norwegian Research Council reader for their constructive comments. I am also grateful to the Norwegian Research Council for the publication subsidy; and my editors at Wipf and Stock Publishers for their excellent editorial work.

I appreciate the contribution of the Group of PLWHA to whom I facilitated Contextual Bible studies for their contextual discussions of biblical texts. Their discussions of texts and evaluations of their lived experiences were of profound importance in the accomplishment of this book. It is true that without them and their contributions this book could certainly not have been in the shape it has now. I humbly dedicate this book to them.

Moreover, I kindly convey my gratitude to the Librarians of the following libraries: Main Library (UiO), Library of the Faculty of Theology (UiO) in Oslo Norway, the Main Library (UDSM) in Tanzania, and the Main Library (UKZN). Other libraries include the Library of the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala (Sweden), the Library of the Lutheran Theological Institute (UKZN) in South Africa, the Library of Makumira University College at Arusha in Tanzania, and the Library of Iringa University College at Iringa in Tanzania for their kind assistance and concern during the search for relevant literature.

Last, but not least, thanks to my wife Ester and our three children—Upendo, Grace and Faraja—for their endurance as they stayed alone in most time of my study abroad. The words of encouragement that Ester provided me on phone calls, and her lonely care of our children, deserve special appreciation.

May God, the Almighty, grant each one involved in the process of this study peace of mind in this life, and a wonderful fortune!

2. Mouton, How to Succeed, 112.

Acronyms

AIDS Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome

AMREF the African Medical Research Foundation

ART Antiretroviral Therapy

ARV Anti-Retral Virus

BCE Before Common Era

B.D Bachelor of Divinity

CBS Contextual Bible Study

CCT Christian Council of Tanzania

CE Common Era

CWN Catholic World News

ELCT Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania

ELCT/SD Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania / Southern Diocese

FGM Female Genital Mutilation

GAIA Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance

GNT Greek New Testament

HIV Human Immunodeficiency Virus

ICRW the International Center for the Research on Women

IPA Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

IPP Industrial Product Promotion

ISB/WM Institute for the Study of the Bible & Worker Ministry

IUCo Iringa University College

M.A. Master of Arts

MP Member of Parliament

MUCo Makumira University College

NMSF National Multi-Sectoral Strategic Framework

NESH Norwegian National Committee for Research Ethics in the Social Sciences and the Humanities

NPH the National Policy on HIV/AIDS

NT New Testament

PLWHA People/Person Living With HIV/AIDS

PLH People/Person Living with HIV

RSV Revised Standard Version

STD Sexually Transmitted Disease

SCC Small Christian Communities

TACAIDS Tanzania Commission for AIDS

TAMWA Tanzania Women Media Association

TDHS Tanzania Demographic Health Survey

THIS Tanzania HIV/AIDS Indicator Survey

TOT Tanzania One Theatre

WCC World Council of Churches

WHO World Health Organization

UKIMWI Upungufu wa Kinga Mwilini (AIDS)

UBS United Bible Societies

UN United Nations

UNAIDS Joint Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS

USAID United States Agency for International Development

VCT Voluntary Counseling and Testing

VVU Virusi Vinanvyosababisha UKIMWI (HIV)

Abbreviations

approx. approximately

cf (confer) compare

ca. (circa) about

DiTh Diploma in Theology

Dr. Doctor

DrTheol Doctor of Theology

ed. editor

eds. editors

etc. (et cetera) and so forth

e.g. (exempli gratia) for example

i.e. (id est) that is, that is to say

lit. literary

LXX The Septuagint

m. Mishnah

MPhil Master of Philosophy

p. page

par. paragraph

pp. pages

Prof. Professor

PhD Philosophiae Doctor (Doctor of Philosophy)

TB Tuberculosis

trans. translated by

v. verse

vv. verses

1

General Introduction

The church has AIDS, for many of our members are infected, sick, dead or dying of HIV/AIDS and because if one of us has it we all have it, it means that Jesus Christ himself has AIDS, for the church is the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:27).

—Dube, HIV- and AIDS-Related Stigma, (2003)

•

Problem and Aims

In this book, I address stigma attached to PLWHA as an obstacle for them towards accepting themselves, being accepted by other people, and dealing with the plight of HIV/AIDS in churches and communities in Tanzania. My main objective is to investigate the way the Group of PLWHA ¹ reads biblical texts from the Gospel of John in its own context of stigmatization, and how such reading challenges churches in the way they relate with PLWHA. Here my specific objectives are to explore:

1. The way the Group analyzes the attitudes and actions of Jesus towards stigmatized people within narratives in John’s gospel,

2. The way the PLWHA in the Group describe their lived experiences of stigmatization in places of social life, such as homes, churches, markets and health services,

3. The way PLWHA in the Group identify themselves with characters in the texts they read and the possible resistances to stigmatization emanating from their identification process,

4. The kind of image of Jesus portrayed by PLWHA in the Group in their readings of texts, and

5. The possible challenge(s) posed by their readings to present-day churches.

Through the above objectives, I investigate the way in which the Bible can be a resource for empowering PLWHA towards dignity, healing and wholeness within the context of stigmatization. I presuppose that PLWHA are not empowered through non–HIV positive people taking the status of PLWHA upon themselves, nor through works of charity and caring concerns, but through PLWHA’s own work with Jesus narratives, and their integration of such narratives into their own situations of stigmatization. Hence, this is a study of how a group of PLWHA can develop resources through the process of Bible study in order to deal with stigmatization. I shall analyze how PLWHA in the Group are empowered through this process and the possible challenges that churches in Tanzania obtain from the Bible reading that the people who are directly affected by the pandemic (the Group) bring as they advance their struggles against the consequences of stigmatization in their own communities.

Central Focus: Jesus and the Stigmatized

The central focus of this book is the encounters of Jesus with stigmatized people both in the Gospel of John and in churches to which today’s stigmatized people are likely to belong. Why should I focus on Jesus and the stigmatized in a study concerned with the interaction between PLWHA and their churches and communities? Some of the reasons for my concentrating so much on Jesus and stigmatized people are the following: first, Jesus seems to be involved with stigmatized people in several texts in the Gospel of John. In these texts, Jesus seems to stand over against his contemporary society in most of their views and their interpretation of scriptures that stigmatized people. Therefore, a focus on the relationship of Jesus with stigmatized people in these texts may convey a message to contemporary churches concerning their relations with stigmatized people, especially PLWHA.

Second, it appears that contemporary churches and communities in many instances stigmatize PLWHA and those associating with PLWHA in a similar way as the Jewish leaders stigmatized some characters in the texts from John’s gospel. The stigmatization of PLWHA and people associating with PLWHA is one of the main hindrances of the efforts to counteract the pandemic.² Stigmatization hinders self-confidence and dignity among people. It is a major obstacle not only to the efforts to prevent new infections of HIV, but also to effectively and compassionately care for and listen to the voices of PLWHA. It results in excessive irrational fear, denial, and silence about HIV, both among HIV positive and non–HIV positive people in most social life situations. It seriously hampers the efforts of PLWHA to obtain necessary information and treatment of their health situation, because it encourages an unwillingness to be open about their statuses.

Third, as I will demonstrate in the course of this book, both PLWHA in the Group and characters relating to Jesus in texts from the Gospel of John hold that the main fear is not a fear of death due to their situations; rather, they fear the consequences of societal stigmatization. Societal stigmatization makes them seem unhappy with life, angry with God, and unwilling to disclose their HIV-positive status. Since stigmatization prevails in almost all areas of human life, this book presupposes that stigmatization relating to HIV/AIDS is a great enemy towards the life of hope to PLWHA—perhaps more than the HIV and AIDS themselves. Hence, I am convinced that an authentic battle against HIV and AIDS cannot be achieved without addressing the stigmatization phenomenon within churches and communities to which PLWHA belong.

Charles Nzioka did research in Kenya, one of the East African countries, to investigate the perception of death among PLWHA. His research revealed that PLWHA did not fear death in its real sense, but the stigma attached to dying because of HIV/AIDS. Nzioka discovered that the community constructed death due to AIDS as a permanent death and a shameful death because AIDS is a disease of sinners. The society equated being HIV positive with moral and physical contamination because the infection is associated with the blemish from social moral order about sexuality which also threatens the afterlife of those dying of AIDS.³ Similar constructions of death due to AIDS are possible in the context of the Group of PLWHA in Tanzania, a construction that most likely prompts many PLWHA to conceal and deny their HIV/AIDS seropositive statuses.

This book is based on the theological conviction that churches should pay much more attention to the way Jesus himself meets stigmatized people in the texts and the way PLWHA appear in the context of churches (communities) to which they belong. Jesus is the center of the Christian faith, and therefore of the identity of the churches which constitute the universal Church. Jesus is also in solidarity with churches in sickness because they all represent the One Body. Churches in Tanzania, and in other places of the world, are composed of members with various statuses of lives—many of them infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, while others suffer physical and psychical disabilities.

Theological Motivation: The ‘Body Of Christ’ Has AIDS

The motive behind studying the above-stated problem is partly based on the lack of adequate researches in African contexts addressing the question of stigmatization related to HIV/AIDS, and partly on the reality of HIV/AIDS as an illness in churches that are components of the One Body of Christ. The South African theologian Gunther H.Wittenberg states that an illness involves three important dimensions: first, the physical dimension that involves the physical suffering of those that have tested HIV positive as the virus breaks down the immune system resulting in the symptoms of AIDS. Second, the psychical dimension involves the suffering of the person mentally and spiritually as that person tries to cope with the reality of death ahead. The feelings that come upon the person as the person realizes that the virus in the body cannot be taken out by any means poses great psychological struggles for that person. The third is the social dimension of suffering. Such dimension involves the sufferings inflicted by the community in response to the person’s status. It refers to the question of stigmatization by members of the community (rejection by fellow members of the family and relatives, feelings of shame and lack of proper services in social spheres).⁴

The Botswanan theologian Musa Dube states that when writing about the status of the Church of Christ:

The church has AIDS, for many of our members are infected, sick, dead or dying of HIV/AIDS and because if one of us has it we all have it, it means that Jesus Christ himself has AIDS, for the church is the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:27). It is my contention therefore, that we do not have to wait until the judgement day to hear Jesus saying, You saw me sick with AIDS. Today Jesus Christ stands amongst us saying Look at me, I have AIDS. Do we love him any less? Do we worship him? Are we holier than him? In this HIV/AIDS era our greatest theological challenge is to grasp that Jesus is the face of every individual who is suffering with HIV/AIDS and who is threatened by this disease.⁵ Whenever and whoever and wherever a person is stigmatized, isolated and rejected because of their HIV/AIDS status, the church needs to grasp that Jesus himself is discriminated and rejected.⁶

The statement that Dube makes above highlights issues relating to faith in Jesus, common belonging, the globalization of AIDS and stigmatizing relationships between the HIV positive and the HIV negative people in AIDS-related suffering situations. It is certainly true that currently, people speak about HIV/AIDS as a global problem, a problem existing beyond Tanzania. I can see that the globalization⁷ of HIV/AIDS confirms the common belonging of human beings, as Stan Nussbaum makes clear when he writes, The human race⁸ has AIDS. It is not ‘their’ problem. It is our problem as the members of the race. If it is not our problem, we are not human.⁹ The statement of Nussbaum suggests that HIV/AIDS is already here, present to every member of the human race today. It is something we speak about and experience¹⁰ as members of one race (the human race) and the one Body of Christ (the Church). If the above claim that HIV/AIDS is global holds truth, the important question among the issues raised by the accounts of Dube and Nussbaum above is about the kind of relationship existing in churches and in the larger communities between people infected by the virus and those without infection.

As a Tanzanian, a citizen of one of the African countries hit by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and as a member of the Bena community (located in the southern highlands of Tanzania), I realize the urgent importance of the statements of Dube and Nussbaum. My first-hand experience of living together with and ministering to people considered to be infected by HIV, and affected by AIDS, has been an important starting point towards seeing stigmatizing relationships as a problem, not only to churches, but to society at large. My experience prompted me to think about what role the Bible, which is so important to churches in Africa, can have in such stigmatizing situations, and in the perspective of PLWHA.

Background and Context of the Problem

After stating the problem and the motive behind it in the previous sections, I now briefly highlight the relationship between churches and PLWHA in the Tanzanian context as the background for my interest in studying the problem of stigma attached to people living with HIV/AIDS.¹¹ I outline some practical ways in which churches have attempted to respond to the question of HIV/AIDS–related stigmatization, shortcomings of their responses, and the reason why I found it necessary to address the question of HIV/AIDS–related stigmatization in this book.

Initiatives of Churches to Curb HIV/AIDS and Stigmatization

Questions about stigmatization of people living with HIV/AIDS are still issues under discussion among Tanzanian churches. The Christian Council of Churches (CCT) presented examples of initiatives towards discussing about HIV/AIDS–related stigmatization in their organization of senior leaders of churches for a consultation at Morogoro/Tanzania. The Tanzanian Journalist Simon Kivamwo reports about the consultation of Tanzanian clergy about HIV/AIDS and HIV/AIDS–related stigmatization in the IPPMEDIA online magazine. He reports that more than 80 Tanzanian clergy (bishops) and senior church leaders from various parts of the country embarked on a consultation meeting with the aims of evaluating and deepening their churches’ current understanding of the phenomenon of stigma. The consultation also discussed how each church responds to stigma and to the vulnerability to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Moreover, the consultation aimed at deepening the knowledge among senior leaders of churches on the issue of stigmatization, and developing an action plan that each church would commit itself to implementing in the struggle against HIV infection and HIV/AIDS–related stigmatization.¹² Kivamwo quotes a statement from one of those responsible for the consultation: The major purpose of this meeting is to deepen understanding of stigma and stimulate concrete response by different churches for addressing stigma.¹³ Therefore, the consultation marks the commitment of churches towards understanding stigmatization as one problem in their struggles towards curbing the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

In addition to the common plans that the bishops struggled with in their consultation, there were also notable responses of individual churches towards curbing the pandemic. Recently, several individual church organizations and institutions have embarked on two main ways of fighting against the pandemic: first, through direct actions aimed at the pandemic itself and its effects in Tanzanian society. Most churches direct their attention to this way of dealing with the pandemic. Second, churches embarked on addressing the main issues which cause the vulnerability of those infected by the pandemic. Nevertheless, most churches do not primarily opt for this way of dealing with the pandemic, i.e., dealing with the sources of vulnerability to the pandemic, e.g., stigmatization of those living with HIV. The three largest mainline churches in Tanzania, the Roman Catholic, Anglican and Evangelical Lutheran churches, have demonstrated encouraging responses towards HIV/AIDS and its effects, yet they seem to have gone no further towards total commitment to issues relating to stigmatization of PLWHA, or those associated in one way or another with PLWHA.

The three churches I mentioned above run programs that aim to curb the pandemic and provide charity and care for children orphaned by their parents due to HIV/AIDS. They run hospitals and dispensaries whereby people test for HIV and are encouraged to undergo voluntary tests through counseling services. Some of these churches, such as the Diocese of Central Tanganyika (Anglican), have begun farming systems that are less labour-intensive in order to assist PLWHA and orphan children. Others, such as the Roman Catholic Church, have health institutions, apart from hospitals and dispensaries, which provide counseling and testing services. The Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches have also begun providing antiretroviral therapies (ART) in some of their hospitals. The Diocese of Arusha (Roman Catholic) also runs a program under the name: ‘Uhai AIDS Prevention’ (Life AIDS Prevention), whose aim is educating, training in a variety of fields, and counseling of people living with HIV and those suffering from AIDS.

The ELCT also supports PLWHA and children orphaned by HIV/AIDS, depending on the funds available. The ELCT southern Diocese, for example, runs a project whose main endeavor is to promote awareness regarding the HIV pandemic among youth, to motivate people to test for HIV and to raise awareness in the community¹⁴ in order to meet the problem of orphans and the need to provide financial assistance to such orphans.¹⁵ The ELCT Southern Diocese project demonstrates the concern of the church towards the HIV/AIDS pandemic and its consequences in society.

Shortcomings of Churches’ Initiatives

Despite the discussions of stigmatization, and some caring concerns, and provision of charity towards PLWHA and people affected by the HIV/AIDS pandemic demonstrated by churches, which indicate a particular virtue of solidarity with PLWHA, they still have some weaknesses. First, churches seem to have hardly developed significant theological or Christian pastoral policies on the question of stigmatization related to HIV/AIDS.

The theologian Thomas E. Reynolds has the following to say about charity works and caring concerns for suffering people:

In the name of charity special provisions may be made to accommodate the sufferer, the one whose . . . condition renders him or her out of control. We might establish care facilities and offer aid. On the surface this may be well and good. Motivated by pity, however, acts of charity keep those who do not naturally fit in at a distance. This is why charity, as it is commonly understood, tends to favor the ideal of donation. We give of those values we possess in plenty and condescend to the needy, who by our standards have been judged as wanting. This, however, trades on and nourishes disingenuous sense of privilege, presuming that those who receive aid are of no use and have nothing to offer in return.¹⁶

Here, Reynolds sees both pity and charity to be problematic in the process of relating to other people, especially those whose conditions seem to have rendered them out of control. Reynolds believes that, as charity is, Pity [also] takes for granted that another cannot help him or herself, the product of undue suffering. Inclusion in community life thus entails condescending acts of care and assistance, making special allowances for persons who are otherwise incapable of functioning normally and contributing to the community. Pity fuels gestures of giving of what we have in abundance to the less fortunate, those unlike us who are deficient in such graces¹⁷ In that case, pity is a feeling in people, that seem to have good condition, towards other people, especially those whose conditions have rendered them out of control, as being passive objects to which people seeming to have good conditions have to direct their benefactions.¹⁸

To me, the churches’ emphasis on charity and care facilities and the lack of clear pastoral policies to include PLWHA in their whole lives suggests that churches have narrowly responded to the issue of HIV/AIDS–related stigmatization which faces their members. In this case, they have hardly succeeded in achieving thoroughness, either theoretical or practical, in their response to issues of vulnerability to stigmatization due to people’s physical appearance, their apparently disgusting behavior, and their membership in stigmatized groups.

Second, churches have not adequately addressed issues concerning the Christian relationship between the larger community and PLWHA. Instead, they have mostly been silent about addressing the Gospel in relation to the value of a human person, and the way the community of believers can unconditionally accept such a human person. Therefore, as the Swedish theologian Gunnar Norlén puts it, the main problem with most churches is certainly not based on spirituality, but on humanity: Today, however, the problem of churches worldwide is not lack of spirituality, but rather a lack of humanity.¹⁹

Third, most churches seem to indicate a bias in their emphasis of the relationship between the spiritual and the human component of a human being. Churches may have emphasized the spiritual component and left behind the human component in most of their proclamations.²⁰ They seem to have succumbed to the risk of reducing Christianity to Gnosticism, the essence of which was pure spirituality, making the spiritual climb a polarizing factor between the divine and the human.²¹ When they run this risk of reducing Christianity to Gnosticism, churches seem to embrace the Christ of the Gnostics who was the Lord for a few selected people who were considered to be spiritually (and morally) perfect, and had escaped from the bounds of the sinful body, not for the whole sinful human race.²²

Fourth, churches seem to be silent about recognizing that they also have an obligation to protect their members from attitudes that exclude PLWHA from membership in the community of God’s believers; this is in addition to directly fighting the pandemic, or engaging in works of altruism. This silence of churches may be because HIV/AIDS challenges their ways of interpreting Scriptures and their conception of sin. I believe that the failure to develop theological and Christian pastoral policies among churches is certainly linked to this challenge.

The consequence of these weaknesses is that most churches have stigmatized PLWHA, both in the name of providing charity to them (PLWHA), and in their silence about issues of HIV/AIDS and stigmatization in church affairs. The notion of stigmatizing PLWHA in charity work is more explicit in a statement of a Ghanaian woman: I have been a member of a charity organisation. As soon as it became known that I am HIV positive, no one in the organisation will have anything to do with me. My best friend does not want to be with me anymore. A nurse who knows Iam HIV positive refused to let her child play with my child.²³

This statement indicates that it is possible for charity workers to stigmatize those to whom they direct their charity works. In a similar way, the involvement of churches in charity works for PLWHA may lead them to stigmatize PLWHA through excluding PLWHA from their works. Churches may also stigmatize PLWHA through the language they use to address PLWHA or their close family members in the charity provision process.

The research of Kari Hartwig, Seelah Kissioki and Charlotte D. Hartwig illustrates the stigmatization of PLWHA in the process of responding to the HIV/AIDS pandemic and to stigmatization. In their analysis of responses to HIV/AIDS and stigmatization among pastors, evangelists and women who were heads of women groups in a workshop at Mwangaza Teachers Centre (Arusha Tanzania), Hartwig, Kissioki and Hartwig noted that church leaders, despite their charity works, made stigmatizing responses to PLWHA. Stigmatization was mainly through ‘religious teachings that AIDS is a punishment for sinning’, the fact that ‘people feel it’s shameful to talk about AIDS’ and ‘Christian teachings that they [people with AIDS] have fallen short of the glory of God and need no mercy.’

The Church of Norway General Synod documents similar attitudes to those of church leaders in Tanzanian in church leaders in Norway too:

Churches around the world have reacted in their different ways to the challenge of the AIDS epidemic. In many cases, the church has primarily communicated the message that true Christians will not catch the HIV virus, and Norwegian church leaders, too, have declared that AIDS is God’s judgement on people who have lived a sinful life. In this way, the church has set itself apart in relation to the epidemic by saying: this is something that has nothing to do with us.²⁴

The research by Hartwig and her colleagues, and the statement from the Church of Norway General Synod, indicate that stigmatization in terms of teachings of churches and attitudes towards PLWHA by church leaders are one of the most serious problems hindering an effective fight against the pandemic in numerous places in the world.²⁵ The escalation of the problem in churches in the South may be caused by the fact that the background of stigmatization of PLWHA in countries in the North (e.g., their attitude towards homosexuality) is probably penetrating churches in the South, and Tanzanian churches in particular.

The document of Church of Norway General Synod reports that the subject of homosexuality has been problematic to address, and that this subject provides an underlying background of the attitudes of most churches in Norway towards the HIV/AIDS pandemic.²⁶ Similarly, the subject of homosexuality is a difficult subject among churches in Tanzania and becomes a possible source of stigmatization to PLWHA and homosexuals.²⁷

Another reason for stigmatization that the research of Hartwig, Kissioki, and Hartwig identified was the difference between those in the higher and those in the lower hierarchy in the churches. The hierarchical structures inclined most church leaders with higher authority to remain silent, or to pay little attention to stigmatization as a problem in their churches.²⁸

The lack of adequate leadership skill, authority, and adequate knowledge about HIV/AIDS and stigmatization also led most leaders in the lower hierarchy to remain silent about the problem, especially in view of the presence of skilled and more experienced church leaders at the higher hierarchical level. The question of power seemed to manifest itself in various levels in this case. The skilled evangelists were not authoritative enough to address the question of HIV/AIDS and stigmatization in front of the pastors, who were likely to be unwilling to address such issues in the church, and the same applied to pastors in relation to their bishops.²⁹ Hence, hierarchy is one of the obstacles preventing most church leaders from addressing the problem of HIV/AIDS–related stigmatization on most levels of church leadership.

Fear of courtesy stigmatization exacerbates the silence about the problem of stigmatization in most churches. Most church leaders fear to address issues of stigmatization in churches due to fear of stigmatization from members of their churches. Church leaders’ fear of addressing the question, lest they be stigmatized by church members, causes them to continue stigmatizing PLWHA in their sermons and attitudes, as a mechanism to identify with the normal people in their congregations.³⁰ Since stigmatization is one of the main causes of denial and silence about HIV/AIDS–related stigmatization within churches, this must be addressed in a more critical and analytical manner.

The Need to Address Stigmatization of PLWHA

The above shortcomings regarding the responses of churches demonstrate that the question of HIV/AIDS–related stigmatization requires intense discussion in relation to the gospel message about Jesus. This necessity is so intense because, as I will demonstrate in chapter 3, despite the efforts churches make towards curbing the pandemic and discussing stigmatization, PLWHA remain strikingly vulnerable to stigmatization in faith communities.³¹ Faith communities disregard people living with HIV/AIDS and consider them as sinful people who led a sinful life (especially having illicit sex) before HIV infected them. As the theologian Douglas J. Hall suggests, the whole issue of stigmatization of PLWHA in the society is in most cases linked with religion (in this case, Christianity), especially in the misuse of its faith and theological resources to combat the modern pandemic.³²

Consequently, HIV/AIDS–related stigmatization means that HIV/AIDS remains a powerful challenge to both religious and secular spheres of the Tanzanian society. In the religious sphere, the HIV/AIDS pandemic seriously challenges churches about the way they meet PLWHA. Is this not a test of the genuineness of churches as disciples of Jesus? Is it not a test of the sincerity of churches about their ministry among people whose livelihood is precarious, and of the churches’ sensitivity to the reading of scripture in this context? Churches also face two questions that are more provoking, if they are to adhere to the unconditional love of God at all. The first is based on the room churches provide to PLWHA in the community of believers in spite of the way they are. The second is based on whether people infected and affected by the pandemic can recognize their churches as non-discriminating bodies of Christ who care for human necessities irrespective of behavioral infidelity. How do churches foster a non-stigmatizing situation towards PLWHA? What has been done in faith communities regarding HIV/AIDS and PLWHA, and where does the emphasis lie?

Stigmatization and Biblical Scholarship in Africa

Since the Bible is so important to the life of African churches, a central question is how the Bible has been used as a resource against stigmatization. In fact, it is scarcely possible to speak of contextual Bible studies on HIV/AIDS and on HIV/AIDS–related stigmatization in Tanzania. Researchers have written widely concerning HIV/AIDS in the country, but most recent researches are concerned mainly with strategies to protect oneself from the HIV infection, and the ways churches should respond to the plight of HIV/AIDS.³³ Others examine the contribution of indigenous traditions of the African people in the context of the spread of HIV/AIDS,³⁴ while other researchers have concerned themselves with reading biblical texts by theological experts to envisage the relationship between HIV/AIDS and gender.³⁵ To the best of my knowledge, theologians in the ELCT/SD and in Tanzania have so far not done contextual Bible readings from the perspective of the stigmatization related to HIV/AIDS. Moreover, there has been no explicit attempt by theologically trained people to undertake contextual Bible studies together with non-theologically trained people. This lack of attempts at contextual Bible readings focusing on the question of stigmatization suggests the necessity of such studies.

In Africa at large, Sub-Saharan Africa south of the Limpopo River seems to present more HIV/AIDS–related contextual readings of the gospels by theological experts than other places of the continent.³⁶ In this section, I concentrate on two of them: that of Malebogo Kgalemang, and that of Sarojini Nadar and Gary S. D. Leonard.

The Botswanan theologian Malebogo Kgalemang (2004) used Deconstruction theory to read John 9 in the light of HIV/AIDS–related stigma. After defining the meaning of stigma in its sociological and psychological perspectives, Kgalemang read a text from the Gospel of John concerning the man born blind. Malebogo systematically analyzed the social structures underlying the interaction between the blind man and Jesus, the Pharisees and the Scribes and Jesus, the blind man and his parents, the parents and the Pharisees and Scribes, and the blind man and the Scribes and Pharisees. Kgalemang explored the following question: Is there a biblical perspective that gives us a mandate to resist illness-based stigma?³⁷ This question is central to Kgalemang’s analysis of the text and, it seems, to an analysis of any biblical text that seriously intends to explore the situation of stigmatized people, the role of stigmatization in the social system where it occurs, and its impact on people belonging to the stigmatized group.

The questions that Kgalmang raises and the issues she discusses in her reading are of vital importance and shed light on the development of my work, which raises similar questions.³⁸ However, the reading of Kgalemang seems limited in its perspective; it is mostly a reading from the perspective of a theologically trained person, a reading from above that scarcely captures the actual lived experiences of the stigmatized PLWHA. It scarcely moves beyond normal biblical scholarship in the direction of hearing the voices of the ‘real’ people who read the text in their real lived experiences, which is the primary task of my participant-centered contextual Bible study (see chapter 4 below).

The South African theologians Sarojini Nadar and Gary S. D. Leonard (2006) did more resent typical Contextual Bible studies on HIV/AIDS including both theologically trained and non-theologically trained people among pastors of the Indian Pentecostal churches. Nadar and Leonard used critical tools of the ISB/WM (currently Ujamaa Centre) to conduct three Contextual Bible Studies, i.e., Mark 3:1–8 (focusing on issues of HIV/AIDS), 2 Samuel 13:1–22 (focusing on issues of justice and the rights of children) and John 4:7–23 (focusing on issues of ethnicity and culture). Nadar and Leonard, using the theory of hegemony (suggested by the Commarofs), attempted to capture the ambivalence of the textual and contextual interpretations of the groups they divided for facilitation. They attempted to present the experiences of domination and alienation inflicted by churches on PLWHA. They ascertained the failure of churches to deal with issues of HIV/AIDS and the position taken by some of the group members (leaders of the Pentecostal churches) in the Bible study process that HIV/AIDS was a punishment from God, and their comparison with the innocence of Job and his ultimate suffering.

The contribution of Nadar and Leonard in their article is mainly based on their social engagement with community members and their commitment to read the text of Mark in the light of HIV/AIDS issues which face the Pentecostal churches. However, the Contextual Bible Studies attempted by Nadar and Leonard hardly mention, or explicitly deal with, the question of stigmatization and its dynamics. They pay little attention to the process of stigmatization of people living with HIV/AIDS and the social structures exacerbating this in both the text and its world, and in the contemporary context of the South African Indian Pentecostal churches.

Method and Theoretical Perspectives

In this section, I briefly introduce the way I study the problem. I introduce the methodology (the way I obtained the data and what I did to the data), the epistemology (the way the theoretical perspectives I use correspond to my methodological perspectives), and my ontology (the way of being for both my Bible study participants and myself) as key issues in this research.³⁹ This book presents an interdisciplinary study drawing on materials from various disciplines such as theology, sociology, anthropology, pedagogy, medical anthropology, and social psychology, yet focusing on one specific problem—the stigma attached to living with HIV/AIDS—in a theological way. It is my conviction that the interdisciplinary approach I use will assist in bringing new insights about the problem of stigma attached to living with HIV/AIDS both within and outside churches.⁴⁰

The biblical scholar William R. Herzog believes that in attempting an inquiry in biblical researches, One begins with a theory, not with facts; with a paradigm in place not with a tabula rasa; with subjective involvement, not impersonal detachment; with an agenda, perhaps a hidden agenda, not with a neutral position; with a subtext as well as a text, with suspicions, hunches, and guesses, not with innocence . . .⁴¹ In this book, I use a modern category of ‘stigmatization’ as my theoretical perspective to study classic biblical texts in order to ascertain the way Jesus relates to stigmatized people in the texts. My main role in this study is primarily to study texts in a scholarly way, using the perspective of stigmatization, in order to ascertain hermeneutical questions arising from the interaction of characters within the texts, and to facilitate the participant-centered contextual Bible study process in community by using such hermeneutical questions.

The method I use in studying this problem in the fieldwork is Participant-centered Contextual Bible Study. ⁴² Through the participant-centered contextual Bible study method, I study the way the Group use the Bible as a resource to deal with stigmatization and establish possible safe spaces for re-socialization. The interlocutors involved in the participant-centered contextual Bible study process are the Group of PLWHA from one of the local communities in the ELCT Southern Diocese, Tanzania. The main contribution of the Group is to discuss the texts and articulate the relevance of such texts in their own context. I then supplement the participant-centered contextual Bible study process with autobiographies written by individual PLWHA in the Group to indicate the way each one of them experience stigmatization by immediate members of the community. I also use the perspective of stigmatization to examine the way stigmatization work in various contexts in Tanzania, and in the lived experiences of the Group of PLWHA. Hence, this book presents a study of the Bible from below, and from the perspective of the Group of PLWHA in their first-hand experiences of stigmatization.

Moreover, this book is both an empirical and biblical hermeneutical study presenting contextual Bible study as a process. As a process, the facilitation of the reading of texts from the Gospel of John is not a weapon (a mere instrument) for data collection, but a tool for the spiritual, emotional and social healing and empowerment of PLWHA so that they may recognize their useful existence in the society.

In this book, I use the term stigmatization interchangeably with other related terminologies such as discrimination, exclusion, and shame. I use the term stigmatization in this book in its wider perspective. I do not use it to mean a phenomenon found only in Tanzania, but I use it to mean a worldwide problem. Since I could not do research in every area where it was globally experienced, I selected one group of PLWHA belonging to one ethnic group (the Bena) among numerous ethnic groups in Tanzania to discuss stigmatization related to HIV/AIDS.

I use the concept ethnic group in this book to imply a group of people that have certain characteristics of civilization in common.⁴³ The study implies a group of people that have a particular real or mythical description of their origin and hopefully share a historical background, life experiences, and worldview.⁴⁴ The Bena ethnic group, for example, has people who share most of issues of civilization, e.g., language, historical descent and the worldview of people.

In order to distinguish this group of PLWHA from the general use of the acronym, I will use phrases such as PLWHA in the Group, the Group of PLWHA, or the Group (with capital G) for that purpose. Therefore, the issues about HIV/AIDS–related stigmatization that this Group discussed serve as a sample of similar lived experiences in various contexts of other places of the world.

This book is both descriptive and interpretive in nature, drawing some ideas from the critical research tradition (see chapter 2 below). It is descriptive because it expresses the experiences of stigmatization in the contexts of texts from the Gospel of John, in a Tanzanian context, as well as in other places of the world. It is interpretative because it critically analyzes the possible ways PLWHA in the Group and characters within the text of the Gospel of John make sense of their lived experiences of stigmatization, leading to a possible transformation in behavior with regard to their present situations.

The terms Church and churches are significant in this book. I employ the term Church in this book to denote the worldwide Christian believing community of God, the Body of Christ. Churches are the local and contextually orientated individual denominations where members of the Body of Christ belong, and with which they identify themselves. This book will mainly be concerned with churches in discussing the issues of stigmatization that PLWHA experience, since they belong to such bodies.

The united acronyms HIV/AIDS are frequently used in this book. My use of such acronyms is, however, sensitive to the fact that they have different implications: HIV is a retrovirus which is