Jesus and the Stigmatized

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

Mligo

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9781630876111
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

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.

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)

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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 ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Forward: Jesus in the Time of AIDS
• Acknowledgments
• Acronyms
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: General Introduction
• Chapter 2: Theoretical Perspectives on Stigmatization
• Chapter 3: The Context of HIV/AIDS–Related Stigmatization in Tanzania
• Chapter 4: Participant-Centered Bible Study
• Chapter 5: The Gospel of John and Stigmatization I
• Chapter 6: The Gospel of John and Stigmatization II
• Chapter 7: From Stigmatization to Compassion
• Chapter 8: Towards Being Faithful Communities of the Disciples of Jesus
• Bibliography