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2.01.2006    |    Not a parody
Saw the ad on a Metro bus this morning; all I caught was the tagline: "We All Have AIDS." Googling like any good computer user, I find that this is part of a campaign sponsored by Kenneth Cole in order to, from the Henry J. Kaiser "Family" Foundation (sorry for the scare quotes, but read it and you decide if they're not just right):
foster needed solidarity and to bring light to the devastating stigma associated with those living today with HIV/AIDS.

...The campaign exemplifies a unified response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, asserting that if anyone has AIDS we all do, and if it exists anywhere it essentially exists everywhere.
Ahh, pure victim-speak. At first, I thought this was a reference to the scatalogic parody, "Team America: World Police", which has a lovely little sendup of "Rent" in its big musical production, "Everyone Has AIDS". Well, life imitates art, so they say.

The point of Team America, and my point are the same: AIDS isn't something you catch without doing something you oughtn't be doing. Except for a tiny, tiny proportion of innocent victims, AIDS is a disease of homosexual men, men and women who have promiscuous, unprotected sex with multiple partners, and intravenous drug users.

In other words, these are victims of their own bad choices. I didn't make them make those choices. I don't have AIDS because they do. And I feel not the slightest tinge of guilt for saying so. No matter what some weak-minded fashion mogul claims.

Now, regardless of guilt, all who have AIDS deserve our compassion, and the best medical care that we can give them. But let's not fall into the intellectual mush of calling these people "victims" of anything other than their own sins.

What an old-fashioned notion: we reap what we sow. Which very much includes me and my own sins. But I surely don't expect those with AIDS to accept my sins. That's already been done for both them and me by one Jesus Christ.

Turning to Him, accepting Him as your Lord and Saviour, would be the best medicine I could ever remmend to anyone who suffers. From anything.

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About this site and the author

Welcome. My name is John Luke Rich, (very) struggling Christian. The focus here is Christianity in its many varieties, its fussing and feuding, how it impacts our lives and our society, with detours to consider it with other faiths (or lack thereof).

Call this blog my way of evangelizing on the internet.

Putting it differently, we're only here on this earth a short time. It's the rest of eternity that we should be most concerned about. Call it the care and feeding of our souls.

I was born Jewish, and born again in Christ Jesus over thirty years ago. First as a Roman Catholic; now a Calvinist by persuasion and a Baptist by denomination. But I'm hardly a poster boy for doctrinal rigidity.

I believe that Scripture is the rock on which all Christian churches must stand -- or sink if they are not so grounded. I believe that we are saved by faith, but hardly in a vacuum. That faith is a gift from God, through no agency on our part -- although we sometimes turn a deaf ear and choose to ignore God's knocking on the door.

To be Christian is to evangelize. Those who think it not their part to evangelize perhaps haven't truly understood what our Lord told us in Matthew 28. We must preach the Gospel as best we are able. Using words if necessary.

Though my faith waxes and wanes, it never seems to go away. Sometimes I wish it would, to give me some peace of mind. But then, Jesus never said that walking with Him was going to be easy...

Final note: I also blog as Jack Rich on cultural, political and other things over at Wrong Side of the Tracks

Thanks for stopping by.