Saturday, June 18, 2011
Body of God has HIV/AIDS: Body of God has AIDS
Body of God has HIV/AIDS: Body of God has AIDS: "HIV Positive Theology of Mission (highlights – draft paper only) joshva raja 1. The gospel for a HIV infected person is ART (Antiretroviral ..."
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Body of God has AIDS
HIV Positive Theology of Mission (highlights – draft paper only) joshva raja
1. The gospel for a HIV infected person is ART (Antiretroviral Treatment) or HAART (Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy). Of course creating an income to buy food and medicine is the primary task of God’s mission. ARV and basic food gives them ‘life’. Jesus came into this world to give life to all. My hermeneutic starting point is infected persons, their needs and their experience.
2. Such a mission demands ‘actions’ with ‘love in heart’ and ‘faith in God’. The core of Christian mission is to share love of God in our words and through our actions. Recently the Common Word with Us from Muslims affirms that such concept of mission is true with Islam as well. A conference by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar – an yoga guru – for Hindu leaders on HIV/AIDS issue affirm that they too share similar concept of mission. God’s love cannot be realised and practiced without loving one’ brother or sister or neighbour. Our action with love always gives hope in the context of hopelessness. We have moved long back from judgement based views to loving action and a message of hope as part of our tasks of mission to infected and affected people. Wyangaard made this very clear in his paper in 2006 by focussing on the message of hope. His document certainly related HIV issue with poverty. Clifford was very clear in her approach by emphasising injustice issue in relation to HIV/AIDS and also recognises marginalisation of the infected and affected people similar to Jesus experience in Golgotha as outsiders (Moltmann being quoted).
3. Micah (2005) in his paper on Towards a Christ-Centred Theology of HIV/AIDS highlights very important points – such as all humanity is under the curse of fall (Gen 3) but Jesus reverse the curse (Gal 3:13; Eph 1:7). Jesus attitude to suffering is compassion rather than judgement (John 3:17;12:47). God’s judgement will be on the deeds of love and compassion. I wish to add further comments on his points saying Jesus had shown compassion to all those who suffer and are in need. Jesus often criticised those who imposed the laws of taboos. He touched lepers and dined with sinners. He had followers who were converts from prostitutes and tax collectors. Jesus made his point very clear not to make judge others and God’s judgement is neither on what you believed nor on how righteous one is rather how compassionate one is. For me the core of our mission should be love, compassion and action and nothing else.
4. In such contexts people from diverse background try to participate in God’s mission and so the mission of God ultimately happens not only within the church (Missio Ekklessia) but also outside the church as well (Missio Dei )
5. We are called to participate along with others in God’s mission, particularly in showing solidarity with the infected and affected people. So unless Missio Dei includes Missio Humanitatis (Thomas Thangaraj), there is no mission. It means though we participate in God’s mission our starting point is human beings and their contexts. Unless we accept all human beings and their conditions ‘as they are’, there is no mission, I mean there is no starting point of mission, I also mean that the mission is done in vacuum without people.
6. We have to show solidarity with people ‘as they are’ and not trying to fit them into our category of ‘perfect’ Christian as we are all imperfect beings and participate in their struggles for survival and dignity. This is where God’s mission begins which is to start with mission of human beings (Missio Humanitatis )
7. So it is a call from the triune God to work together with Government, NGOs and FBOs, Hospitals and other agencies to accomplish this great commission to love this world with full God as God had shown God’s love by sending Jesus to redeem this world. Without working along with others it is impossible to face this big task of doing great things for the infected and affected people. Our evangelism is to announce the good news to all. The good news is affirming life to all beings including infected people. The good news includes acceptance of family and community, information that supports their food and medicine and sharing their dignity and proclaiming their justice to all. It demands the re-evangelising the so called ‘evangelised’ and thus other religious communities too will join with us in doing this new ways of announcing good news to all – the true evangelisation of this world.
8. Christian Mission is not merely evangelisation but also diakonia (to serve) and martrya (to bear witness). It is essential that we serve the humanity to realise its full potential. There are social, political, cultural and religious structures that are not letting people to realise their full potential. Rather than life-affirming they affirm non-material concepts or things. In this context our mission should be life affirming rather than religious ideologies. Our service and witness should focus on transforming those structures that does not allow us to affirm people’s lives and also not enable them to realise their full potential abilities. Even for those who are infected and affected by HI Virus, their lives needs to affirmed and thus very often these structures needs to be transformed. Musa Dube also calls for “a prophetic theology of life that is able to address the individual and his or her social circumstances, a life centred theology for our communities and for our world.” For him Christian Mission must concern itself with all that desacralises life on earth. It must rally against all structural forces and institutions that militate against peace….”
9. I would like to use some metaphors from the Bible or from others to enhance such a mission of God in the context of HIV/AIDS issues. I wish to use two statements. One is: The Body of God is infected with HIV/AIDS and second is our mission paradigm has to shift from Participating in the mission of God (Missio Dei) to Doing Mission within Godhood - “Missio En Deo ”. I do not fall into the category of Pantheism or of Monism. Rather I borrow the metaphor from Sallie Macfague with some risks but using in the context of HIV/AIDS. For Sallie Earth is the Body of God which helps her to argue that degrading the earth means degrading the body of God. For me the body of God is God’s triune community having the body of Christ as well as the presence of the Holy Spirit and also God the creator. This is in fact an expansion of Paul’s metaphor ‘in Christ’ (En Christo). This raises lots of questions in our mind but the purpose is to develop a theology that can enable us to work with all people in addressing this issue of HIV/AIDS. It means theology and our Christology has to take sides – taking sides with HIV/AIDS infected and affected. I agree with Chitendo that theology cannot be neutral and objective. I found Klinken’s article (2010) on When the body of Christ has AIDS in the International Journal of Public Theology as a very helpful resource for a summary of the study done on the Body of Christ. If one removes the body of Christ into the Body of God in this article we may discover more meanings in working together with people from different cultures and religions.
10. When the body of Christ is infected, it infects the Triune God. When the triune God is in mutual relationship (Moltmann) and an ideal community in which one is responsible for the other. One is in creative and critical tension with the other. If this is an ideal community of Triune God then God is ultimately infected. If one body of God is infected other parts of the body not only suffers but also does what this body requires, to use Paul’s metaphor of the body of Christ. For me this pushes a bit more than charity or kindness towards the infected and affected and this is where the theology should be pursued further.
11. Mission within Triune God means God participates in our Mission and We participate in God’s mission. In other terms human beings are in search for God in every religion and they interpret loving their brothers and sisters who are affected and infected by HIV as part of this mission. We are called to participate in their mission because God too participate in their mission of redeeming and affirming life of all human beings.
12. In this mission there is a paradigm shifts. First is the language changes, you are responsible to we are all responsible. From saying you have to pay for it to we all have to pay for it. From saying We will show charity to you – to we will recognise your rights to life. Let me explain this with an example. Near Bangalore – an IT city in South India a place where Gold mine was there. The place was called Kolar Gold Mine. When Muslims ruled in India they took some Gold, but when British came they remove most of the residue for miles and miles from this gold mine. British Raj Companies brought twenty thousand families from Vellore and Chittore to work here as labourers in the mines. When India got independence, the Gold mine was working but with those areas where less percent of residue was there. But when the company was closed down due to loss in 2001, twenty thousand people became jobless and so income-less families. When I started working among them the percentage of HIV spreading was 150% per year. So the extreme poverty due to company’s closure and sex trade caused the spread of HIV in this area in enormous ways. Many questions arise in my mind. Do the people themselves responsible for this spread? Or whom to blame? The government of India for closing the company or British Raj to bring people from their farm lands to work here or people themselves. This is where I agree with Musa Dube that it is the corporate responsibility of the communities, nations and companies for spreading HIV/AIDS. Bishop Oscar Romero of Elsavador called this as structural sin (John Paul II called this social sin) which not only oppresses individuals and also get them infecting by creating various circumstances. When we recognise this we will not be blaming individuals or make judgement on the decease at all. Even one would sympathise with the community under poverty for being forced to engage in sex just for meeting their hunger every day. It is these structures that create an environment of spreading HIV/AIDS rather than individual wanting to be infected and thus blamed for sinning. This paradigm shift is the first step towards realising God’s mission within ourselves and within our communities.
13. Recognising this leads us to the next paradigm shift in doing mission. That is when we recognise the fact that we are all responsible, then we ask the question how can we address this together. In other terms we ask how can we recognise the rights of the infected people. It becomes binding on our part as well as become the responsibility of the community, nation and all institutions not only to take care but also to recognise the rights and thus postpone the suffering of the people and thus in future reduce or eliminate infection altogether. Then we engage with the government as if it is their responsibility to provide basic needs including food and medicine for the people for which other agencies can facilitate residence and caring and counselling and some other agencies may take care of the affected people and the awareness and attitude changing. Looking back at our theology in which the Body of God being infected, we find it easy to explain. If one part of God is infected then the whole body is affected and suffers and thus share responsibility to contain and engage with this problem rather than try to get out of the problem. Even if we consider Triune God as the perfect community then we are in mutual caring and sharing so that this problem is addressed. If we take this metaphor seriously the understanding of sin takes a shift. I agree with UN AIDS theological document where Stigmatisation is seen as sin of humankind and then we can expand this further.
14. I wish to use another example. Chinnammal was offered to a goddess as a devadasi – temple sex worker in Andrapradesh of India. She was abused by many in their village since she was 14 and then got infected at the age of 21 when she worked near Bangalore. When our students went to the streets to perform street theatre, she came and asked our students whether any help would be available for her. We contacted agencies such as Asha foundation and other church organisations. Every one was doing something related to HIV/AIDS but was not able to provide help to Chinnamal because they are either already full with people or not directly taking care of infected people. My students did not give up and finally found out one of the organisations in Bangalore that was ready to give her support with some income that may enable her to buy her food and medicine. Then we realised that many agencies work with infected and affected people in terms of awareness, education and so on. But when it comes to helping individuals, there was no working together between religious organisations and non-religious organisations. Not only on the information sharing but also on sharing resources such as medical and other support systems was not part of their developmental agenda. Particularly Christian agencies such as World Vision and CANA were not willing to work with other agencies in addressing this issue concretely. If they had done so many of this kind of simple issues would have been addressed easily. As each one is doing their own in every direction a lot of money is wasted and we are not able to achieve the targets. This is where the theology of Body of God is very important. In to the body of God we bring our own uniqueness and universal values but we share a common platform with others in terms of addressing the basic issues that are faced by the human beings.
15. The idea of Body of God being infected with HIV/AIDS gives us a basic concept for us to work together with other religions. Jesus says you are gods and We in them and they in us in John’s gospel. An infected person Mr George in India promotes awareness about HIV/AIDS and also enables more than ten thousand sex workers in Mumbai to use condoms and thus avoid getting infection. I see in him the Christ. He saved many people’s lives. A Hindu lawyer formed an association of lawyers with Christians and Muslims fought against Bayer’s company and won and thus Indian companies were able to supply AIDS medicines at low price. They supplied 80% of medicine from 2002 to 2008 to six countries in Africa . I see in this Hindu lawyer God. This is where I find it interesting to recognise the fact that being in Christ is important to Christians and thus see how the body of Christ as a metaphor can bring us together ecumenically. In the same way I wish to see the body of God as a space where we can find a space to work together beyond our religious, national and racial differences. In this concept we do not become God nor are considered as God. I find this concept closer to Robert Igo’s views which is: “the God whom we are seeking is to be found in the very matrix of our lives”(Windows into Hope).
16. Such a concept of body of God provides us not only a space for us to work together with other human beings but also give us a new mission of God. In this new mission of God, when a part of the body of God is infected how the other parts should respond? It becomes our total responsibility along with God in addressing this issue. It demands a structural response of our institutions, communities and nations and thus makes it as communal, local and global responsibility rather than a charity work. It means that we have to develop structural and legal response that will enable the whole body of nations and communities to protect the rights of infected and affected people. It also affirms their right to life and thus encourages nations as their responsibility to take care of their own people using their legal systems. So Missio en deo means we are partakers of mission not only along with God but also within God while allowing God to partake in our mission. How do we witness Christ in this mission? As Christians without Christ we cannot do our mission, but in doing with others we do not try to impose our doctrinal Christ on others rather we see Christ as embodiment of God’s love which should fill our heart and be educated by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the Good news of Jesus Christ in Love and in life affirming ways and also recognise in other people, God’s love and life affirming beliefs and thus God in them, not necessarily in any religion.
17. Such a theological engagement necessitates us that theology of HIV/AIDS should be given priority within theological formation. There should be deeper discussions on these issues but such love-action and life affirming theology of HIV/AIDS should become part of theological curricula.This theological concepts suggest that God is not merely the other who loves and cares but also God is within suggesting that theology of vulnerability leads to more questions than answers in which God is also engaged with us in search for meanings in the context of HIV/AIDS with compassion, love and action.
18. This theology envisages us to create alternative spaces where the right of those affected and infected are recognised and addressed; where stigmas are removed; where love and action and life affirming theology guides people to create such spaces where people will have freedom to live and to express themselves and to meet their needs as well. This is where the God’s presence will be fully realised.
End Notes
Mission is often understood in terms of movement or transmission from God to human beings. This is why the church was called to disseminate the Gospel to all following the Great Commandment of Jesus (Mathew 28:18). It was reiterated by the International Missionary Council (IMC – part of the World Council of Churches) held at Thambaram in 1938. Having recognised the problems with the church centred mission, the IMC introduced the term Missio Dei (Mission of God) replacing the Church centred Mission in 1952 at Willingen. Karl Hartenstein who coined this term spoke of mission as “participation in the sending of the Son, in the Missio Dei, with an inclusive aim of establishing the lordship of Christ over the whole redeemed creation”. For Karl Hatenstein, mission is not simply a conversion from one religion to another, nor a obedience to the word of God nor an obligation to go to the church. It is taking part in the in the sending of the Son, the Missio Dei, with the holistic aim of establishing Christ's rule over all redeemed creation.
In the Willingen it was stated that "The missionary movement of which we are part has its source in the triune God Himself. Out of the depths of His love for us, the Father has sent forth His beloved Son to reconcile all things to Himself, that we and all men might, through the Spirit, be made one in Him with the Father, in that perfect love which is the very nature of God". The Trinitarian aspect of God was emphasised in relation to mission. Interestingly the movement and mission are combined even in this Missio Dei paradigm. Interestingly there was a shift from the church based mission approach to a God based mission approach. But movement is very explicit. This shift did not recognise the movement from people to God in their own ways. The concept of Missio Dei has radically challenged and changed many perceptions and perspectives on mission shifting the focus on activities and engagement of Trinitarian God in this world.
This concept has not recognised the movement of people towards God which Thomas Thangaraj attributes as Missio Humanitas (Human Mission) in which people show solidarity with the oppressed and engage in the liberative movement of God by showing solidarity with those who are oppressed. Here again without seeing this as participation of God’s ongoing salvific act, it becomes a mere mission of human being. We need to engage with God’s Mission while recognising human mission from different quarters towards God. Stephen Neil wrote “if everything becomes mission nothing is mission”. Nevertheless everything cannot become a Christian mission and so God’s Mission.
Mission cannot be defined with a universal statement or definition. In every context the understanding, practice and reflection of mission can vary and even stand in contradiction with what in other context is understood as mission. We may have to remember what Bishop Neil wrote long back saying if everything is mission nothing is mission. Christian mission in some contexts have to emphasise the invitation of God to take part with him in his saving and preserving acts for this world while in other contexts restore broken human relationship and dignity which is often ignored or neglected. The questions are: How wider the ecumenism can be? How narrow the doctrines can be?
Some criticism – Christian mission is not a mere social activism. Christian mission is not a mere fundamentalism trying to increase the number of Christians through proselytising methods similar to Christendom missionary approaches. Christian mission can no more be offensive of other faiths. Christian mission includes witnessing (Martrya); evangelism (evangelion); preaching (Kerygma); serving (diakonia); emptying (Kenotic); uniting(Koinonia); listening (Pous); transforming(ktizo) and repenting (metanoia). In each context this can vary. Where there is no witnessing Christian mission has to be seen as witnessing. Where there is no evangelism there Christian mission should be defined as evangelism. Where there is no peace Christian mission has to be described as peace building. Where there is no transformation, Christian mission has to be explained in terms of transformation. Christian mission has to take the people and their context seriously. This challenges the present understanding Christian mission and enable us to begin from the context of the people.
Recently people have brought the orthodox idea of ‘Theosis’ back into Christian mission. This has contributed a bit in shifting the idea of Missio Dei to Missio en Deo. This is developed by Paul S Fiddes (participating in God) and Veli-Matti Karkkainen (One with God) in their recent books. It is yet to be developed fully.
To make a mission Christian, it needs to be recognised as “Missio En Deo (Mission in God)”. It is not a movement rather leads to recognition of ‘God in us’ and ‘us in God’. It is not a mere self-realisation rather it is a recognition that God is not only with us but also God is in us and we are in God.
Such a concept of partnership can best be described using ‘Missio en Deo’ (Mission in God). Pslams 82:6 reminds us that ‘we are gods and all of us are children of the Most High’. Jesus too quotes this in John 10:34 in order to polemically clarify his ‘Son of God’ claims. It does not mean that we are equated or identified with God rather we have a role to play in God not merely with God. At times we play the role of God as we are god or as if we do things on God’s behalf. Exodus 7: 1 highlights such a role of Moses by God by stating, ‘See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet’. This needs to be done in humility to do service to humanity with love. Otherwise we may end up turning ourselves into little gods of destruction as Paul says in Romans 1:23.
This concept of ‘Missio En Deo’ can also be recognised in the imageries of the Body of Christ where different parts of the body are held together. Paul develops this imageries in a number of instances particularly with a phrase ‘in Christ’ and also using the body of Christ language. In 1st Corinthians 12:27 Paul says, ‘Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually’, in verse18 he again tells us, ‘But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He please’ and again in Ephesians 5:30 ‘For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones’. Paul goes on describing about how each member or part operates within the body of Christ. This enables us to see mission in God as mission within Trinity among themselves and expanded to human beings to play a role within this mission of God.
The basic thrust of this concept is that Mission in God refers to a mission within Godhood which is now available for human beings to engage. It means our mission in Christ makes an impact on mission of Triune God, in other words, our communication affects the communication within the Triune community of God. It means if a sinner turns to do Good then there is a happy communication among the community of God. If one part of God is honoured then the whole part of God feels honoured as Paul says, And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it in 1 Corinthians 12: 26 and also in Ephesians 4:16 it states, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love’. In this way our mission makes an impact on Godhood and thus makes us involve not only in the mission of God but mission in God by being God’s behalf or by playing the role of God at times in this world.
We not only participate with God in God’s mission but also we are in God’s mission. Those indigenous mission activities, liberation movements and developmental engagements, overseas missions are all recognised as different parts of body of God working with different purposes but belong to one God and one Christ bound by the Holy Spirit in Christian Mission. They are held together but by uniformity rather by a mystical tension. They are held together by servant and Kenotic centres neither power centres nor dominant centres. As we are all part of God’s reign rather God’s self we need to find a way to recognise each other’s mission and support in new ways rather than the old one way movement based, power centred and monolithic ways of doing mission. This does not eliminate being critique of each other but encourage one another recognising the fact that we do mission in God and not merely mission with God. Mission in God refers to the mission where people recognise the fact that they are of God which means that they are created, sustained, redeemed and related by Triune God. This provides a radical shift in the mission paradigm and particularly in partnership between the Western mission institutions and emerging indigenous mission institutions in other parts of the world.
"Cheap church mission closes its eyes from sighting structural evil and its impact on
people’s choices and values, by insisting on behavior change, when behavior change is
hindered by oppressive structures of injustice that govern people’s lives. Cheap mission
points figures to individuals, blaming them for immorality, and fails to acknowledge the
immorality of social structures of our world." - a quote from Musa Dube
http://www.oikoumene.org/fileadmin/files/wcc-main/documents/p5/ete/Musa%20Dube%20-%20Weightier%20Matters%20-%20Mission%20Challenges%20in%20the%20HIV-AIDS%20and%20Global%20Economic%20Era.pdf
http://www.eatg.org/eatg/Global-HIV-News/Access-to-treatment/Indian-firms-supplied-over-80-of-AIDS-drugs-in-2002-08
Indian firms supplied over 80% of AIDS drugs in 2002-08
India is the pharmacy of the world all right, at least for AIDS drugs.
Indian generic manufacturers such as Cipla, Hetero Drugs, Matrix Labs and Aurobindo Pharma supply over 80% of AIDS medicines to developing countries, a recent study shows.
According to the study by the Journal of International AIDS Society, between 2002 and 2008, more than 4 million people with HIV/ AIDS in Congo, Namibia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria and other developing and underdeveloped countries in Africa, Asia and South America were treated with low-cost medicines made by Indian drugmakers.
Indian firms supplied over 80% of total AIDS medicines in that period. Yet, as of 2008, Indian companies accounted for 65% of the total value ($463 million) of AIDS medicine purchases.
This was possible only due to the legal framework in India, which facilitated production and export of low-cost generic drugs, it says.
Generic medicines from India are much cheaper than those sold by the innovator companies (see table). No wonder, the demand for these is high internationally.
“Local production in several countries is weak and hence there is strong reliance on India made medicines,” says Giten Khwairakpam, programme coordinator, Coalition of Asia Pacific Regional Network on HIV/AIDS.
“We get over 80% of our requirement for AIDS drugs from India,” says Leena Menghaney, project manager, India, campaign for access to essential medicines at international humanitarian aid organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres.
The study comes at a time when the World Health Organisation has introduced new recommendations for people living with HIV/AIDS to begin treatment earlier and to switch to newer medicines that are more robust and less toxic, but also much more expensive.
The study warns that the upcoming trade agreements India is negotiating with the European Union and Japan, which contain provisions for several patenting measures, can hamper production of low-cost generic medicines, thereby threatening access and affordability for patients across the globe.
Millions with HIV are able to lead a healthy life thanks to the antiretroviral drugs produced in India, points out Kannikar Kijtiwatchakul, coordinator, health consumer protection programme, Chulalongkom University in Thailand. “Hence, any provision in the bilateral agreements which India is negotiating, which can hamper early entry of generics, can affect patients not only in India, but also millions in the developing world.”
By Priyanka Golikeri
DNA
1. The gospel for a HIV infected person is ART (Antiretroviral Treatment) or HAART (Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy). Of course creating an income to buy food and medicine is the primary task of God’s mission. ARV and basic food gives them ‘life’. Jesus came into this world to give life to all. My hermeneutic starting point is infected persons, their needs and their experience.
2. Such a mission demands ‘actions’ with ‘love in heart’ and ‘faith in God’. The core of Christian mission is to share love of God in our words and through our actions. Recently the Common Word with Us from Muslims affirms that such concept of mission is true with Islam as well. A conference by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar – an yoga guru – for Hindu leaders on HIV/AIDS issue affirm that they too share similar concept of mission. God’s love cannot be realised and practiced without loving one’ brother or sister or neighbour. Our action with love always gives hope in the context of hopelessness. We have moved long back from judgement based views to loving action and a message of hope as part of our tasks of mission to infected and affected people. Wyangaard made this very clear in his paper in 2006 by focussing on the message of hope. His document certainly related HIV issue with poverty. Clifford was very clear in her approach by emphasising injustice issue in relation to HIV/AIDS and also recognises marginalisation of the infected and affected people similar to Jesus experience in Golgotha as outsiders (Moltmann being quoted).
3. Micah (2005) in his paper on Towards a Christ-Centred Theology of HIV/AIDS highlights very important points – such as all humanity is under the curse of fall (Gen 3) but Jesus reverse the curse (Gal 3:13; Eph 1:7). Jesus attitude to suffering is compassion rather than judgement (John 3:17;12:47). God’s judgement will be on the deeds of love and compassion. I wish to add further comments on his points saying Jesus had shown compassion to all those who suffer and are in need. Jesus often criticised those who imposed the laws of taboos. He touched lepers and dined with sinners. He had followers who were converts from prostitutes and tax collectors. Jesus made his point very clear not to make judge others and God’s judgement is neither on what you believed nor on how righteous one is rather how compassionate one is. For me the core of our mission should be love, compassion and action and nothing else.
4. In such contexts people from diverse background try to participate in God’s mission and so the mission of God ultimately happens not only within the church (Missio Ekklessia) but also outside the church as well (Missio Dei )
5. We are called to participate along with others in God’s mission, particularly in showing solidarity with the infected and affected people. So unless Missio Dei includes Missio Humanitatis (Thomas Thangaraj), there is no mission. It means though we participate in God’s mission our starting point is human beings and their contexts. Unless we accept all human beings and their conditions ‘as they are’, there is no mission, I mean there is no starting point of mission, I also mean that the mission is done in vacuum without people.
6. We have to show solidarity with people ‘as they are’ and not trying to fit them into our category of ‘perfect’ Christian as we are all imperfect beings and participate in their struggles for survival and dignity. This is where God’s mission begins which is to start with mission of human beings (Missio Humanitatis )
7. So it is a call from the triune God to work together with Government, NGOs and FBOs, Hospitals and other agencies to accomplish this great commission to love this world with full God as God had shown God’s love by sending Jesus to redeem this world. Without working along with others it is impossible to face this big task of doing great things for the infected and affected people. Our evangelism is to announce the good news to all. The good news is affirming life to all beings including infected people. The good news includes acceptance of family and community, information that supports their food and medicine and sharing their dignity and proclaiming their justice to all. It demands the re-evangelising the so called ‘evangelised’ and thus other religious communities too will join with us in doing this new ways of announcing good news to all – the true evangelisation of this world.
8. Christian Mission is not merely evangelisation but also diakonia (to serve) and martrya (to bear witness). It is essential that we serve the humanity to realise its full potential. There are social, political, cultural and religious structures that are not letting people to realise their full potential. Rather than life-affirming they affirm non-material concepts or things. In this context our mission should be life affirming rather than religious ideologies. Our service and witness should focus on transforming those structures that does not allow us to affirm people’s lives and also not enable them to realise their full potential abilities. Even for those who are infected and affected by HI Virus, their lives needs to affirmed and thus very often these structures needs to be transformed. Musa Dube also calls for “a prophetic theology of life that is able to address the individual and his or her social circumstances, a life centred theology for our communities and for our world.” For him Christian Mission must concern itself with all that desacralises life on earth. It must rally against all structural forces and institutions that militate against peace….”
9. I would like to use some metaphors from the Bible or from others to enhance such a mission of God in the context of HIV/AIDS issues. I wish to use two statements. One is: The Body of God is infected with HIV/AIDS and second is our mission paradigm has to shift from Participating in the mission of God (Missio Dei) to Doing Mission within Godhood - “Missio En Deo ”. I do not fall into the category of Pantheism or of Monism. Rather I borrow the metaphor from Sallie Macfague with some risks but using in the context of HIV/AIDS. For Sallie Earth is the Body of God which helps her to argue that degrading the earth means degrading the body of God. For me the body of God is God’s triune community having the body of Christ as well as the presence of the Holy Spirit and also God the creator. This is in fact an expansion of Paul’s metaphor ‘in Christ’ (En Christo). This raises lots of questions in our mind but the purpose is to develop a theology that can enable us to work with all people in addressing this issue of HIV/AIDS. It means theology and our Christology has to take sides – taking sides with HIV/AIDS infected and affected. I agree with Chitendo that theology cannot be neutral and objective. I found Klinken’s article (2010) on When the body of Christ has AIDS in the International Journal of Public Theology as a very helpful resource for a summary of the study done on the Body of Christ. If one removes the body of Christ into the Body of God in this article we may discover more meanings in working together with people from different cultures and religions.
10. When the body of Christ is infected, it infects the Triune God. When the triune God is in mutual relationship (Moltmann) and an ideal community in which one is responsible for the other. One is in creative and critical tension with the other. If this is an ideal community of Triune God then God is ultimately infected. If one body of God is infected other parts of the body not only suffers but also does what this body requires, to use Paul’s metaphor of the body of Christ. For me this pushes a bit more than charity or kindness towards the infected and affected and this is where the theology should be pursued further.
11. Mission within Triune God means God participates in our Mission and We participate in God’s mission. In other terms human beings are in search for God in every religion and they interpret loving their brothers and sisters who are affected and infected by HIV as part of this mission. We are called to participate in their mission because God too participate in their mission of redeeming and affirming life of all human beings.
12. In this mission there is a paradigm shifts. First is the language changes, you are responsible to we are all responsible. From saying you have to pay for it to we all have to pay for it. From saying We will show charity to you – to we will recognise your rights to life. Let me explain this with an example. Near Bangalore – an IT city in South India a place where Gold mine was there. The place was called Kolar Gold Mine. When Muslims ruled in India they took some Gold, but when British came they remove most of the residue for miles and miles from this gold mine. British Raj Companies brought twenty thousand families from Vellore and Chittore to work here as labourers in the mines. When India got independence, the Gold mine was working but with those areas where less percent of residue was there. But when the company was closed down due to loss in 2001, twenty thousand people became jobless and so income-less families. When I started working among them the percentage of HIV spreading was 150% per year. So the extreme poverty due to company’s closure and sex trade caused the spread of HIV in this area in enormous ways. Many questions arise in my mind. Do the people themselves responsible for this spread? Or whom to blame? The government of India for closing the company or British Raj to bring people from their farm lands to work here or people themselves. This is where I agree with Musa Dube that it is the corporate responsibility of the communities, nations and companies for spreading HIV/AIDS. Bishop Oscar Romero of Elsavador called this as structural sin (John Paul II called this social sin) which not only oppresses individuals and also get them infecting by creating various circumstances. When we recognise this we will not be blaming individuals or make judgement on the decease at all. Even one would sympathise with the community under poverty for being forced to engage in sex just for meeting their hunger every day. It is these structures that create an environment of spreading HIV/AIDS rather than individual wanting to be infected and thus blamed for sinning. This paradigm shift is the first step towards realising God’s mission within ourselves and within our communities.
13. Recognising this leads us to the next paradigm shift in doing mission. That is when we recognise the fact that we are all responsible, then we ask the question how can we address this together. In other terms we ask how can we recognise the rights of the infected people. It becomes binding on our part as well as become the responsibility of the community, nation and all institutions not only to take care but also to recognise the rights and thus postpone the suffering of the people and thus in future reduce or eliminate infection altogether. Then we engage with the government as if it is their responsibility to provide basic needs including food and medicine for the people for which other agencies can facilitate residence and caring and counselling and some other agencies may take care of the affected people and the awareness and attitude changing. Looking back at our theology in which the Body of God being infected, we find it easy to explain. If one part of God is infected then the whole body is affected and suffers and thus share responsibility to contain and engage with this problem rather than try to get out of the problem. Even if we consider Triune God as the perfect community then we are in mutual caring and sharing so that this problem is addressed. If we take this metaphor seriously the understanding of sin takes a shift. I agree with UN AIDS theological document where Stigmatisation is seen as sin of humankind and then we can expand this further.
14. I wish to use another example. Chinnammal was offered to a goddess as a devadasi – temple sex worker in Andrapradesh of India. She was abused by many in their village since she was 14 and then got infected at the age of 21 when she worked near Bangalore. When our students went to the streets to perform street theatre, she came and asked our students whether any help would be available for her. We contacted agencies such as Asha foundation and other church organisations. Every one was doing something related to HIV/AIDS but was not able to provide help to Chinnamal because they are either already full with people or not directly taking care of infected people. My students did not give up and finally found out one of the organisations in Bangalore that was ready to give her support with some income that may enable her to buy her food and medicine. Then we realised that many agencies work with infected and affected people in terms of awareness, education and so on. But when it comes to helping individuals, there was no working together between religious organisations and non-religious organisations. Not only on the information sharing but also on sharing resources such as medical and other support systems was not part of their developmental agenda. Particularly Christian agencies such as World Vision and CANA were not willing to work with other agencies in addressing this issue concretely. If they had done so many of this kind of simple issues would have been addressed easily. As each one is doing their own in every direction a lot of money is wasted and we are not able to achieve the targets. This is where the theology of Body of God is very important. In to the body of God we bring our own uniqueness and universal values but we share a common platform with others in terms of addressing the basic issues that are faced by the human beings.
15. The idea of Body of God being infected with HIV/AIDS gives us a basic concept for us to work together with other religions. Jesus says you are gods and We in them and they in us in John’s gospel. An infected person Mr George in India promotes awareness about HIV/AIDS and also enables more than ten thousand sex workers in Mumbai to use condoms and thus avoid getting infection. I see in him the Christ. He saved many people’s lives. A Hindu lawyer formed an association of lawyers with Christians and Muslims fought against Bayer’s company and won and thus Indian companies were able to supply AIDS medicines at low price. They supplied 80% of medicine from 2002 to 2008 to six countries in Africa . I see in this Hindu lawyer God. This is where I find it interesting to recognise the fact that being in Christ is important to Christians and thus see how the body of Christ as a metaphor can bring us together ecumenically. In the same way I wish to see the body of God as a space where we can find a space to work together beyond our religious, national and racial differences. In this concept we do not become God nor are considered as God. I find this concept closer to Robert Igo’s views which is: “the God whom we are seeking is to be found in the very matrix of our lives”(Windows into Hope).
16. Such a concept of body of God provides us not only a space for us to work together with other human beings but also give us a new mission of God. In this new mission of God, when a part of the body of God is infected how the other parts should respond? It becomes our total responsibility along with God in addressing this issue. It demands a structural response of our institutions, communities and nations and thus makes it as communal, local and global responsibility rather than a charity work. It means that we have to develop structural and legal response that will enable the whole body of nations and communities to protect the rights of infected and affected people. It also affirms their right to life and thus encourages nations as their responsibility to take care of their own people using their legal systems. So Missio en deo means we are partakers of mission not only along with God but also within God while allowing God to partake in our mission. How do we witness Christ in this mission? As Christians without Christ we cannot do our mission, but in doing with others we do not try to impose our doctrinal Christ on others rather we see Christ as embodiment of God’s love which should fill our heart and be educated by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the Good news of Jesus Christ in Love and in life affirming ways and also recognise in other people, God’s love and life affirming beliefs and thus God in them, not necessarily in any religion.
17. Such a theological engagement necessitates us that theology of HIV/AIDS should be given priority within theological formation. There should be deeper discussions on these issues but such love-action and life affirming theology of HIV/AIDS should become part of theological curricula.This theological concepts suggest that God is not merely the other who loves and cares but also God is within suggesting that theology of vulnerability leads to more questions than answers in which God is also engaged with us in search for meanings in the context of HIV/AIDS with compassion, love and action.
18. This theology envisages us to create alternative spaces where the right of those affected and infected are recognised and addressed; where stigmas are removed; where love and action and life affirming theology guides people to create such spaces where people will have freedom to live and to express themselves and to meet their needs as well. This is where the God’s presence will be fully realised.
End Notes
Mission is often understood in terms of movement or transmission from God to human beings. This is why the church was called to disseminate the Gospel to all following the Great Commandment of Jesus (Mathew 28:18). It was reiterated by the International Missionary Council (IMC – part of the World Council of Churches) held at Thambaram in 1938. Having recognised the problems with the church centred mission, the IMC introduced the term Missio Dei (Mission of God) replacing the Church centred Mission in 1952 at Willingen. Karl Hartenstein who coined this term spoke of mission as “participation in the sending of the Son, in the Missio Dei, with an inclusive aim of establishing the lordship of Christ over the whole redeemed creation”. For Karl Hatenstein, mission is not simply a conversion from one religion to another, nor a obedience to the word of God nor an obligation to go to the church. It is taking part in the in the sending of the Son, the Missio Dei, with the holistic aim of establishing Christ's rule over all redeemed creation.
In the Willingen it was stated that "The missionary movement of which we are part has its source in the triune God Himself. Out of the depths of His love for us, the Father has sent forth His beloved Son to reconcile all things to Himself, that we and all men might, through the Spirit, be made one in Him with the Father, in that perfect love which is the very nature of God". The Trinitarian aspect of God was emphasised in relation to mission. Interestingly the movement and mission are combined even in this Missio Dei paradigm. Interestingly there was a shift from the church based mission approach to a God based mission approach. But movement is very explicit. This shift did not recognise the movement from people to God in their own ways. The concept of Missio Dei has radically challenged and changed many perceptions and perspectives on mission shifting the focus on activities and engagement of Trinitarian God in this world.
This concept has not recognised the movement of people towards God which Thomas Thangaraj attributes as Missio Humanitas (Human Mission) in which people show solidarity with the oppressed and engage in the liberative movement of God by showing solidarity with those who are oppressed. Here again without seeing this as participation of God’s ongoing salvific act, it becomes a mere mission of human being. We need to engage with God’s Mission while recognising human mission from different quarters towards God. Stephen Neil wrote “if everything becomes mission nothing is mission”. Nevertheless everything cannot become a Christian mission and so God’s Mission.
Mission cannot be defined with a universal statement or definition. In every context the understanding, practice and reflection of mission can vary and even stand in contradiction with what in other context is understood as mission. We may have to remember what Bishop Neil wrote long back saying if everything is mission nothing is mission. Christian mission in some contexts have to emphasise the invitation of God to take part with him in his saving and preserving acts for this world while in other contexts restore broken human relationship and dignity which is often ignored or neglected. The questions are: How wider the ecumenism can be? How narrow the doctrines can be?
Some criticism – Christian mission is not a mere social activism. Christian mission is not a mere fundamentalism trying to increase the number of Christians through proselytising methods similar to Christendom missionary approaches. Christian mission can no more be offensive of other faiths. Christian mission includes witnessing (Martrya); evangelism (evangelion); preaching (Kerygma); serving (diakonia); emptying (Kenotic); uniting(Koinonia); listening (Pous); transforming(ktizo) and repenting (metanoia). In each context this can vary. Where there is no witnessing Christian mission has to be seen as witnessing. Where there is no evangelism there Christian mission should be defined as evangelism. Where there is no peace Christian mission has to be described as peace building. Where there is no transformation, Christian mission has to be explained in terms of transformation. Christian mission has to take the people and their context seriously. This challenges the present understanding Christian mission and enable us to begin from the context of the people.
Recently people have brought the orthodox idea of ‘Theosis’ back into Christian mission. This has contributed a bit in shifting the idea of Missio Dei to Missio en Deo. This is developed by Paul S Fiddes (participating in God) and Veli-Matti Karkkainen (One with God) in their recent books. It is yet to be developed fully.
To make a mission Christian, it needs to be recognised as “Missio En Deo (Mission in God)”. It is not a movement rather leads to recognition of ‘God in us’ and ‘us in God’. It is not a mere self-realisation rather it is a recognition that God is not only with us but also God is in us and we are in God.
Such a concept of partnership can best be described using ‘Missio en Deo’ (Mission in God). Pslams 82:6 reminds us that ‘we are gods and all of us are children of the Most High’. Jesus too quotes this in John 10:34 in order to polemically clarify his ‘Son of God’ claims. It does not mean that we are equated or identified with God rather we have a role to play in God not merely with God. At times we play the role of God as we are god or as if we do things on God’s behalf. Exodus 7: 1 highlights such a role of Moses by God by stating, ‘See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet’. This needs to be done in humility to do service to humanity with love. Otherwise we may end up turning ourselves into little gods of destruction as Paul says in Romans 1:23.
This concept of ‘Missio En Deo’ can also be recognised in the imageries of the Body of Christ where different parts of the body are held together. Paul develops this imageries in a number of instances particularly with a phrase ‘in Christ’ and also using the body of Christ language. In 1st Corinthians 12:27 Paul says, ‘Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually’, in verse18 he again tells us, ‘But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He please’ and again in Ephesians 5:30 ‘For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones’. Paul goes on describing about how each member or part operates within the body of Christ. This enables us to see mission in God as mission within Trinity among themselves and expanded to human beings to play a role within this mission of God.
The basic thrust of this concept is that Mission in God refers to a mission within Godhood which is now available for human beings to engage. It means our mission in Christ makes an impact on mission of Triune God, in other words, our communication affects the communication within the Triune community of God. It means if a sinner turns to do Good then there is a happy communication among the community of God. If one part of God is honoured then the whole part of God feels honoured as Paul says, And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it in 1 Corinthians 12: 26 and also in Ephesians 4:16 it states, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love’. In this way our mission makes an impact on Godhood and thus makes us involve not only in the mission of God but mission in God by being God’s behalf or by playing the role of God at times in this world.
We not only participate with God in God’s mission but also we are in God’s mission. Those indigenous mission activities, liberation movements and developmental engagements, overseas missions are all recognised as different parts of body of God working with different purposes but belong to one God and one Christ bound by the Holy Spirit in Christian Mission. They are held together but by uniformity rather by a mystical tension. They are held together by servant and Kenotic centres neither power centres nor dominant centres. As we are all part of God’s reign rather God’s self we need to find a way to recognise each other’s mission and support in new ways rather than the old one way movement based, power centred and monolithic ways of doing mission. This does not eliminate being critique of each other but encourage one another recognising the fact that we do mission in God and not merely mission with God. Mission in God refers to the mission where people recognise the fact that they are of God which means that they are created, sustained, redeemed and related by Triune God. This provides a radical shift in the mission paradigm and particularly in partnership between the Western mission institutions and emerging indigenous mission institutions in other parts of the world.
"Cheap church mission closes its eyes from sighting structural evil and its impact on
people’s choices and values, by insisting on behavior change, when behavior change is
hindered by oppressive structures of injustice that govern people’s lives. Cheap mission
points figures to individuals, blaming them for immorality, and fails to acknowledge the
immorality of social structures of our world." - a quote from Musa Dube
http://www.oikoumene.org/fileadmin/files/wcc-main/documents/p5/ete/Musa%20Dube%20-%20Weightier%20Matters%20-%20Mission%20Challenges%20in%20the%20HIV-AIDS%20and%20Global%20Economic%20Era.pdf
http://www.eatg.org/eatg/Global-HIV-News/Access-to-treatment/Indian-firms-supplied-over-80-of-AIDS-drugs-in-2002-08
Indian firms supplied over 80% of AIDS drugs in 2002-08
India is the pharmacy of the world all right, at least for AIDS drugs.
Indian generic manufacturers such as Cipla, Hetero Drugs, Matrix Labs and Aurobindo Pharma supply over 80% of AIDS medicines to developing countries, a recent study shows.
According to the study by the Journal of International AIDS Society, between 2002 and 2008, more than 4 million people with HIV/ AIDS in Congo, Namibia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria and other developing and underdeveloped countries in Africa, Asia and South America were treated with low-cost medicines made by Indian drugmakers.
Indian firms supplied over 80% of total AIDS medicines in that period. Yet, as of 2008, Indian companies accounted for 65% of the total value ($463 million) of AIDS medicine purchases.
This was possible only due to the legal framework in India, which facilitated production and export of low-cost generic drugs, it says.
Generic medicines from India are much cheaper than those sold by the innovator companies (see table). No wonder, the demand for these is high internationally.
“Local production in several countries is weak and hence there is strong reliance on India made medicines,” says Giten Khwairakpam, programme coordinator, Coalition of Asia Pacific Regional Network on HIV/AIDS.
“We get over 80% of our requirement for AIDS drugs from India,” says Leena Menghaney, project manager, India, campaign for access to essential medicines at international humanitarian aid organisation Medecins Sans Frontieres.
The study comes at a time when the World Health Organisation has introduced new recommendations for people living with HIV/AIDS to begin treatment earlier and to switch to newer medicines that are more robust and less toxic, but also much more expensive.
The study warns that the upcoming trade agreements India is negotiating with the European Union and Japan, which contain provisions for several patenting measures, can hamper production of low-cost generic medicines, thereby threatening access and affordability for patients across the globe.
Millions with HIV are able to lead a healthy life thanks to the antiretroviral drugs produced in India, points out Kannikar Kijtiwatchakul, coordinator, health consumer protection programme, Chulalongkom University in Thailand. “Hence, any provision in the bilateral agreements which India is negotiating, which can hamper early entry of generics, can affect patients not only in India, but also millions in the developing world.”
By Priyanka Golikeri
DNA
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