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The Theology and Worldview of the Causes and Cures of Diseases in Africa as a Manifestation of the Problem of Evil
A Paper Presented by Rev. Dr. Sunday B. Agang And Professor Samuel Waje Kunhiyop
At the Tearfund HIV Prevention Workshop for Local Church Leaders
Miango Rest Home, Jos
On April 2 and 8, 2008
It has been reported that “Christians are now leading the fight against AIDS in many nations. In South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu estimates churches and Christian organizations are providing over 60% of HIV community programme in Africa” (Dixon2002:3). Yet African health experts and theologians have warned that African worldviews and theologies are continuing to distort the seriousness and/or the urgency of HIV/AIDS pandemic in the continent. They believe that there are diverse issues confronting and undermining the campaign against the scourge of HIV/AIDS in Africa but that the African worldview and theology overshadow them all. Simply put, the African worldview and theology continue to impede and impair African ability to perceive the gravity and enormity of the risk and/or the threat HIV/AIDS poses to public health in general. As Kunhiyop points out, “A very fundamental notion of the AIDS crisis is the assumption that people suffering with the disease are somehow responsible for their condition, usually through sexual promiscuity. The logical conclusion therefore is that AIDS victims are getting a just punishment for their lifestyle which God condemns.” (Kunhiyop 2005:269)
Our primary purpose in this paper is to undertake a critical cross-examination of these claimants to ascertain their validity. Certainly, some aspects of worldview can be very destructive. This paper pays attention to those aspects that have particular negative effective on the campaign against the spread of HIV in Nigeria. African worldviews is the African attempt to dialogue with the reality of their world. By and large, their worldviews address the way of seeing and being. Walter Wink once observed that “Worldviews determine what we are allowed to believe about the world.” (Wink, 1998:22) That is, the depiction of the world one has influences not only the way one lives one’s life but what one believes. It is similar to what Jesus says, “The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, when your eye is good, your whole body also is full of light. But when your eye is bad your whole body also is full of darkness.” (Luke 11:34, 36 NKJV) For example, in spite of the overwhelming statistical data provided by stakeholders and medical experts on the causes of HIV/AIDS, we still have very highly educated Christian men and women in our society who believe that HIV/AIDS is simply caused by demonic powers, through the instrumentality of human agents such as witches and wizards. I know of a university lecturer who believes that the young men and women who are dying of HIV/AIDS are being bewitched by the elderly people in his village. He argues that AIDS is just a cover up. It is therefore crucially important to ask ourselves the question, what part of our traditional and Christian worldview impacts the way and manner in which we engage in this serious matter of life and death: HIV/AIDS? HIV is currently the greatest enemy or threat to human survival in the 21st century. It is seeking to decimate human resource development in the Nigeria, in Sub-Sahara Africa and the continent at large. Much is being done by Government and Non-governmental organization to save the situation. But little or no attention has been given to the impasse worldviews and theologies create in Nigeria. As we will show in this paper, African worldviews and theologies on HIV have combined together to create a perspective on HIV/AIDS that is as dangerous as the HIV itself. We agree with Patrick Dixon that “AIDS will damage churches physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually, unless they are prepared.” (Dixon 1998:17) We have deep faith in the ability of the local church leaders to help dislodge a worldview that is destroying most of the efforts toward fighting against the widespread of HIV in Nigeria. That is why in this paper we turn particularly to the cultural perception by paying attention to how it inhibits a realistic and adequate approach to the effort to reduce the risk of harm and prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria and Africa at large.
The Conception of HIV/AIDS from the African Context: Theology, Worldview and the Problem of Evil Africans value life and community. The African premium on life and health in community with others constitutes a facet of life, which exceedingly influences African Christians’ perception of HIV/AIDS. Our worldview and theology have not allowed us to careful think through the seriousness of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Nigeria and Africa at large. All the statistical analyses being provided by experts in the field do not seem convincing because of our worldview and theology.
Africans believe that every problem has a cause and cure. Of course, “It is a fact of life that everything has consequences. If you drink and drive you may injure or kill yourselves and others. If you line up your lungs with tobacco tar you can get a chronic irritation which may result in coughs and cancer.” (Dixon 2004:160)
In the case of Africa, however, people tend to see that there is an intrinsic connection between the spiritual and physical. That means that conception of community goes beyond the visible; it includes the invisible world also. In this perspective, spirit beings can be the source of good and bad, prosperity and evil, pain and sickness. Sickness, in fact, any sickness can be caused by some evil spirits such as witches and the occult. There can also be a communication between the spiritual and the physical. This can be done through dreams, visions and signs. In the same way too, the spiritual can be invoked through prayers, sacrifices and consultations with mediums etc. We know of stories that demonstrate this. Kunhiyop knows of a woman who took her 22 year old son to the hospital who had been sick. He was diagnosed to be HIV positive. The mother threw up her hands and said that her son was bewitched by wicked witches. The pastor who was by her side told her that the son was infected with HIV and the mother vehemently insisted that it was the handiwork of occultism and witchcraft. This was how she perceived the world.
Thus the African worldview presents some peculiar impasses to the current efforts being made to forestall HIV/AIDS in Nigeria. There are fundamentally three problems:
A. The Problem of Suffering
The
context of discussing the problem of HIV is sickness, pain, suffering, or
evil and our belief concerning God or the supernatural.
Given that much of Africa is bombarded with traumatizing problems,
the worldview of Africans is constantly beclouded. That is to say, in much
of our societies the harsh conditions we face generally detect AIDS is part of the package of the suffering that is the consequence of the Fall. Kunhiyop points out that “The root of all disease and suffering in the world is sin, which has affected all mankind.” (2005:271) As a matter of fact, since the Fall, human beings have continued to face the consequences of sin in diverse ways. HIV is another huge reminder to us that we live in a sick and dying world. But we must not forget that in spite of this obvious fact Jesus has warned us against making sweeping generalizations about the causes of human calamities (Luke 13:1-5).
B. The Problem of Evil in the Context of a Culture of Shame and Guilt Like all Africans, Nigerians believe that there is both good and evil in this world. This concept of good and evil in the African context is situated in the African traditional religions. On this basis, the African theological framework in most cases is “a problem-solving theology.” That is, African theologians bring theology to bear on the diverse problems facing the continent. This theological route is necessitated by the belief that “evil has other human, spiritual, or natural forces as its agents.” Given that Africans believe that for every cause there is a solution, “Traditional religion has rituals that can control or cope effectively with evil...” (Gwinyai H. Muzorewa 2000, 15) The causes of evil are generally divided into two: primary and secondary (Pobee 1979, 100). Pobee further explains that witches are in the first category, while any other human being who does wrong belongs to the second category. The difference is that witches are possessed with evil involuntarily, while others decide to indulge in an evil act. He is of the opinion that “there is at one point or other, human responsibility or input into the occurrence of evil.” (Pobee 1979, 100) We believe that the stigma and shame that HIV/AIDS brings are always seen as the stigma and shame of the whole family or the community. By and large, the problem of evil is intrinsically connected to the African appreciation of humanity’s identity. As Muzorewa tells us, the African concept of humanity controls and in fact “determines all other African cosmological concepts…. African humanity is basically defined by a sense of belonging, serving one’s own folk, and kinship.” (Muzorewa 2000, 16) Furthermore, in the words of Mercy Oduyoye: “Africans recognize life as life-in-community.” (Oduyoye 1979, 110) That means that “one is defined in one’s own social context, namely one’s community.” (Muzorewa 2000, 17) John Mbiti poignantly drives the point home when he states, “Whatever happens to the individual happens to the whole group, and whatever happens to the whole group happens to the individual. The individual can only say: “I am, because we are and since we are, therefore I am” (Mbiti 1970a, 141). This conception of humanity underlies the main reason why Nigerians prefer to explain HIV/AIDS away by talking about other diseases that do not bring shame to the community. In the effort to explain the shame of HIV/AIDS away it is primarily blamed on witchcraft. Witchcraft is used as a cover up. This is coupled with the fact that people in Nigeria and Africa at large tend to believe that adultery and witchcraft are unpardonable sins. Hence they are grievous sins that cause sicknesses and diseases, resulting in death. The death is seen as the wrath of God on the perpetrators of the sin of adultery and fornication. In order to disassociate themselves from the shame, family members of the person living or dying of HIV/AIDS give other causes of or reasons for the death. As Kunhiyop puts it, “Most African societies still view AIDS as a curse and a stigma on victims and their families. Victims and families will do all within their power to deny that a member has the disease.” (2005:267) This is part of a ploy to explain away the shame attached to the problem of evil, particularly, as it relates to the sin of adultery or fornication. When a person contracts HIV/AIDS the natural reaction is that this brings shame to the whole family. As such the person is rejected not because of the shame associated with the disease per se but because the community disassociates itself from the shame. The fight against HIV will only be won when local church leaders, like you, are willing to address the African culture of shame. C. The Problem of Interpretation Of all the issues that present an impasse to the solution to the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria, the problem of interpretation overshadows them all because of the following reasons.
(1). The African traditional worldview. Africans try to interpret (explain) every event and happening. Anything that cannot be explained is reinterpreted as “the hand of God” or the activities of the “bad eye” (witchcraft). A fundamental problem of interpretation is what is called the “slim disease.” AIDS experts have demonstrated that “The slim disease or acute emaciation in AIDS for example is known to resemble emaciation presentation in patients suffering, not from AIDS, but from Kwashiorkor and other problems of malnutrition rampant in many villages in Africa.” This is a situation that creates confusion that tends to lead to the search for a scapegoat. As Augustine Nwoye reports, This situation even appears to be more complicated when it is considered that in some African settings the manifestations of HIV/AIDS can be explained away by people as mere instances of witchcraft episode or “juju missile attacks” from hostile neighbors or jealous co-workers. The persistent headache that arise in either the prodromal state of HIV infection or at frank AIDS stage, for instance, most often are seen in Africa as only mimicking a type of persistent headache, which among the Igbo of South-Eastern Nigeria is interpreted as a symptom of “okilli mgowa sisi”: an illness that is usually blamed as being internally caused; arising, willy-nilly, from a human agent from around one’s neighborhood or community. The existence of such cultural myths or realities as these greatly goes to mask the full visibility, among the people, of the real and true presence of AIDS in most African communities. (Nwoye 1994:69) The most serious problem that the interpretation of HIV/AIDS as ‘the slim disease’ poses to the fight against HIV is the fact that it leads to the assumption that it is okay to have sexual intercourse with ‘fat’ women. Dixon observes that in the early 1990s, “In Africa they called it [AIDS] ‘the slim’ disease. Some Africans believe if you sleep with only fat women you are safe. ‘To be fat is to be healthy.’” (1998:14) This belief has enormously contributed to the impasse against the effort to reduce risk and prevent the widespread of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria and Africa at large. For as we are aware because of antiretroviral drugs people living with the disease are no more the slim or skinny people we used to know. Most of them look healthier than ever. So people who believe that big women are safe sex machines will continue to spread HIV. (2). The Christian tradition in Africa. Another problem that masks the seriousness and urgency of HIV/AIDS in Africa is that much of West Africa is within what theologians call “the Bible Belt.” Anything the Bible says is seen as authoritative and absolute truth without further careful reflection on the context within which it was written. This, combined with the theological perspective, makes the issue more complicated than ever.
(3). Causes and Cures of Diseases: African theology and worldview are built on the framework of a world of cause and effect. There is nothing without a cause. The sources of the cause may vary. The Christian religion with its written code, the Bible, particularly the Mosaic Law tends to cement this worldview. The book of Deuteronomy with its list of blessings and curses is a stamp on the African theology and worldview. Deuteronomy 28:15-68 contains phrases that are very familiar to Nigerian pastors and lay members because they mimic some of the diseases that they are encountering in their day to day life. The following phrases have deeply impacted Nigerian theological conclusion about the cause of HIV/AIDS:
“The Lord will strike you with wasting disease…” Deuteronomy 28:22 “The Lord will afflict you with the boils of Egypt and with tumors, festering sores and the itch, from which you cannot be cured.” Deuteronomy 28:27 “The Lord will send… severe and lingering illnesses….” Deuteronomy 28:59 “The Lord will also bring on you every kind of sickness and disaster not recorded in this Book of the Law, until you are destroyed.” Deuteronomy 28:61). Looking at these phrases and how they mimic the symptoms of HIV/AIDS naturally leads to the conclusion that HIV/AIDS is God’s judgment or curse for disobedience. Such conclusion immediately blurs our faculty of judgment to the extent that we fail to realize that these phrases are part of a catalogue of curses which result from being disobedient to specific Laws, in a specific land by a specific people, Israel. The curses and blessings in Deuteronomy 28 are part of the covenant package God made with Israel. Thus the diseases are “[A]ccording to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this Book of the Law.” (Deut. 29:21) They are the consequence of covenant deal breaking: “Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of their fathers, when he brought them out of Egypt.” (Deut. 29:25) They are a result of God’s anger to his covenant deal breakers: “Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against this land, to bring on it every curse that is written in this book.” (Deut. 29:27) In short, pastors in “the Bible Belt” tend to see these phrases fitting the symptoms of HIV/AIDS. Consequently, this leads to several errors in interpretation. (1). Lack of careful biblical reflection has led to disaster in interpretation. As in the early 1980s when the disease was first discovered in the United States, careless exegesis led to the conclusion that “AIDS is a gay plague.” But today we know better. “There are millions more women and children infected with HIV throughout the world than there are gay men.” Furthermore, AIDS is not only the disease of promiscuous people but a human catastrophe that requires medical, moral and spiritual confrontations. “What do you say to a million children dying in Africa or elsewhere as a result of medical treatments, such as injections or infected blood or infection in the womb?” (Dixon 2004:151) (2). Lack of realizing that the curses in Deuteronomy are not selective. Everyone who disobeys will suffer these consequences. All disobedience attracts the curse. Thus, applying it only to those living with HIV/AIDS raises one hundred and one questions. How come all of us who are living in open disobedience to God in one way or other are living free of HIV/AIDS? How can we explain the fact that not all those who are living with HIV/AIDS were living in open disobedience to God? (3). We generally think that the sin of sexual immorality is the worse disobedience. As such we make sweeping generalizations that HIV is a judgment of God on those who are promiscuous. But we forget that lying, hatred and other sins equally attract the judgment of God, as Revelation tells us. In that sense none of us is qualified to be HIV/AIDS free. This judgmental spirit kills the church’s compassion and mercy. This theological perspective distorts God’s compassion, mercy and justice. Most especially, it distorts the good news that we are called to preach to the poor, the widows, orphans, and needy. It distorts Jesus’ ministry of compassion and forgiveness. Jesus cured many who had diseases, sicknesses and evil spirits and gave sight to the blind (Luke 7:21). The diseases and the sicknesses that Jesus healed mimic diseases and illnesses which resemble the curses of Deuteronomy 28:15-68. We tend to forget that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was nicknamed “a friend of tax-collectors and sinners (harlots)” because of his table fellowship with them. (Luke 7:34). (4). Judgment of God theory: If HIV/AIDS was not a disease but a direct judgment of God on humanity for disobedience none of us deserve to be free from HIV/AIDS today. We are all living in disobedience to God’s will, day in and day out. Therefore, none of us is worthy to stand as a judge. In short, Deuteronomy 28 is one of the passages which have been misinterpreted by our pastors and lay people. Wasting diseases are believed to refer to HIV/AIDS. The misinterpretation comes not because of good exegesis but because of the following reasons: (1). We are not doing double listening. For example, we need not only hear what the Bible is telling us but we need to hear what God is telling us through the world about issues. Yes, God hates sin and wants us to repent, but in the case of the HIV/AIDS epidemic the reality is that sin is a serious disease that requires the combination of spiritual and medical response. The social stigma that is attached to HIV is unacceptable. In our paper at the Senior Church Leaders’ Workshop, in January 2008, at Miango, we categorically pointed out that both theologians and scientists insist that HIV/AIDS is not just a sin or a moral problem but also a physical illness. Yes, it is ultimately linked to sin or moral actions of human beings. But certainly, it is a physical sickness/disease that must be treated with physical solutions. We also pointed out that “If AIDS were only a moral problem, then confession, repentance and abstinence will eliminate the disease. But it is also a physical disease ravaging through the body.” Therefore we suggested that “in order to effectively fight HIV/AIDS in our society, we must use both moral and physical approaches to fight it. Thus abstinence and fidelity are obviously needed but other physical approaches must be applied.” We also suggested that if we want to win the war against the spread of HIV/AIDS “perceptions, worldviews, poverty, unemployment/underemployment, illiteracy and ignorance etc. must be addressed.” (2). We are interpreting this passage (Deut. 28) based on our cultural past where taboos and the issue of social purity were the order of the day. Consequently, this interpretation leaves people with the impression that “if I do well in obeying God I will appease him to the extent that I will not know suffering.” The irony here is that Jesus did everything right yet suffered, leaving us an example to follow. The danger here is that “This frequent and disastrous interpretive move is in direct contradiction to Jesus’ own teaching and that of the prophets. It allows Christians to dismiss the significance of how we actually live our lives in favor of an illusory sense of attitudinal moral goodness.” (Stassen and Gushee, Kingdom Ethics, 94) (3). The emphasis becomes ritualistic. This is why, as Glen Stassen and David Gushee point out, “Jesus repeatedly called his listeners to turn from an emphasis on ritual defilement and outward purity toward an awareness of the inner wellsprings of real moral purity or defilement as they are expressed in behavior to others [see Mark 7:18-23].” (Stassen and Gushee, Kingdom Ethics, 94) Finally, we seem not to have the slightest inclination that Prophet Ezekiel is right: our God has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. How can such a God bring HIV/AIDS to destroy the wicked and the rebellious without destroying you who commit all acts of wickedness against your spouses or even violently taking the life of alleged victims of witchcraft accusation? Why has the curse not fallen upon you too? We believe that “Jesus cared about the heart because he cares about the conduct that springs from the heart. The goal is total and loving obedience to God, and for this the heart must be made ready, through self-examination, repentance, forgiveness and regular engagement in practices of compassion and new commitment.” (Stassen and Gushee, Kingdom Ethics, 94) Conclusion In conclusion, how then can we change our negative worldview? First, we need to recognize that there are certainly some positive things in our understanding of reality that we need to keep. We also need to accept the fact that there are some very negative elements, perceptions etc. about our worldview that we must reject. Second, we must pay greater attention to the Gospel Jesus wants us to proclaim to a sick and dying world: A Gospel of peace-making, delivering love, justice, compassion, forgiveness and community of hope for the future. Such a gospel demands that the church do what John Stott calls “double listening.” That is listening to both our world and to scripture. Jesus’ attitude to sexual sin provides not only a serious criticism to the church and her leaders today, as it did in his days, but also a clue to how God may want us to handle this grievous matter. The woman caught in the act with another woman’s husband was brought to him. Those who caught and brought her reminded him of what the law teaches about people who committed such a heinous act. The way Jesus responded indicates something like, ‘you who is perfect; you who have never cheated anyone, lied, or been selfish; you who are always so perfectly loving and kind, you who never lose your temper, you who are so generous; you who have never had a lustful thought— [paraphrase of John 8:7] throw the first stone. None of them was able to meet any of those criteria. As such they all left her alone. Jesus said to her, “Since not one of them has condemned you I have not either. But go and sin no more.” Jesus did not condone her sin at all. Neither should we condone sexual sin. But in pointing people to the cross for repentance, forgiveness and for a life-changing encounter with their Savior and Lord we should do so not as judges but as people called to extend God’s compassionate love, justice and care. Our effort to protect God’s holiness should not mar his compassion, love and forgiveness and vice versa. Third, we must be willing to recognize that sexual sin is a very grievous sin as equally serious as all other sins against God. Sin is sin. So to avoid a double standard we must treat all sins equally. Fourth, we are called to love both our neighbors and our enemies. As Dixon points out, “God did not just call us to love our neighbors but also to love our enemies; those who, we assumed, bring us shame as a community. God commands us “to express God’s perfect love to those who hate us, despise us, want to hurt us and beat us up…. This is a command to actively, positively seek to express warmth, compassion, kindness and understanding to those we humanly would hate and regard as our worst enemies” (2004:168). Fifth, people will not know the Lord we serve until they know that we embody God’s delivering love, forgiveness, care and justice. We must be willing to realize that the church has contributed to the widespread of AIDS today by failing in previous decades to give a clear lead, to challenge behavior, to model an alternative lifestyle and to proclaim the gospel. HIV is the enemy, not the people living with the disease. So fight the disease and love the victim! References
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