BWA General Council Resolution 1988.2

As the General Council of the Baptist World Alliance meets in Nassau, the Bahamas, July 1988, the AIDS crisis continues to escalate on a global scale.

The 16,000 cases of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) reported in 1985 are now nearly 75,000 in 129 countries. Further, AIDS is at present a fatal disease which especially assaults those aged 20-49 in the years of their lives normally the most productive, both socially and economically, and a specter that poses threatening circumstances for the world at large and the future opening before us as humanity moves toward the 21st century.

In the face of this severity, we:

Urge that AIDS now command the attention of Christian churches and that all Christians take steps to understand their vital role in creating a more responsible and balanced approach toward this problem.

This Council also urges member bodies of the Baptist World family to:

Oppose those sexual mores and practices which contribute to the development and spread of this disease, address the issue of responsible sex education in a Christian context and encourage the sharing of educational and medical information, and

Obey the call of Jesus Christ to be ministers of compassion, responding to the afflicted and their families with prayerful, loving support.

Citations

Original Source Bibliography: Lotz, Denton, editor. Baptist World Alliance 1988 Yearbook: Minutes of the General Council Meeting and Directory. McLean, VA: Baptist World Alliance, 1988.

Original Source Footnote/Endnote: Denton Lotz, ed., Baptist World Alliance 1988 Yearbook: Minutes of the General Council Meeting and Directory (McLean, VA: Baptist World Alliance, 1988), p. 69.

Online Document Full Citation: BWA General Council Resolution 1988.2 The AIDS Crisis; https://baptistworld.org/resolutions.

In-text Online Document Citation: (BWA General Council Resolution 1988.2).