The Pope and Condoms

Hi there sorry about the Absence.

If you have read the Post of 23rd November you may have noticed an article on page 2 by Edwin Mbulo titled "Chruch Should Promote Condoms". You can read the story online here.

In the article Treatment Advocay and Literacy Campaign's country representive welcomes the Popes aprent endorement of the use of condoms for prevention of HIV transmission saying that priest and bishops should realistic.

I am not Roman Catholic but in the interests of truth and accuracy I would like to share something from catholicsonline to clarify the Popes position:

"The pope underlines clearly that, at that time, he did not want to express a position on the problem of condoms in general, but he wanted to affirm strongly that the problem of AIDS cannot be resolved solely with the distribution of condoms, because much more must be done: prevention, education, assistance, counsel, being close to people, both so that they do not become sick, and also in cases where they are sick.

"The pope observes that even in non-church circles a comparable awareness has developed, as is seen in the so-called ABC theory (Abstinence-Be Faithful-Condoms), in which the first two elements (abstinence and fidelity) are much more decisive and fundamental in the struggle against AIDS, while the condom appears as a last resort when the other two are lacking. It should therefore be clear that the condom is not the solution to the problem.

"The pope then takes a wider view and insists on the fact that concentrating only on the condom signifies the "banalization" of sexuality, which loses its meaning as the expression of love between persons and becomes like a "drug." To fight against the banalization of sexuality is "part of the struggle to ensure that sexuality is treated as a positive value and to enable it to have a positive effect on the whole of man's being."

"In the light of this ample and profound vision of human sexuality and its modern challenges, the pope reaffirms that the church "of course does not regard (condoms) as a real or moral solution" to the problem of AIDS.

"In saying this, the pope is not reforming or changing the teaching of the church, but reaffirming it by putting it in the context of the value and dignity of human sexuality as an expression of love and responsibility.

"At the same time, the pope takes into consideration an exceptional situation in which the exercise of sexuality may represent a real risk to the life of another person. In such a case, the pope does not morally justify the disordered exercise of sexuality, but maintains that the use of the condom to diminish the danger of infection may be "a first assumption of responsibility", "a first step in a movement toward a more human sexuality", as opposed to not using the condom and exposing the other person to a fatal risk.

"In this statement, the pope's reasoning certainly cannot be defined as a revolutionary shift.

You can read the release from the Vatican here

I will make my own comments on TALC position soon.

Sex education and the family

The family is the first place we learn about life and social norms. All our first questions about life are addressed to parent/guardians, as anyone will tell you who has raised children between 3 and 5 years of age, when the endless “why?” questions are predominant! What better place for children to get a clear understanding of the role, dignity and value of sexuality in human life! Before the school or the church or peers step in, the home can be the first and the foundational point to teach children about sexual identity and role-distinct responsibility. But this is easier said then done, as the home is often the last place people have such conversations!

Why is it necessary to teach this in the family? Firstly, because the young children are at a stage of trust, where they have great confidence in their parents, and will give greater attention to “what Daddy told me at home” than what peers will say! Parents can take advantage of the trust the toddlers and pre-teens have, before the more individualistic teen years set in! Secondly, since the home is where a sense of right and wrong is explained and enforced, this should include lessons on sexuality. Thirdly, because children begin exploring sexuality a lot younger than in previous generations, so the information a child needs at 11 years old, was once needed at 14 years! We need to equip them sooner, because children are more daring. Fourthly, because nowadays children get exposed to so much sexual material in the sense of more explicit movies (even those rated as family movies), music (which will make the child ask “what does that word mean?”) and public displays of affection (romantic kisses in public), etc.

How should parents go about this? It is a double difficult task because, in Zambian culture, the task always fell to grand-parents or others outside the nuclear family. As Joe Kapolyo points out in his book, it seems the parent and child generation are supposed to be formal, while, when you skip a generation, the grandparent and grandchildren are allowed to be very free, even play-mates! But the modern urban lifestyle leaves neither the time nor the resources for this model, and the gap has to be filled. Further more, the Bible has placed the task of training the child in the parents hands, with no room for deferring responsibility. The cultural barrier has to be overcome to fulfill the Biblical mandate. So it will take courage and tact!

The first approach is by parents taking advantage of questions that arise. In Richard Dobbins book, ‘Teaching your child the truth about sex’, he tells a story of a mother who took advantage of an incident where one chicken was apparently ‘killing’ the other. The mother explained to the daughter that that’s how chickens make babies! Surely every parent has some situation (when watching television or hearing a song) which will bring up a question, and the parent can give an age appropriate response, which will be truthful even if not detailed! There are also the questions about ‘where do babies come from’ and even question when the mother is expecting another child. This is a lot better than those lies where we tell a child ‘babies come from Shoprite’. In future, they will not come for real answers from the parent but look elsewhere!

The second approach is a planned talk. IF you are from certain Christian backgrounds, then the concept of the father as ‘priest’ in the home, with his little congregation to teach, is nothing new. Voddie Bauchum is a great advocate of this, as his book ‘Family driven faith’ attests. If there are family talks or devotions even once a week, there can be a day when the talk can be on Genesis chapter 2 and 3. The parents can talk about what it means to ‘leave and cleave’ to be married, both the motherly role of Eve as well as the lead and provide role of Adam the gardener and head of humanity! Simple lessons like this can increase in complexity according to the age group as well as the level of understanding and the questions that come out.

This also prepares the child to evaluate the kind of sex and life education they will receive at school, as it often falls short of the wholeness required of sexuality and responsibility training required, or at the least, it is often morally neutral instead of character building.

The Church and Secularization

While it is common place to hear about how the Church is against secularization, it is interesting to note that the Church has been a force promoting secularisation in the developing world.

Here is a quote from Religion and Education in Zambia

"In spite of frequent off the record comments about the activities of missionaries, anthropologists have done little to document the role of missionaries as agents of culture change. What little they have written focuses on religious aspects of missionary work but rarely on the missionary as agent of westernisation generally. here, i shall attend to the missionary as purveyor of a naturalistic world view as opposed to a supernaturalistic one. By naturalistic, i refer to cause and effect explanations based on natural laws rather than explanation which rely on supernatural powers of intervention in human affairs...

naturalistic beliefs form the organising basis for the missionary's comprehension of the vast majority of day to day events and experiences. Rather than reinforce or expand traditional supernaturalistic beliefs, the missionary, in fact supports the many naturalistic orientations Westerners tend to impose on non western cultures. Socialised in a largely secular society (i.e., one which depends on naturalistic rather than supernaturalistic beliefs and activities for its raison d'etre), missionaries actually assign supernanturalistic beliefs and actions a Minor role in ascribing and explaining the everyday experiences of human existence. For them, the arena of direct supernatural involvement is generally restricted to past events ( such as the "creation" and the Old Testament and New Testament periods of "Revelation") or to individual experiences which they can not readily trace to naturalistic causes. In contrast, traditional supernnaturalistc world views tend to encompass all of life's experiences with no comparable cognitive distinction between natural and supernatural or between temporal epochs of differential supernatural activity."

E. Millar, Religion and Education in Zambia, P55

Christians as members of Political Parties

The past two presidential elections have been particularly trying for the body of Christ in Zambia. Many Christians have divided over their respective political affiliations. Here are Martyn Lloyd Jones thoughts on the matter.

“The Christian is never to expect too much from the state. This is always a difficulty. People always expect too much from it. Let me emphasize that by saying that Christians should never get excited about the state. They should never get excited about politics. They are to be interested; they are to vote; they must be intelligent and informed; but they are never to get excited about one political party or the other. But Christians often do, and to the extent that they do, they come under the condemnation of scripture...

So often, and to their great shame, Christian people have quarreled over politics. This is quite unforgivable. Ultimately the disagreement is often caused by a view of what the state can achieve; otherwise no one would get so heated. I have known churches to divide on political issues. I have known Christian people who do not even speak to one another because of their political views. It is almost unthinkable, but it has often happened, and it is due to a failure to understand the teaching of this great and important section of Romans 13. It is quite all right to have differences of opinion, as I have already indicated. There are equally good Christians in all the political parties. Bit Christians must never let their political views harm their fellowship with other Christians.”

P58 Martyn Lloyd Jones, Romans: Exposition of Chapter 13 Life in two kingdoms, Banner of Truth

Should we stick to spiritual things?

Should Christians get involved is a business as nonspiritual as politics?

Here is Martyn Lloyd Jones take on the question

"But that is a very dangerous heresy because Christians still have to function in the flesh, they still have to live in this world. All the orders of nature are still there; they still continue. Moreover, we are told that it is the duty of Christians to recognize and submit to the governing powers and obey them as best they can. There are certain qualifications, which I will deal with later, but as principle, that is what we are told. So we are concerned with things of this life that are not specifically Christian.

Let me go a step further: like everybody else, Christians are involved in matters that are not specifically moral or spiritual, but are neutral. Let me give you an example or two. What is Government concerned about? It is concerned about preventing robbery and theft, keeping order, regulating the traffic, ensuring proper drainage, preserving public health. Now those are not moral or spiritual matters – I would call them neutral. From the standpoint of public health, law and order, driving on the correct side of the road, observing the road signs and the highway code, there is no difference between the Christian and the non Christian. Christians are involved in all of them, and they should therefore be interested in all of them.

Or take economic issues. Speaking generally, I hold the position that questions about the economy are also not spiritual or moral but neutral. Yet they are very important. When they are handled properly, they benefit all of us. If they are handled badly, we all suffer, Christian and non Christians alike. So as Christians, it is our duty to take interest in these things. We should be concerned to ensure that the best minds are applied to them. We do not contract out. We realize that local and national Government are essential to the ordering of life, to making civilized life possible for the community of men and women. And we not only recognize this, we submit ourselves to it."

P40 Martyn Lloyd Jones Romans: Exposition of Chapter 13 Life in Two Kingdoms, Banner of truth

The Declaration as a Covenant With God

Over the past few months I have been posting brief discussions on various viewpoints Zambians hold on the declaration of Zambia as a Christian nation. As I have written these posts I have become aware that once I am done looking at the various viewpoints on the declaration, I will need to discuss the separation of church and Christian influence in a pluralistic society. Prayerfully I will be able to do this by January.

This post will look at the declaration as a covenant with God. According to this view point if Zambia as a nation through a political act identifies itself with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob then the nation will receive divine blessings spiritually and materially. In Zambia at least there is no systematic theology supporting this viewpoint, but advocates of this viewpoint typically cite 2 Chronicles 7:14, “if My people who are called by my name will humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land”, as the basis of their belief. Now I realize to some the distinction between the declaration as an act of faith and the declaration as a covenant may not be clear so I will try and make a distinction here. The declaration as an act of faith is an action that moves God to act on behalf of Zambia and the declaration as a covenant is an action that creates a unique relationship between God and the nation, in effect God is King over the nation in a way his is not king over secular states.

Before I go into my usual brief evaluation I will talk about how the viewpoint evolved in the Zambian context.

For the first twenty seven years of Zambia’s existence, the nation was ruled by Kenneth David Kaunda. Kenneth Kaunda the son of a missionary ruled in accordance with a political ideology he called humanism. This ideology was a mixture of African social beliefs, socialism, beliefs on the equality of all people and his own belief that purpose of all social institutions is to serve man. President Kaunda was a professing Christian and for many years he interacted with the Church relatively well. During this time the presidents religious beliefs seemed to be ecumenical and centered around the simple belief that “Christ is my savior”. Over the years however, the President began to publically entertain certain eastern religious beliefs. This pattern came to a head in 1990 when the President invited the Maharishi Heaven on Earth group to Zambia to “help” the nation transform. The president gave these people a centre near State House to operate from and expressed his intention to provide state support to help this group propagate their beliefs.

Politically, this could not have been a worse move for the president. The nation was in economic crisis and many were calling for a political change to deal with the crisis. When the President invited the Maharishi group many in the Christian community joined forces with the movement for change to deal with the presidents new spiritual direction. As providence would have it in 1991 there was regime change and Fredrick Titus Chiluba was elected as Zambia’s second republican president.

Frederick Chiluba was a trade unionist and a Charismatic Christian and in no time at all the nation learned that his religious beliefs would have an influence on his presidency. The man opened meetings in prayer, quoted the Bible constantly and seemed to give Christian (as well as secular) justification for his actions. According to some newspapers when the new president moved to statehouse he even arranged for special prayers to deal this the demons that may have taken residence there during the reign of Kenneth Kaunda. This Christianizing process came its climax when the president appeared outside statehouse and performed a covenanting ceremony by one of statehouses pillars and declared Zambia a Christian nation.

So that’s it that is the background to the original declaration of Zambia as a Christian nation. So what do I make of this all? Well theologically I believe that this viewpoint is incorrect. Firstly, when any human party enters into a covenant with God, God is the initiator and not the human party. In the case of Zambia we see Zambia through its president initiating a covenant with God. This is incorrect and is against the Biblical standard.

Secondly, the so called Biblical grounds for the declaration are specific promises to the nation of Israel. I believe that it would be wrong for any nation to lay hold of any of these promises for the following reasons:

“The Difference between Israel and other Kingdoms was that Israel was in covenant with the true God. So it had instructions and civil laws appropriate to its uniqueness. Its temple, priesthood, feasts, and sacrificial system anticipated the coming of Christ to redeem God’s people from sin. But the majority of Israel rejected Jesus. So they lost their special status with God.

But the people of God continued in a new form. The Church, composed of Jews and Gentiles (with, of course, their families) as equal members of one body, was “the Israel of God” (Gal.6.16). The olive tree of Abraham continued, but with some old (Jewish) branches broken off and some new Gentile branches grafted in (Rom. 11:11-24). The Church received the titles of Israel….

No modern nation, or its Government (state), then, will ever play the distinctive role filled by old testament Israel….Modern nations continue to act as God’s servants to maintain justice and order. But believing nations, if such there be, will not play the distinctive role of Israel, and neither will their Governments. These states need not take Israel’s distinctive purposes into account as they rule.”

P599 John Frame, “The Doctrine of the Christian Life” P&R Publishing

For these reasons I believe only the church, not any political entity, can lay hold of the promises of God to Israel.

Sex Education in the Church

Earlier this definition was used: Sex Education is “the process of acquiring information and forming attitudes and beliefs about sex, sexual identity, relationships and intimacy”.

The church is the place where you expect to form attitudes and beliefs about life. You should be able to find wholesome Biblical counsel there, so that your whole life can be shaped by Scripture. The question at hand is; does the church (as a conveyor of Bible teaching) shape our understanding of sexuality? Do we receive “sex education” in the church? Should we expect to?

First, let us remember the primary goal of the church is to spread the gospel and make disciples of the nations. It is in this context that we find, the gospel demands a change in our attitude to gender, sex and marriage. Every culture has some errors on issues of gender, from discrimination to a breakdown of roles, no culture has it perfect. Part of God transforming our lives is bringing us to relate to each other wisely, as we indeed relate to God in a new light.

Because the realm of sexuality is affected by sin, and we are in need of repentance in many ways, so there must be teaching to point out that need. “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path”. Even when the path demands choices on how to relate to people male and female, and the expression of our gender roles in society.

But the issue of sexuality must never be separated from the gospel, because the gospel is a story of rescue, God making life abundant and beautiful, full of the righteousness, peace and joy that suits life most. Sex education in church is about just that – peace and joy in the path of righteousness, even in things like romance, fashion, love and marriage.

What should such teaching include? The Bible presents us with a picture of created goodness of sexuality in Adam and Eve; desires restrained and abused in the lives of Joseph, David and Tamar; wise and foolish sexual decisions in Proverbs, the power to say no to ungodliness in Titus, the warning not to defraud (cheat/rob) each other to fulfill our desires in 1 Thessalonians 4, as well as the place of marriage in holiness in 2 Corinthians 7. These are only a few examples!

The next question is, how explicit should the church be in its sex talk? Well, it has a family audience, so it does not have to be crude. But we can hear from the pulpit talk about respect, natural desire, different roles, pregnancy, faithfulness, lust, love, responsibility, deceit, beauty, sweet talk, etc, without being crude or ‘pornographic’. There still remains a role for parents and schools for some finer biological and social details!

A point in case is the book by Richard Dobbins “Teaching your children the truth about sex”, the books by the late Walter Trobisch “I married you” and “I loved a girl”, Joshua Harris “Not even a hint”. Also there is Conrad Mbewe’s book “Maintaining Sexual Purity”. All these talk about sex without being crude or rude!

I know for the Zambian culture it seems strange to go to church and have the whole family learn about Biblical male and female roles, but perhaps the culture shift is long overdue.

Sometimes it seems it is only scandal we are ready to talk about openly!