Developing HIV/AIDS Policy for Christian Ministries

Jerry Thacker, M.A.

In 1984 my wife, Sue, gave birth to our third child, whom we named Sarah. Because of complications during the delivery, Sue had the child by caesarean section and required four units of transfused blood. In 1986 we found out that one of the units of blood was contaminated with HIV. Sue passed on HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) to me and through breastfeeding gave it to Sarah. We've been living with and studying HIV now for the last ten years. Those in ministry need to understand HIV/AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is now a behavioral disease. Very few people are getting it from the blood supply. Most people get it by doing a risk activity. Although a few children born to HIV-infected mothers have it at birth (2 or 3 out of 10), most babies born to infected women do not have it unless they are breastfed.

AIDS is caused by a rather wimpy virus called HIV--the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. HIV attacks the system that's supposed to be the front line of bodily defense and destroys that system over a long period. Without a strong immune system a person can fall prey to opportunistic infections which can kill. In reality, someone with AIDS, the end stage of HIV infection, coming to a church or Christian school is less of a danger to the non-infected than the non-infected is to the person with HIV.

The real problem with HIV infection is in the fact that it takes a long time before any symptoms develop. You won't see anything at all that lets you know an attendee or student is infected. The majority of people who have the disease don't even know that they have it. Those in ministry need to talk about policies and procedures and standard precautions.

Learn a New Behavior

In the age of "don't ask, don't test, and don't tell," we're having to learn a new behavior in our society. Everyone must consider any exchange of body fluids suspect. Your staff needs to know what to do about body fluid spills and to have the appropriate gloves and cleanup materials at hand. The medical community recently recommended Universal Precautions to the Standard Precautions listed here.

In January 1996 the CDC published revised isolation/precaution recommendations. The current system of universal precautions and category specific isolation will be replaced by Standard Precautions (for all individuals) and Transmission-Based Precautions (for specific patients).

Standard Precautions

Applies to

1. Blood
2. Body Fluids, Secretions, Excretions (fluid from abdomen, joints, lungs, saliva, feces, urine)
3. Skin with opened areas (cuts, chapped hands, acne, dermatitis)
4. Mucous membranes of the eyes, nose, mouth

Definition: Any individual's blood, body fluids, secretions, excretions, open skin, or mucous membranes should be treated as if infectious. Appropriate personal equipment should be selected based upon the task being performed in combination with standard precautions.

Developing an Infectious Diseases Policy

First of all, I'm going to tell you that you should not develop an AIDS policy statement. You should develop an Infectious Diseases Policy. There are other things that can happen in your church besides AIDS that can give you problems. For example, one of the major viruses, Hepatitis B, can be transmitted much more easily than HIV. You should also keep in mind that your policy could be looked at by a third party outside your church, such as a government agency. AIDS started with a stigma and has since acquired civil rights. An AIDS-only policy could be construed as discriminatory.

Five Points in Policy Development

Point 1: Your Infections Disease Policy should show that your ministry seeks to be inclusive, instead of exclusive. I was at a Christian school in the middle of Pennsylvania not too long ago. The school draws its school base from forty different churches. This school had a policy. I said, "Do you have an AIDS policy?" They said, "Yes, we developed it in 1987." I said, "Fine, can I see it?" Knowing the Pennsylvania Human Rights Commission had declared AIDS a disease covered by the Americans With Disability Act and that you couldn't discriminate against having someone in your school with this disease, I knew exactly what I would see when I saw the policy. The policy was very simple. It said, "If you have this disease, you can't come to school here." That was it. That particular policy would now be considered illegal and would give the school all kinds of problems if someone with HIV wanted admission and they didn't let him or her in. Any written policy should begin with a statement indicating that the goal is to include HIV positive or asymptomatic AIDS people in the ministry programs and not to exclude them.

Point 2: Balance caution with compassion. Yes, this disease is deadly, but for the most part, the kind of contact that's going to take place in a ministry setting is not going to transmit it.

Point 3: Make sure your policy is medically correct. There is a great deal of misinformation about this disease. If you understand the medical facts of this disease, it will help dispel fear. What I recommend is that you have an education program in your school to educate your people. The best way to handle HIV is to educate about it before the first case comes in the door. If you don't, you can have some serious problems. Your policy needs to be medically correct. It can also have a section which is AIDS specific and specific for smaller children. You can have a different set of policies for the nursery and very young children.

Point 4: Your implementation of a policy must be a combination of an educational effort and awareness campaign. Start now and say, "Six months from now we want to have a policy in place to deal with infectious diseases, and we want to have our people educated." Then take the steps necessary to make it happen. You want to have a whole educational campaign around infectious diseases that culminates in a policy, procedures, and training.

Point 5: Include a component of abstinence training. Abstinence from sexual activity except in marriage is the only safe practice. Faithfulness in marriage is right. It is also smart.

Scepter Institute has created the AIDS & Your Church Manual to help you develop a policy and the procedures that make sense. This 144-page book includes policy statements and procedures from dozens of ministries that have already gone through the process. Overhead masters for teaching young people about HIV infection are also included. In addition, we have a number of videos to teach your young people, including "Everything You Wanted to Know About HIV/AIDS but Were Too Afraid to Ask,"" the Thacker testimony video, "When AIDS Comes Home," and others. We have also created a "Covenant of Chastity" program which includes a monograph, pledge cards, and lapel pins for your teens. Call 800-588-7744 for information and a free sample.

Reprinted from Balance, a publication of the School of Education, Bob Jones University. Used with permission of Bob Jones University. Please write BJU Press, for permission to reproduce this article.