re christians and aids in article apr athos rutgers edu marka travis csd harris com mark ashley writes in article apr athos rutgers edu kevin pictel pictel com kevin davis writes many christians believe in abstinence but in a moment will be overcome by desire we all compromise and rationalize poor choices sin last week i was guilty of anger jealousy and whole mess of other stuff yet i am forgiven and not condemned to suffer with aids to even suggest that aids is deserved is ludicrous some rules are made because at some point man is too stupid to know better yet eventually man learns but only after getting a lesson from experience yes it s important to realize that all actions have consequences and that rules were made for our own good but to suggest that a disease is a punishment for certain types of sin i think is taking things much too far if we got some kind of mouth disease for lying would any of us have mouths left what if we developed blindness every time we lusted after someone or something i dare say all of us would be walking into walls i wonder if aids would be a problem now if people didn t get involved in deviant sexual behaviour certainly people who received tainted blood are not to blame but it just goes to show that all mankind is affected by the actions of a few yes sin can have terrible consequences but we need to be real careful when saying that the consequences are a punishment for sin the jews of jesus s time believed that all sickness was the result of a sin then jesus healed a blind man and said that man was blind to show the glory of god not because of sin if aids or any other std is a punishment for sexual sin what do we do with diseases like cancer or multiple sclerosis which are just as debilitating and terrible as aids yet are not usually linked to a specific behavior or lifestyle in addition imho forgiveness is not the end of things there is still the matter of atonement is it aids i don t know atonement is extremely important but i think you ve missed the mark about as far as you can by suggesting that aids is an atonement for sin the atonement for sin is jesus christ period this is the central message of the gospel a perfect sacrifice was required for our sins and was made in the lamb of god his sacrifice atoned for all of our sins past present and future god does not require pennance for our sins nor does he require us to come up with our own atonement he has graciously already done that for us to suggest that aids or some other consequence is an atonement for sins is literally spitting on the sacrifice that jesus made in case you couldn t tell i get extremely angry and upset when i see things like this instead of rationalizing our own fears and phobias we need to be reaching out to people with aids and other socially unacceptable diseases whether they got the disease through their own actions or not is irrelevant they still need jesus christ no more and no less than we do i ve said this before but i think it s a good analogy people with aids are modern day lepers jesus healed many lepers he can also heal people with aids maybe not on this earth but in an ultimate sense my next door neighbor has aids she has recently come to have a much deeper and more committed relationship with god her theology isn t what i would want it to be but god s grace covers her the amazing thing is that she is gaining weight she s had the disease for over years and her health is excellent apart from occassional skin rashes and such she attributes her improvement in her health to god s intervention in her life who are we to suggest that her disease is some kind of punishment it seems to me that god is being glorified through her disease paul overstreet the country singer has a good song title that i think applies to all of us but for the grace of god there go i or something like that may we all experience and accept god s grace mark ashley disclaimer the opinions expressed marka gcx ssd csd harris com here are my own they do not uunet gcx marka reflect the opinion or policies the lost los angelino of harris corporation paul conditt internet conditt titan tsd arlut utexas edu applied research phone fax laboratories fedex burnet road austin texas university of texas postal p o box austin texas austin texas the most wonderful place in texas to live ttttttttttttttt ttt ttt ttt ttt ttttttttttttt texas tech lady raiders tt ttt tt swc champions ttt ncaa national champions ttt ttttttt
