HARARE, Zimbabwe — A Baptist World Aid-sponsored conference on HIV/AIDS was held in Zimbabwe in February. The conference, which took place in the Zimbabwe capital of Harare, had in attendance 65 delegates from South Africa, Malawi, Zambia and the host country. Eleven Baptist conventions and unions, including five from Zimbabwe and three from South Africa, were represented.
“It was thrilling to hear how Baptist churches in the southern part of Africa are responding to the challenge of HIV and AIDS and poverty,” Angelo Scheepers, chairman for the southern region of the All Africa Baptist Fellowship, reported.
Among other topics, delegates discussed institutional and community care, foster parenting and orphan care, counseling HIV victims and HIV/AIDS and the local church.
On the last day of the conference, delegates adopted the Harare Resthaven Declaration, declaring that they “share God’s concern for justice and reconciliation throughout human society and for the liberation of all people from every kind of oppression, especially that of poverty and HIV and AIDS.”
The delegates confessed that “our churches have not done enough to prevent and alleviate poverty and to combat the spread and effects of HIV and AIDS” and that “our failure has escalated the effects of social injustices such as prostitution, human trafficking, child labor, violent crime and many other social ills.” The meeting affirmed “that the [gospel] of our Lord Jesus Christ rejects every form of alienation, oppression and discrimination. We should therefore not be afraid to denounce evil and injustice wherever they exist.”
The delegates committed to implement the declaration within their respective conventions and unions.
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