Al Mohler has an interesting post up today entitled A Quarter Century of AIDS — What Have We Learned? Of the many interesting points he outlines is that, while AIDS is certainly a regrettable worldwide pandemic, it is unlike previous pandemics in one significant way – it can be almost entirely contained through abstinence from at-risk behaviors.
The 14th-century Black Death killed one-third of Europe’s population, but it was in the air, food and water, so breathing, eating and drinking were risky behaviors. AIDS is much more difficult to acquire. Like other large components of America’s health care costs (e.g., violence, vehicular accidents, coronary artery disease, lung cancer), AIDS is mostly the result of behavior that is by now widely known to be risky.
What are these behaviors? The sins of promiscuity and drug use. Why did this spread through the gay populuation so quickly? Rampant promiscuity, of course. Other ways of catching AIDS are mostly collateral damage due to the sins of others.
The best way to stop AIDS? Sure, in the short run, condoms and medicine are necessary. But rather than merely wasting our resources so far down the chain of events, we should be implementing an ounce of prevention by clearly teaching that if you don’t engage in at-risk behaviors, your chance of getting AIDS is near zero. But sexual virtue is not in vogue these days – it’s a fallen world, for sure, and like lemmings we go after the humanistic teachers who tell us that we can’t control ourselves, and that this type of irresponsibility is normal and acceptable. How far we have fallen.
Mohler ends his article with a summation that we must continue to repeat to the humanists who mistake truth-telling for hate, and who have little appetite for truth in general because it convicts them as well:
Christian compassion is the much-needed response, but so is Christian honesty. Love of neighbor requires that we combine compassion and truth telling.