AIDS Deaths #1 For Women

According to a study "the AIDS virus is the leading cause of death and disease among women between the ages of 15 and 44." Here is an excerpt from an AOL News article about the study:

AIDS Is Leading Cause of Death in Women
By BRADLEY S. KLAPPER, AP
posted: 3 HOURS 38 MINUTES AGOcomments: 211filed under: Health News, World News
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GENEVA (Nov. 9) - In its first study of women's health around the globe, the World Health Organization said Monday that the AIDS virus is the leading cause of death and disease among women between the ages of 15 and 44.
Unsafe sex is the leading risk factor in developing countries for these women of childbearing age, with others including lack of access to contraceptives and iron deficiency, the WHO said. Throughout the world, one in five deaths among women in this age group is linked to unsafe sex, according to the U.N. agency.

(Read whole article: Here).

While unsafe sex isn't the only cause for AIDs---it is a leading risk factor---so here are some thoughts of a Christian response to the sinful aspects of this devastating disease:

Christian response to AIDS must be guided by example of Jesus

Take the example of Jesus with the woman caught in the act of adultery - really the story of the missing man (1). Here are a bunch of angry men, looking for an excuse to lynch a woman, yet it takes two to and the man is nowhere to be seen. In Jesus' day there was a hierarchy of sin: woman sex sin punished by death, other sin was more or less acceptable, while man sex sin was hardly worth fussing about.

Jesus loathed their double standards and self-opinionated hypocrisy.

He cut right through them with just one sentence: "If any one of you is without sin let him be the first to throw a stone at her" (2). "Yes you sir, who's eyes have never strayed to the top shelf of WH Smith, you who have never been jealous, spiteful, rude or have never gossiped behind someone's back, you who are the perfect wife, you who have never lost your temper with the children, you who have never told a half-truth or broken the speed limit. You come now and cast the stone."

No one moved. Jesus stared them all out until they all left one by one - the oldest first. In one sentence Jesus had totally destroyed any possibility of judging others according to a ranking of sin. All of us have sinned and fallen short of God's glory (3), all are utterly dead outside of God's grace (4).

When it comes to pointing the finger, Jesus forbids the Christian community to put ourselves on a pedestal when it comes to HIV / AIDS.

He was the only person on this earth who had the right to condemn yet he says to the woman "neither do I condemn you". He also adds "go now and leave your life of sin" (5).

As Christians we get confused between the two things Jesus said: either we rush to make a moral statement, tripping up over judgmental attitudes along the way, or we rush to express God's mercy and love, falling into a deep hole where there is no longer a clear moral framework for living. The Jesus way is to hold infinite love and perfect standards in tension together - something we need his help to do. This is the Christian way.

Let us be absolutely clear that the teaching of scripture from Genesis to Revelation is constant regarding the wonderful gift of sex union, as a celebration of love and friendship between a man and woman committed together for life. God loves sex, it's the waste of sex outside marriage that causes him grief. The bible is far more daring and explicit than our sermons on sex, making clear that all sex union outside marriage is wrong.

Sex is shown to be a mystery, a spiritual event when two become "one flesh" (6). We see the physical side of this whenever a sperm fuses with an egg. Half a cell from a woman fuses with half a cell from a man to form literally one flesh: a new unique individual full of future personality and identity.

(Read full article: Here).

See also: A Christian response to HIV and AIDS.

Female Suicide Rate Increases

Middle-Aged Women Drive Suicide Rise
By Maggie Fox,, Reuters
posted: 13 HOURS 30 MINUTES AGOcomments: 450filed under: Health News

WASHINGTON (Oct. 21) - U.S. suicide rates appear to be on the rise, driven mostly by middle-aged white women, researchers reported on Tuesday.
They found a disturbing increase in suicides between 1999 and 2005 and said the pattern had changed in an unmistakable way -- although the reasons behind the change are not clear.

The overall suicide rate rose 0.7 percent during this time, but the rate for white men aged 40 to 64 rose 2.7 percent and for middle-aged women 3.9 percent, the team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found.
"The biggest increase that we have seen between 1999 and 2005 was the increase in poisoning suicide in women -- that went up by 57 percent," said Susan Baker, a professor in injury prevention with a special expertise in suicide.
Writing in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Baker, Guoqing Hu and colleagues said they analyzed publicly available death certificate data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The results underscore a change in the epidemiology of suicide, with middle-aged whites emerging as a new high-risk group," Baker said in a statement.
"Historically, suicide-prevention programs have focused on groups considered to be at highest risk -- teens and young adults of both genders as well as elderly white men. This research tells us we need to refocus our resources to develop prevention programs for men and women in their middle years."
Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the United States and Baker said the changes are substantial.

"Definitely these are not just little blips," she said in a telephone interview. "We are looking at a big population change."
She hopes other researchers will study the reasons behind the shifts. "I certainly think we need research to look at the information that we have on people who have committed suicide," she said.
"Are these people living alone, with no major responsibility or others to take care of, or are they people overwhelmed with all of the jobs and responsibilities they have? We need to find out more about the conditions under which these people are living."
The middle-aged women and men used various methods to kill themselves -- poisons, prescription drugs, hanging or suffocation, and firearms, Baker said.
While firearms remain the most common method, the rate of gun suicides decreased while suicide by hanging or suffocation increased by 6.3 percent among men, and 2.3 percent among women.
In September researchers confirmed an 18 percent spike in youth suicides in the United States in 2004 persisted into 2005 after more than a decade of decreases.
And international research published in January found that the young, single, female, poorly educated and mentally ill are all at higher risk of suicide.
According to the World Health Organization, suicide rates have increased by 60 percent in the last 45 years. Depression is the leading cause of suicide.
Copyright 2008, Reuters
2008-10-21 08:28:31

What should be the church's response to this news?