Posted on 11/01/2010 8:41:02 PM PDT by nickcarraway
While the debate over how to best tackle the spread of HIV is alive and well in South Africa, a Pastor in Cape Town has taken the topic to a controversial new level by claiming that Jesus Christ was HIV positive.
In a series of sermons delivered at Luhlaza High School in Khayelitsha township, Cape Town, Pastor Xola Skosana declared that Jesus Christ had “put himself in the shoes of people who experience brokenness” and had channeled the suffering of his followers by experiencing their same sickness, pain and marginalization, reports the BBC.
Local’s dismay at the content of the sermons quickly spread to the national arena following the events in Cape Town, forcing Pastor Skosana to explain his approach.
“The best gift we can give to people who are HIV-positive is to help de-stigmatize AIDS and create an environment where they know God is not against them, he’s not ashamed of them,” he said.
But while some groups praise the pastor’s metaphor as a means of reaching out to the infected and enhancing the debate about HIV prevention in South Africa, others are outraged over the connection he has made between Jesus and the precarious situations in which the virus can be contracted.
Fellow religious leaders have noted that the metaphor jeopardizes believers’ understanding of Jesus as supreme and God, ultimately rendering him part of the problem and not the solution.
What an ass this pastor. Must be a liberation-theology type.
SA is the next Zimbabwe. I advise people in offshore investments, and I’d advise them to run their money through a paper shredder before I’d advise them to invest in SA. Less painful to watch.
I eagerly await hearing the Pope and numerous archbishops issue religous death rulings for insulting the Lord and Savior in such a fashi....oh...wait....wrong religion.
Rev Wright?
The basis of his sermon is the Jesus understands our situation since he walked among us and felt what we feel firsthand. He felt temptation, grieving, sorrow, physical pain, emotional hurt, sickness, fear.
I think he blew the delivery somewhat and people are running with it.
I didn't know HIV was around in those days. Ya learn something new every day!
What the...?
Jesus didn’t have HIV, He became HIV. And every other sin. God made Him so that we could become His righteousness. 2 Cor 5.
Jesus knew before Adam was created that Peter would deny Him three times that night. He knew Judas would turn Him in to the Romans. He knew we all would fall short and need His salvation.
Unless one does art work for the Paulist Society in the Philippines which publishes postcards depicting Jesus as a basketball player, Harley-Davidson, rider, a kind of Elvis figure talking on a cell phone, and other things, in photos are uterly blasphemous.
If Jesus was HIV positive, then He must have also had smoker's lung cancer, the drunkard's liver sclerosis, etc.
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