At Risk: Aids: A Teen Nightmare

Just how widespread is HIV infection among adolescents? Officials wish they knew. But the number of teens who have actually developed AIDS has increased by more than 70 percent since 1989, making that syndrome the sixth-leading cause of death among youth ages 15 to 24.

Given such grim data, more evangelicals are challenging Christian leaders and denominational officials toward action, accuracy, and compassion in combating transmission of HIV.

“If we don’t know the truth, how can we as a Christian community respond appropriately to what will become the social issue of the nineties?” asks popular youth worker Josh McDowell.

Joining McDowell in urging greater Christian involvement is prominent AIDS researcher Robert Redfield, chief of retroviral research at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington, D.C. Earlier this summer Redfield led a Washington briefing on teens and AIDS. The meeting was cosponsored by the Josh McDowell Ministry and Americans for a Sound AIDS/HIV Policy (ASAP), an education and service group.

Redfield attacked current HIV prevention efforts that emphasize “safer sex” practices among adolescents and others. “Condoms aren’t safer; they’re dangerous at best,” he told the 117 Christian leaders gathered for the meeting. He cited a 3 to 20 percent failure rate of condoms. “ ‘Take a risk that could destroy your life’: that’s the double message we’re giving kids.” Rather, Redfield called on Christians to teach sexual responsibility and attack the “myth of the valueless message” that accepts any sexual behavior in any setting. He called “bidirectional monogamy” the soundest medical policy and one that could “stop this epidemic in its tracks.”

Church Youth

Teens with multiple sexual partners face the greatest risks. And according to a recent study released by the Centers for Disease Control, 19 percent of high-school students say they have had four or more sex partners; among high-school seniors, the number is 29 percent. Many say the church cannot afford to ignore the statistics. Indeed, research shows that “church youth are not unlike unchurched youth in their sexual activity today,” says Shepherd Smith, founder and president of ASAP.

In such a context, Peggy Markell, a registered nurse and chastity educator from New York State, calls upon Christians to make the abstinence message for teens more effective. Instead of emphasizing the consequences of early sexual activity, such as AIDS and pregnancy, they should focus on the benefits of abstinence—notably, healthy emotional and sexual relationships, she says. Markell urges training programs for parents, teachers, clergy, and community leaders in presenting the positive message.

Congress has also been addressing the issue of youth and AIDS, to the mixed reviews of many Christians. Last spring, the House Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families issued a report calling for earlier and more explicit HIV-prevention programs that center on condom use. The majority report blamed the spread of AIDS on the federal government’s denial of the problem and “sketchy prevention efforts.” The report devoted only one sentence to the promotion of abstinence.

In contrast, the dissenting minority report of the committee coincided with the commonly held evangelical position of abstinence, according to Smith. The minority report called AIDS among teens primarily a “behavioral problem” rather than a health issue. The report also disagreed that “early sexual activity is a normal and inevitable part of growing up.” “Any attempt to substitute a program for a family, or services for values,” it said, “is doomed to fail.”

By Pamela Pearson Wong in Washington.

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