January 01, 2007

Rick Warren is Serious About Stopping AIDS

Rick Warren, pastor of the mega-church Saddleback Community Church in Lake Forest, CA, has become one of the more vocal evangelicals regarding the church's effort to stop AIDS. At Urbana 06, the InterVarsity Campus Fellowship's annual convention, Warren had another opportunity to push forward his message.

From the report in the Christian Post:

According to Warren, there are secular approaches to prevention of the disease but there is a component that only the church can deal with. “If you want to stop it, now you have to bring in the church,” he said.

Warren said that popular methods such as supplying condoms, limiting the number of partners and not offering needle exchange will slow the pandemic but will not stop it.

The church, on the other hand, has the ability to stop the disease that 69 million people around the world have been affected with, Warren claimed. The author of the best-selling novel Purpose Driven Life highlighted four key factors that the church adds to the AIDS prevention equation, which he listed together using the acronym S.T.O.P. They are:

Save sex for marriage
Teach men to respect women and children
Offer treatment through churches
Pledge yourself with one partner for life

Warren said if the world follows the above mentioned moral teachings, the widely-spread disease will inevitably overtime come to a stop.

Take note that Warren said "Pledge yourself with one partner for life."

Let's see if more people start to listen as Warren tries to become a leader in the fight against AIDS.

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