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TRANSCRIPT:
Episode no. 606
October 11, 2002
BOB ABERNETHY, anchor: Coming up, how one Asian nation confronted AIDS -- and why patients go to Buddhist temples to die.
PHRA CHOOCHART (AIDS Patient): In society, if you catch HIV, nobody wants you.
ABERNETHY: And tent revivals -- a vanishing phenomenon -- but some still linger, especially in the South.
Welcome, I'm Bob Abernethy. It's good to have you with us.
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BOB ABERNETHY: As Congress gave President Bush authority to use military force against Iraq, more religious groups raised their voices.
Unidentified Woman: Hi, Representative Doggett.
ABERNETHY: Groups opposed to a U.S. attack on Iraq -- Christians, Jews, and Muslims -- brought their concerns to Capitol Hill.
Meanwhile, a coalition of American and British Church leaders issued a statement calling war against Iraq, quote, "illegal, immoral, and unwise."
United Methodist Leader James Winkler helps organize religious opposition to a U.S. attack.
JAMES WINKLER (United Methodist Leader): There's nothing I understand in Jesus' teaching that justifies violence. We as Christians constantly have to ask the question of, "Where does our faith come into play in our daily life?" The Church is not going to be and should not be a cheerleader for war.
ABERNETHY: Religious organizations on both sides of the issue, sent letters to President Bush this week. Some liberal Church groups urged restraint in talk of war: "As a church, we are called to practice the forgiveness of enemies."
While Orthodox Jewish leaders joined prominent conservative Christians in voicing support for military action, a letter from Southern Baptist Leader Richard Land called a strike against Iraq, quote, "Both right and just." And Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals agrees it's time to act against Saddam Hussein.
RICHARD CIZIK: Christians have a responsibility, one could say even a duty here, to respond to evil. It would be Christian charity from my vantage point to respond to this kind of imminent and real threat. My first responsibility is to pray. To pray for peace. I don't desire war. But I have a responsibility to confront evil, I believe.
Unidentified Woman #2: We come to you, Lord, asking you to help us find another way. We pray for peace.
ABERNETHY: Peace rallies and vigils continued even as Congress approved the war authorization.
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BOB ABERNETHY: The morning after the Congressional vote, former President Jimmy Carter was announced this year's winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace, quote, "for his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts and to advance democracy and human rights."
Three years ago, I asked President Carter whether he had found any conflict between his religious beliefs and being Commander in Chief.
JIMMY CARTER: (From October 27, 1999) I went through four years without ever having a bullet or missile fired. We never dropped a bomb on anybody. And when we had a troubled arena in the world, we tried through diplomacy and through the realization by our adversaries that we were strong to maintain peace. So I think for somebody to be for peace, for human rights, for the alleviation of suffering, is not signs of weakness and those are, in my opinion, completely compatible with the Christian faith.
ABERNETHY: For more of my interview with former President Carter, log on to our Web site at pbs.org.
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BOB ABERNETHY: The Christian Coalition held its annual convention in Washington this week. Coalition leaders pledged to reenergize their grass-roots activism for conservative causes. President Bush sent videotaped greetings and a line of Republican politicians gave remarks. House Deputy Majority Whip Roy Blunt urged the group to keep fighting for faith and freedom.
Representative ROY BLUNT: Whether it's terrorists attacking Tel Aviv or terrorists attacking New York City.
Unidentified Man: Yeah!
Mr. BLUNT: We have a vested interest as Christians, frankly, in a world where you can freely share the ideas that you have.
ABERNETHY: A major feature of this year's convention was a rally expressing Christian solidarity with the State of Israel. Many conservative Christians say they feel a special affinity with Israel because they believe it's the Promised Land for God's chosen people. They also believe Israel plays a key role in biblical prophecy about the end of the world.
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BOB ABERNETHY: The Reverend Jerry Falwell came under increasing fire this week for calling the prophet Mohammed a terrorist. Mainline Protestant, Jewish and Muslim groups all criticized Falwell and other Evangelical leaders for recent remarks against Islam. The Interfaith Alliance urged President Bush and other politicians to distance themselves from religious leaders making such statements.
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BOB ABERNETHY: And now, part two of our report on AIDS. Today, the situation in Thailand, the most successful of all the developing countries in bringing down HIV infections. One reason is the support of Buddhist monks for the government's anti-HIV campaign. Monks also run hospices for those dying of AIDS and as a matter of public education, encourage tourists to come visit. Fred de Sam Lazaro reports.
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Many Buddhist temples are tourist attractions in Thailand, but this one, tucked away in the hills north of Bangkok is unusual. It was built a decade ago, not as a traditional place of worship, but as a hospice. A place where AIDS patients come to die with dignity.
There are about 300 beds here, a fraction of the demand, but there seems no limit to the number of tourists who come through to meet and take pictures near AIDS patients -- to view the stark crematory and bone room where the bones and ashes of thousands of patients lie in piles and the after-death room, a macabre display that more befits a pathology museum.
In fact, tourist donations sustain this facility, not government funds. And the founding monks say it helps sensitize adults to the AIDS problem. Even school kids arrive daily by the bus load.
Abbot PHRA ALONGKOT DIKKAPANYO (Wat Prabt Nam Phu Monastery): Our people -- if they can see by themselves, not only listen or look at the picture, they can understand easily. And it's a good way of education in our country.
DE SAM LAZARO: Thailand has long been in the vanguard in tackling AIDS. It was the first Asian country to suffer an epidemic, stemming from another enduring tourist attraction: the commercial sex trade, which caters both to Thai and foreign tourists.
When AIDS hit in the early Ô90s, Thailand had a quick response. Not so much with money or health services, but with its already highly successful family planning program. It had popularized one of the most effective weapons in AIDS prevention: the condom.
The program was headed by Mechai Viravaidya, politician from a prominent Thai family, economist by training, but best known as "The Condom King."
MECHAI VIRAVAIDYA (Head, Population and Development Authority): We said, "Look, one must not be embarrassed by the condom. It's just from a rubber tree like a tennis ball. If you're embarrassed by a condom, you must be more embarrassed by the tennis ball. There's more rubber in it." We gave them out all over and we said, "Look, the condom is clean if your mind is not dirty. So please take one."
DE SAM LAZARO: Early on, Viravaidya took his case to monastery and monks because surveys showed that they were the most influential people, particularly in rural areas of this predominantly Buddhist nation of 60 million. The monks were supportive.
Mr. VIRAVAIDYA: And in the Buddhist scriptures it said many births cause suffering, so Buddhism is not against family planning. And we even ended up with monks sprinkling holy water on pills and condoms for the sanctity of the family before shipments went out to the villages.
DE SAM LAZARO: The condom and AIDS information campaign is widely credited with a dramatic drop in the number of HIV infections. From about 140,000 a year in 1990, to about 30,000 ten years later.
Mr. VIRAVAIDYA: So any customer who buys some fruit will also get condoms and AIDS safety tips.
DE SAM LAZARO: Fewer Thai men visit brothels and 90 percent of those who do now use condoms. But hit hard by the Asian financial crisis in the late Ô90s, Thailand cut back funds to its AIDS campaign. That's blamed for an increase in infections among certain populations, including young pregnant women. Viravaidya says the message just isn't getting through to them effectively.
Mr. VIRAVAIDYA: Can't just do it for a year and stop. You have to continue and change your message. Put it into soap operas, commercial movies again. We have to redesign our public education program and make it a bit more jazzy compared to its last days of somewhat dullness.
DE SAM LAZARO (to Mr. Viravaidya): So it just, basically, lost steam?
Mr. VIRAVAIDYA: Yes.
DE SAM LAZARO: Viravaidya is confident Thailand's infection rate can be contained once again. Awareness is high, as is literacy -- as is the availability of condoms. The big problem is how to deal with the one million or so Thais already infected. Tens of thousands of previously symptom-free HIV patients are now in the visible advanced, terminal phases of the disease. The campaigns may have raised awareness, but many say, "Not sympathy."
PHRA CHOOCHART (AIDS Patient): I kept the secret for many years, but finally something happened in my skin, it began to appear. I cannot keep secrets anymore. So I became a monk. Because in society, if you catch HIV, nobody wants you. Also your family.
DE SAM LAZARO: Phra Choochart is one of about a dozen monks who live here. Most of the beds are occupied by ordinary Thais, many from lower socio-economic groups. It's a refuge from a hostile world, but the emphasis seems more on efficiency than comfort.
Dr. CHRIS LACK (Hospice Volunteer): My life philosophy is close to the Buddhist.
DE SAM LAZARO: Chris Lack is a recent medical graduate from Australia, one of several foreign volunteers.
Dr. LACK: Right, so these are the coffins that everyday when patients die, they're loaded into one of these and in the next morning they're taken in a truck out here and up to the crematorium.
There's seven ovens in the crematorium. So, apparently when they were building it, they built it with the belief that, you, now, I might just go over and check if this guy's all right -- still alive. He will probably die tonight. He's held on for a couple of days now, and he didn't seem like he would, but he's -- pretty much all that moves now are his eyes and even his eyes only sometimes move. So he's very much in the last stage.
DE SAM LAZARO: Death here is a no-frills affair. Every day an average of two to three patients die. Few relatives ever visit this place, attend the funeral or claim the ashes or bones.
Abbot DIKKAPANYO: I've tried to give knowledge for our people for a long time, ten years. And nowadays they can visit the patients. They like to learn, they like to visit. But they cannot touch the patient. Maybe in five or ten years in the future. Our hospice is like a school -- it gives knowledge. People can come here and learn how to look after the patient in their family.
DE SAM LAZARO: The Abbot hopes Thais will learn from visits here that AIDS is not contagious through simple touch and caring and that eventually more people will be cared for at home. And Thailand will soon make available at just one dollar a day, anti-retroviral drugs. These expensive drugs, now common in the West, should extend the life expectancy of patients like these. But just as important is the task of preventing new infections.
Thailand's renewed campaign for HIV prevention and awareness will come from media personalities like Mechai Viravaidya and public health authorities. But the task of increasing compassion and more immediately, hands-on care for many Thai AIDS patients, will have to come from its temples.
For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, this is Fred de Sam Lazaro at the Wat Prabt Nam Phu Monastery in Thailand.
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BOB ABERNETHY: The State Department says millions of religious believers around the world continue to face persecution because of their beliefs.
COLIN POWELL (Secretary of State): These inexcusable assaults on individual liberty and personal dignity cannot be justified in the name of any culture, in the name of any creed or in the name of any country.
ABERNETHY: Powell released the department's annual religious liberty report together with Ambassador-at-Large John Hanford. Hanford cited ongoing oppression in several communist and Muslim countries and increasing restrictions on religious minorities in Europe.
JOHN HANFORD III (Ambassador-at-Large): Religious freedom is under siege in many parts of the world. This report, by exposing the problem, is a first step in countering that assault.
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BOB ABERNETHY: Religious liberty was also on the agenda at a Washington rally for human rights in China. A diverse coalition of religious freedom advocates, human rights groups and women's organizations gathered at the Supreme Court to protest ongoing repression in China. Participants said the Chinese government has continued to crack down on Falun Gong practitioners, unregistered Christians and Muslims. They urged U.S. leaders to raise the human rights issue during Chinese leader Jiang Zemin's visit here later this month.
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BOB ABERNETHY: The Vatican is getting ready to release its response to the U.S. bishops' new policy on clergy sex abuse. Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. conference of Catholic bishops, has a series of regularly scheduled meetings at the Vatican this coming week. It's expected that during the visit, Vatican officials will formerly hand over their review of the plan adopted by the U.S. bishops in June. Some concerns already have been raised about whether parts of the plan conflict with Church law.
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BOB ABERNETHY: In Rome, this has been a week of celebrations for the newest saint in the Roman Catholic Church. Pope John Paul II canonized Josemaria Escriva, the Spanish priest who in 1928 founded Opus Dei, a controversial lay Catholic organization. Opus Dei emphasizes finding God in work and ordinary life. About 300,000 pilgrims, one of the Vatican's largest crowds ever, attended the canonization ceremony. Opus Dei claims more than 80,000 members worldwide. Some criticized the movement's secrecy and conservatism, but its influence has grown during the Papacy of John Paul II.
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BOB ABERNETHY: Now, a rare look at a dying phenomenon, the old-fashioned tent revival. Revivals were important religious and social events throughout most of American history, especially in the rural South. Recently, producer David Bernknopf discovered a tent revival that has taken place every summer since 1887, at the Rock Springs Campground in northwest Georgia.
BETTY ROSS: I love the spirit that's here. People just seem to be a different person when they're here. I don't know what it is.
Unidentified Man #1: We're rushing around trying to get things together before we start the 11:00 o'clock service. It makes it a little rougher.
WALLACE SUTTON: I've been coming to this campground ever since I was even big enough to remember. People used to come here and bring their cows -- tie them out around here. They'd milk the cows here on the property.
EMMA ALLEN: Hey! How you doing? How are you doing there? Pretty good to see you, good to see you.
Unidentified Woman: It's going to be a glorious day.
Ms. ALLEN: You know when you get together and have a good time in the Lord -- what a time, what a time.
Unidentified Man #2: (Singing) No more bill collectors knocking at our door.
Reverend RANDY MINCEY (Presiding Pastor): It's good to be able to see where we were and where we've come from. So this camp meeting is an opportunity for us to go back and reflect. That's why I have this attire on today, just to go back and reflect on some of the hard times.
Congregation: (Singing): Don't visit heaven. Don't cry against glory. Tell them we'll be happy. Don't you see? And there will be -- don't hang that sorrow. No more worrying about tomorrow.
Reverend FRANKLIN WINTERS (St. John Baptist Church, Cleveland, Georgia, preaching): The church is going to be raptured in a few more years. I don't know the day, I don't know the hour. I don't want to know. But one thing I do want to know -- I want to be ready when I'm in heaven. I want to be ready to go home with the Lord.
You've got to live the life that you talk about -- the life that you sing about -- Jesus is my Lord. And if he's really your Lord, you will make it in.
Rev. MINCEY (preaching): Somebody need to know the Lord today. Somebody needs to feel God right now.
Unidentified Woman #2: It's like a family reunion to us. Baby, we just enjoyed your preaching. You did a wonderful job, and you say give flower power, but we want to thank you for that message that you brought to us today.
Congregation: (Singing) I still have joy.
GLORIA SUTTON (Campground Committee): (Singing) We say that we have glory. I still have joy.
ALASKER JAMES: Whoa, yeah. Whoa! Whoa, whoa. It's joy. It is just so much joy. It just thrills your body. It just give you a new release in life and the spirit -- when the spirit comes to you, you know the Lord God Almighty is looking down upon you.
Ms. SUTTON: There is a special feeling here, and I would say that it is because of the open air that there's a freedom, there's a freedom of spirit, you know. We've got so traditionalized in the churches and so programmed until -- there's no program to this. You move according to the spirit of God. And you just let Him have his way.
Unidentified Man #5: Well, I'll be doggoned. My old school teacher.
Ms. SUTTON: You feel it when you come on the ground. There's a peace, there's a serenity, you know, that man can't give. You can't buy, you know, and God can give it.
Congregation: (Singing) Goodness and glory, hallelujah since I left my burden down.
Reverend LARRY DEAVERS (Mount Zion Baptist Church, Oakwood, Georgia, preaching): The message today, hold on in spite of. The Lord is looking for dedicated Christians. He's looking for Christians who will stand for right when all others are wrong. I come to tell you to hold on in spite of. Hold on in spite of the dark days. Hold on. I know you get tired sometimes, but hold on. I know it, you get tired. But hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Oh, Satan, the blood of Jesus is against you.
Congregation: (Singing) Oh, Satan, the blood of Jesus is against you. Oh, Satan, the blood of Jesus is against you. Satan, the blood of Jesus is against you. Oh, Satan, whoa, the blood of Jesus is against you. Oh, Satan. Oh, Satan, the blood of Jesus is against. I know the blood of Jesus is against you right now.
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BOB ABERNETHY: This week, bad news for Greek Orthodox priests hoping to modernize their image. Long beards, black robes and pipe hats are part of the distinctive wardrobe of priests in Greece's Orthodox Church, but some priests say that look can be off-putting to their ministering flock and to potential marriage prospects. However, this week a council of church officials in Athens says the clerical dress code stands.
There is an exception for clergy doing manual labor, they can wear shorter robes.
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BOB ABERNETHY: Finally, "Veggie Tales," the popular children's biblical video series has splashed onto the big screen. "Jonah: The Veggie Tales Movie" debuted at number six at the box office, even though it won't be released in the northeastern U.S. until October 18. It's said to be a whale of an adaptation of the traditional bible story, with a talking asparagus starring as Jonah.
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BOB ABERNETHY: That's our program for now, I'm Bob Abernethy. To find out more about RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, log on to pbs.org or America Online keyword: PBS.
As we leave you, the VEGGIE TALES theme song, "In the Belly of the Whale" performed by the Newsboys.
 Back to Article Finder: Stories by Week
© 2002 EDUCATIONAL BROADCASTING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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