quick take

A story from PBS’s Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly discusses issues of abstinence in Uganda’s highly successful AIDS prevention campaign. Edward Baligonzaki, a pastor in Kampala, says, “We are talking about young people who are having a body, who have feelings. We are bound to lose the war the moment we turn physical health and realistic issues into moral issues.” But Stephen Langa, Executive Director of Family Life Network, contends that “realistic issues” and “moral issues” are inseparable: “This word here, morality, is a word that is not politically correct. The minute you say the word morality on HIV, they say ‘Aha! You’re judgmental.’ Now, you see, morality is what separates us from dogs and cows.”

Let’s be clear: “physical health” here means “sexuality.” While some “physical health” issues might be separate from morality (do I wear a padded insole to help my feet?), sexuality is not. According to Scripture, sexual behavior is implicitly moral because it involves not just bodies and feelings but the spiritual beings inside those bodies; as Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message, “There’s more to sex than mere skin on skin.” Anything I do that impacts another person has a moral component. I would respectfully suggest to Pastor Baligonzaki that he lost the war the moment he tried to separate morals from the discussion.