AIDS activist sees “golden time” of Church response
BURLINGTON, ON—Pastor, broadcaster, author and 21st century prophet Jim Cantelon believes the next 25 to 30 years could well be a "golden time" for the Church worldwide. And he's doing everything in his power to help lay the foundation for that to happen.
But Cantelon's idea of "golden" doesn't involve huge buildings bursting at the seams with oversized congregations and countless program offerings. What it does involve is the Church living out her God-given mission; to be the body of Christ and God's hand extended, compassionately serving the broken, poor and marginalized in our world. It involves caring for widows and orphans and seeking after righteousness, justice and hope.
As founder and president of Visionledd (www.visionledd.com), Cantelon has spent the last seven years calling the Church to respond biblically to the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa. "Every church a Mother Theresa," is his rallying cry, and churches by the thousands—in Africa, Central America, Europe and North America—are responding.
"I'm very, very encouraged," says Cantelon, who explains that when he speaks in churches, raising the issue of HIV/AIDS in Africa, "the response is always positive. "It's the churches who are responding big time to my message and it's the churches who are providing the kind of funding so we can do what we need to do. There's a spark of compassion and mercy that's been activated in believers. The response is genuine, sincere and on-going."
It's going to have to be. According to Visionledd's website, 40 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. Every day around the world there are 14,000 new HIV infections, 95 per cent of them in developing countries. Every hour of every day, 354 people die of AIDS. "That's like a 747 crashing every hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week," says the site.
The Church has contributed to the pandemic, says Cantelon, "through the sin of omission. We have steadfastly refused to acknowledge that HIV/AIDS is our issue. The Church has been in a major state of denial. Time and time again, when I stand in African pulpits, I'm the first guy ever in the history of that church to raise the issue."
He says North American churches are no less at fault, and still tend to view AIDS as a gay man's disease. "Whether they say it or think it, there's this idea that [AIDS victims] are getting what they deserve," says Cantelon.
"To which I say, 'Well, what if we got what we deserve?'"
He sees his major calling as being to "raise awareness," about the growing and deadly scourge of HIV/AIDS, and spends fully half of his year traveling the globe to do just that. "I'm always out there sounding the alarm, blowing the trumpet," he explains. "As awareness is raised, people respond. And as they respond they say, 'what can I do?'"
In answer, Cantelon has just published When God Stood Up: A Christian Response to Aids in Africa, a book he describes as a "call to churches wherever they may be to re-engage the broken around them through justice-seeking ministries."
Packed with stories of Cantelon's own experiences, travels, reflections and insights, the book is a kind of manifesto of social justice.
At 59, Cantelon says he—like Jacob—has wrestled with God and now "walks with a limp." Since founding Visionledd in November 1999, he's been changed, "damaged," he says, by the depth of the pain he's witnessed, and is now driven to help correct the injustices he's become so closely acquainted with, injustices that afflict the victims of HIV/AIDS.
"I understand now that I'm no longer working from a position of strength," he says. "I'm just one of whom much has been forgiven and of whom much is required."
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