Primary sources

In the second part, data was collected from primary sources. These included the Council of Churches in Zambia, the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia, The Churches Health Association of Zambia, The Zambia Interfaith Networking Group on HIV, the Zambia Episcopal Conference especially those directly or indirectly responsible for policy making, General Secretaries and Executive Directors. In some instances, feedback depended largely on a few write-ups that were made available from the organisation in addition to the respective individuals who were interviewed. The personal experience of the researcher in addressing the HIV scourge with the Council of Churches in Zambia where the researcher

was General Secretary, Chair of the Interfaith Network, initiator of the Circles of Hope programme and participant in several HIV related local and international conferences helps as a way of controlling data as well as extracting relevant data for the sake of contending with the arguments at hand.

Primary data were useful in contributing to the topic. It provided unbiased empirical evidence since it was directly obtained from the target group. This raw data often was of more value than secondary data. Therefore, the arguments in this study, particularly in Chapter 2 and 4, largely depended on these sources for the sake of adding more knowledge to the subject of a ministerial strategy for combating HIV.

Through interviews and structured questionnaires, information was obtained from the five faith-based umbrella bodies. A standard structured questionnaire with six questions was used in all cases and transcripts were used to compile data from interviews.

The researcher deliberately conceived the questionnaires to address the research problem and goal. Since the questionnaires were personally administered by the researcher, the return rate was 100%. The questions were not many in order to keep the respondents interested in providing answers. The six questions were meant to benchmark the organisations‘ HIV activities and inquire if they had programmes which supported the creation of support groups for people who were living with HIV. Chapter 2 begins with an overview of what has been happening in the global ecumenical church and compiles the responses to the questionnaire.

Each organisation was introduced briefly before going into what they have done in their response to HIV in Zambia. The following questions were asked:

1. Give me a brief historical background of your organisation?

2. How is the structure organised?

3. What responses has your organisation made to the problem of HIV and to many deaths caused by AIDS in our country?

4. Do you have any HIV policy statements issued by your organisation?

5. Do you have any programmes that support people living with HIV? What are they called and what do they do?

6. Give me any further information of what your organisation is currently doing about the challenge of HIV?

The following steps for doing a survey were used as adapted from The Survey System's Tutorial, revised July, 2006

Establish the goals of the project - The goal was to find out how faith communities have responded to HIV in Zambia and look at gaps. The researcher embarked to find out if Churches in Zambia do have a strategy in place which effectively addresses the issue of HIV stigma in a holistic way at a congregational level where it effectively reaches and influences members. On the other hand the researcher wanted to find out if a missional theology which promotes the praxis of the creation of ‗circles of hope‘ at a congregational level was available in the programmes or activities which were under the umbrella bodies described in this work.

This was done by asking if they had activities which supported HIV positive people.

Determine your sample - It was determined to interview the executive officers of the umbrella bodies in question thus the Council of Churches in Zambia (which was done through participant observation, since the researcher was the executive officer of the Council of Churches in Zambia), the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia, the Zambia Episcopal Conference, the Churches Health Association of Zambia and the Zambia Interfaith Networking Group on HIV/AIDS.

Choose interviewing methodology - The methodology was personal interviews.

Create your questionnaire - A questionnaire with six questions was designed and it was used as guide in all the interviews. The interviews were personal and according to The Survey System's Tutorial, revised July, 2006, an interview is called personal when the interviewer asks the questions face-to-face with the interviewee. These responses were complemented by the researcher`s participation in several HIV related conferences organized by the bodies described in this work. These conferences took place between 1999 and 2006.

Conduct interviews and enter data - The questionnaire was administered by visits to the mother bodies‘ offices and data collected.

Analysis of the data - The colleted data formed the basis of the discussion in Chapter 2.

Instead of only focusing on Scripture and tradition with the intent of making systematic and comprehensive interpretations, a missional praxis theology does theology by first focusing on local and particular issues with the intention of doing something about the reality and problems confronting the faith community, as well as society. It does this because God in his coming to us in and through Jesus Christ initiated something that changed people and formed them into a community of a people called to love God and their neighbour. Therefore, after listening to and researching the present or contextual reality affected by HIV as the main thrust of this work, a dialogue with the reality of the past and its normative content ensues.

Theology tries to discern present and past realities hermeneutically in order to discern God's will in order to participate in his ongoing praxis towards a future anticipated eschatological reality. It does so in a vocational way. This active-reflective spiral leads to a new formulation of the truth and values that may be systematically expressed in theology in new creeds as shown in the formulation of the 2003 covenant on HIV by the All Africa Conference of Churches. Above all, these values are evidenced in the life and witness of the church. As such, aspects of the eschatological future are now realized, creating joy and hope even in the face of a life threatening disease such as HIV infection (Barth, 1958: 100).

A hermeneutical, correlative way of doing theology is expressed in this work. This section heavily relies on the work done by Hendriks (2004: 33) in Studying congregations in Africa.

At least five levels of action for doing theology are mentioned in the book:

1. At a personal level, Christians are called to be followers or disciples of Jesus Christ.

They are to grow spiritually towards maturity in order to portray Christ's image. In this process they discover the gifts bestowed upon them with which they are to serve God, their neighbour and their society. The indwelling power of the Holy Spirit touches and changes them in all facets of their lives, minds, bodies and souls or, to put it in another way, rationally, emotionally and physically they are formed and transformed by the power of God.

2. At an ecclesial level, within the faith community, they are the body of Christ: a missional church (Guder, 1998). Not only as individuals, but also as a community, they have to discern God's will at a particular time and place in order to act as an alternative community, within the wider society, in order to be a light and salt to the world. Therefore, the church's vision and mission will have a direct relationship to its

different ecclesial practices or activities that evolve from its missional character.

Circles of Hope are thus one such activity evolving from this missional character and saying HIV infection is not God‘s will and begin to look for ways of being a community in the face of silence, shame and stigma brought about by HIV.

 Worship and the liturgy are of crucial importance in this regard because that is where the most intimate and deep communication can occur. All Circles of Hope meetings start with prayer and worship.

 Koinonia, or community in and through Christ and the Holy Spirit, may be experienced in all the church's activities in local or ecumenical relationships.

There is a unique fellowship shared by members of the body of Christ who are HIV positive.

 Diaconia, or the service or ministry of the church, has many forms such as taking care of one another, responding to those in need, ensuring that justice is done in all spheres of life, as well as caring for the earth. Circles of Hope are indeed an entry point for care and compassion instead of silence and stigma.

 Equally, the witness of the church has many facets, from evangelism to witnessing about truth and justice in all walks of life. The truth of HIV infection and about positive living is dealt with in Circles of Hope.

 The organization and strategic planning of the church, as an institution, the communication between, and regulating of, its life and ministries act as the skeleton and nervous system of the body and impart order and form to its many functions. The Circles of Hope are strategically planned as part of the church community, though their influence goes beyond the boundaries of the church.

3. At the level of secular society, the church also has an important role to play (Hauerwas & Willimon, 1989: 48). It must witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and proclaim prophetically that justice be done to all people, as well as ecologically to the earth (Rasmussen, 1997: 91). The body of Christ must be humble custodians of the creation.

In the process of doing theology, the church must unmask the pretences of secular value structures, unjust practices, ideologies, the seductive injustices of capitalistic market economies and the destruction of the natural habitat. Alternative stories, realities and hope should be proclaimed. The faith community should be an example of people capable of living and relating with an alternative set of normative biblical values. This communication should take place with an ethos of humble service in a language and style that can reach out to people with no Christian memory or commitments (Fowler, 1999: 84). It should be seeker-sensitive (Strobel, 1993: 11).

4. At the scientific level, on which the church should participate and which refers to the academic-intellectual aspects of theology. It is important that this aspect of theology should not be done alone in some sort of ―splendid isolation‖ (Van der Ven, 1998:

23). Theology should be multi-disciplinary insofar as it should relate to other disciplines in addressing the issues with which persons, the church and society are confronted. This does not mean that theology has to compromise its normative element.

In this regard Kelsey (1992: 20) points out that academic theology should be done through the lens of the congregation and should be taken seriously.

5. At the ecological level, the body of Christ must be humble custodians of the creation (Rasmussen, 1997: 91).

Furthermore, this study is about a theology of Hope. Hope is an integral part of the theological methodology outlined and used in the research (see Chapter 1:11 on Missional Theology below and also Chapter 3). This hope is as explained by Jürgen Moltmann (1967).¹⁷

17 Since the publication of Theology of Hope in 1964, Moltmann has continued his long adventure of theological ideas with eschatological hope, that is, hope for the coming Kingdom of God, as his central theme. His adventure of theological ideas can be divided into two parts by a turning point in his theological path in 1978:

the Mexico City Conference attended by liberation theologians, black theologians and feminist theologians. In this account we can meet two distinct series of his works: the early trilogy and systematic contributions to theology. Moltmann‘s early trilogy - Theology of Hope, The crucified God, and The Church in the power of the spirit - represent three complementary perspectives on Christian theology. These are programmatic in style and content: and in each the aim of them is to look at theology as a whole from one particular perspective (Moltmann, 1981, xi). Though they are ‗one-sided,‘ he could enter new territory, for which no maps yet existed in the theological traditions.

It is about this specific time and about Zambian Churches. In Theology of Hope (1964;

English Translation, 1967), Moltmann (1967) understands Christian faith as an essential hope for the future of human beings and this world as promised by the God of Exodus and the resurrection of the crucified Jesus. Thus for him, eschatology expresses the attitude of expectancy that underlies all of faith. For him, however, Christian eschatology does not mean

―the future as such‖; it sets out from a ―reality in history‖ and announces ―the future of that reality, its future possibilities and its power over the future‖ (1967: 17). Moltmann (1967: 84) presents Christian eschatology as an active doctrine of hope in order to give hope for an alternative future to the oppressed and suffering of the present time. This hope for him acts as the motivating force behind liberation in the world. In re-examining the sources of eschatological thought, he finds that Christian eschatology looks toward the revolutionising and transformation of the present. This is why for him, ―[t]he theologian is not concerned merely to supply a different interpretation of the world, of history and of human nature, but to transform them in expectation of a divine transformation‖. Therefore, history is the reality instituted by the promise of God in God‘s presence and experienced by human beings as the moving horizon of promise in anticipation. In this sense, his eschatology in Theology of Hope is different from the traditional theological eschatologies of the ‗hereafter.‘ God is a God of hope and this work motivates the urgency of sharing faith, love and hope to all people infected and affected by HIV, regardless of whom they are. Paul wrote: ―And now these three remain: faith, HOPE and love‖ (1 Corinthians 13:13).

Therefore, in order to do an appropriate local analysis for this study, literature describing the medical and other aspects of the HIV infection will also be used.

Part of the study will be descriptive and exploratory in nature while the other part will be about a normative approach (deductive and dialogical within a hermeneutical approach as described above). Empirical data is needed to describe the statistical situation of the Zambian HIV infection. Descriptive research as indicated above will be the entry point as there will be an investigation of the present Zambian reality in order to arrive at credible facts (Hendriks, 2004: 225). While obediently participating in transformative actions at different levels, the strategy here is to examine the existing framework of fighting HIV through the activities, public statements and programmes being undertaken at national level through the umbrella bodies of Churches. It will be shown that this has not been an effective strategy in addressing

the issue of HIV in a holistic way at a local church level where the effects of the pandemic are felt more persistently.

The study will explore, describe and explain the empirical aspects of the relations between present day HIV infection facts and their context in Zambian faith communities (Hendriks, 2004: 28).

The African traditional beliefs on ‗disease‘ and ‗healing‘ will be used to study the need to develop these healing and supportive communities. Consequently, there will be field visits to specific Christian (religious) organisations (CCZ, EFZ, ZEC and the Interfaith AIDS group) in order to assess their theological impact on the Zambian community.

Participant observation will play an important role in this study. The researcher was extensively involved in projects related to this research.¹⁸ Practising theology in this work is a praxis process; it means thinking, doing and evaluating as a process of reflective involvement (Hendriks, 2004: 203). The emphasis is on local congregations or faith communities because they can make a difference in Zambia‘s harsh realities. The love and care that are typical of faith communities can be a sign of God‘s presence and a sign of God‘s reign. As such, the catastrophic problem of HIV can, as Hendriks (2004: 33) rightly puts it, be a great opportunity for and challenge to evangelism and mission:

The Church that embodies Jesus Christ‘s coming to the world, reflects something of the God who reaches out to the sick and blind and to those caught in the fatal grip of the HIV virus. This point of our definition of practical theology concerns vision, mission, hope and eschatology (emphasis mine)

As such the study will be practical-theological in its nature. The researcher follows the definition of Fowler (1983: 4) that ―practical theological in nature‖ means a critical and constructive reflection by communities of faith carried on consistently in the contexts of their praxis, drawing on their interpretations of normative sources from scripture and tradition, in response to their interpretations of the emergent challenges and situations they face, and leading to ongoing modifications and transformations of their practices, in order to be more adequately responsive to their interpretations of the shape of God‘s call to partnership.

There will be an attempt at practising exegetics in respect of portions of relevant Scripture and faith resources as well as in respect of the contextual HIV situation in Zambia and also at

deducting from this dialogue a theory and strategy of ministry to address the epidemic in Zambia. In the process of developing a praxis theory and strategy, a participatory action research methodology will be used. Osmer and Schweitzer (2003: 5), in commending James Fowler‘s great contribution to the discipline of practical theology, states that practical theology is viewed as carrying four distinguishable but mutually influential tasks: the descriptive, empirical, the interpretive, the normative and the pragmatic. Attention to all four of these tasks allows practical theologians to construct actions, guiding theories of contemporary religious practice. All these four are in mutually influential relationship along the lines of a hermeneutical circle.

Historically, practical theology has been oriented primarily to the tasks of the clergy or the life of the Church. Fowler (1987: 20), however, suggests that explicit attention be directed to religious praxis beyond the Church. It means moving from the clerical paradigm and ecclesiocentric models to religious praxis within the context of public life in its various dimensions. By addressing issues of public interest and importance, practical theology strives to become involved with social and political attempts at shaping the future of society or thinking of current debates and more appropriate for this work, the future and the challenge of HIV to the Zambian people and the role of the Church in that future.