Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 30, 1995 TAG: 9510190001
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: J. MICHAEL PARKER SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
DATELINE: SAN ANTONIO LENGTH: Medium
For a former San Antonio pastor, Jesus' agonizing night in the Garden of Gethsemane is the only image that can evoke the sorrow he felt upon seeing the churches he loved turn their backs on his grandson who is dying of AIDS.
The Rev. Jimmy Allen, former pastor of First Baptist Church and onetime president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, says in a book due out in October that he's endured ``10 years of Gethsemane'' in the pain of seeing the church he served all his adult life reject Matthew Allen, now 12, because he has the AIDS virus.
The book, ``Burden of A Secret: A Journey of Truth and Mercy in the Face of AIDS,'' will be published by Moorings Press, a division of Random House.
Gethsemane is where Jesus spent the night before he died, praying until his sweat fell like drops of blood, all the time knowing that his trusted friends, who couldn't even stay awake during his darkest hour, would all soon abandon him.
Allen's Gethsemane began in 1985 when his son Scott learned his wife, Lydia, had contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion during pregnancy in 1982. The couple's two sons, Matthew and Bryan, also contracted the virus.
Scott, then a minister on staff at First Christian Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., sought consolation from his pastor.
Instead of offering compassion, the pastor told him he was fired, and his family had to leave the church.
``It's very, very painful to know that four of the nine people in my family will have died from AIDS,'' Allen said in a telephone interview from his home in Big Canoe, Ga., where he is chaplain at a retirement community.
From Colorado, Scott moved his family to Dallas, where they were rejected by a number of Baptist churches despite his father's personal appeals to the pastors.
``Good churches. Great churches. Wonderful people. Churches pastored by fine men of God, many of whom I had mentored. Nobody had room for a boy with AIDS,'' Allen wrote in the book.
``They were afraid that by accepting an AIDS child, they would scare off other prospects to their church,'' Allen said. ``They were certain that once the word got out that they were `an AIDS church,' nobody would come.''
The elder Allen lived with the secret of his daughter-in-law's infection until 1993, then revealed it publicly to call attention to the need for churches to face the issue forthrightly.
Bryan died shortly after the family moved to Dallas. Lydia died in February 1993, and Matthew, whose 13th birthday is in October, is failing quickly. Allen's other son, Skip, who is gay, developed full-blown AIDS only last month, the minister said.
Lydia Allen wrote to a Baptist newspaper before she died, saying her family didn't attend church anymore because ``the rejection runs too deep.''
Young Matthew said he's not interested in churches because they ``kicked me out,'' but he believes in ``a peaceful place'' of eternal life with his mother and brother.
Jimmy Allen said he's not mad at God for the scourge he and his family have endured.
``I've never had anger at God over this. On the contrary, this has helped me to know God in his suffering presence in a much deeper way than I ever did before,'' he said.
``God isn't the author of evil. He feels the pain and suffering even more than we can feel it,'' the minister said.
``I've received a more peripheral vision of God, seeing that he's bigger and more involved in the suffering of our lives than I ever thought he was,'' Allen said.
``I've been grateful for the way God has nurtured us. We couldn't have made it through this without God's nurturing,'' he said.
He said ``Burden of A Secret'' isn't an attack on unsympathetic churches, but ``telling the truth in love'' about how many churches still haven't confronted their fear and shame about AIDS and aren't following the example of Jesus.
``Jesus was the first man on record who voluntarily touched a leper, and it didn't give him leprosy, it gave lepers healing.
``In this book, I talk about how the churches have left the care of people with AIDS mainly to the entertainment community and the gay community,'' Allen said, adding: ``Churches should be leading the way in that.''
He said what's holding them back is that there's still much misinformation and fear about AIDS.
``Many people don't believe it's as difficult to transmit as it is. It's among the hardest diseases in human experience to transmit or to catch, because it occurs only through the contact of body fluids,'' Allen said.
``AIDS touches all kinds of people, but even if it were just confined to gays and lesbians, that would be all the more reason to reach out to people who are dying from it,'' Allen said.
by CNB