Source: Associated Press via Washington Blade
(AP) The matter-of-fact display on prostitution was startling enough. Then, a large remote-controlled condom floated above the conference hall.

Kay Warren, wife of pastor Rick Warren, wondered what she had gotten herself into.

It was her first International AIDS Conference, in 2004 in Thailand. Just two years earlier, an article on how HIV was devastating African families led Kay Warren to take up the cause when very few conservative Christian leaders were doing so. She chronicles her journey into activism in her new book "Dangerous Surrender," which is a plea for Bible-believers to join the fight.

"I think there are some people who won't get past the first few chapters. It's not a light read," said Warren, whose husband wrote the multimillion-selling "The Purpose Driven Life." "For some people, it will come at the right time for them."

It was only a few years ago that evangelicals began tentatively putting their energies into combating the infection. Many conservative Christians considered the illness a punishment from God -- for same-gender sex, prostitution and drug use. AIDS activism also inevitably meant working with gay leaders whom evangelicals had been battling on the issue of same-sex marriage.

As recently as last year, the Barna Group, which specializes in researching the views of conservative Christians, conducted a survey in which two out of five born-again Christians said they had more sympathy for people with cancer than for those with HIV/AIDS.

In her book, Warren describes her travels to Mozambique, Cambodia, the Philippines, Rwanda and elsewhere, meeting AIDS orphans and women who got HIV from unfaithful husbands, and learning of the vulnerability of child prostitutes. The majority of people with HIV worldwide are women.

"If people are infected, they need to be embraced and valued, and receive the love of relationship in the church," Warren said in an interview, wearing an AIDS red-ribbon lapel pin wrapped around a cross. "Churches can reduce the stigma."

A small number of detractors have also focused on the Warrens' willingness to invite abortion rights supporters -- Sen. Barack Obama last year and Sen. Hillary Clinton this year -- to participate in the AIDS summit. The Warrens, who avoid partisan politics, had invited every presidential candidate. Only Clinton attended, while others sent videotaped messages.

Not everyone welcomes the support of conservative Christians. Gay activists, who for years waged a lonely, difficult struggle to help people with HIV, have been suspicious. Many wonder whether evangelicals are "coming in looking for Christian scalps," said Steve Haas, vice president for church relations at World Vision.

Warren writes that she understands the concern "when we show up 25 years later and tell them we would like to serve them." But she said she is slowly building relationships with gay-led AIDS organizations. Haas said pastors who travel overseas with World Vision often return and start HIV/AIDS ministries in their own neighborhoods.

That attitude has been changing. International Christian relief groups such as World Vision have been bringing U.S. pastors to visit AIDS-ravaged communities in Africa.

Full article: Washington Blade Online