A five-day conference to call for divine intervention in the HIV/Aids pandemic in South Africa will be held next week, the Institute for Christian Leadership Development said on Friday.
”We are going to pray and extract biblical principles on how to counsel the society when dealing with the HIV/Aids pandemic,” institute spokesperson Timothy Olusegun told the South African Press Association.
”As Christians, we cannot keep quiet as thousands of South Africans, young and old continue to die, … as we see the suffering in our nation, week after week.
”Our colleagues across the country have to bury the victims of this killer disease,” he said in a statement.
He said HIV/Aids was the biggest crisis the country has faced since the dawn of political liberation in 1990.
The institute focuses on the development of leaders to apply biblical principals towards the development of society.
”God has saved South Africa before. We believe that he will do so again,” said Olusegun.
Speakers at the conference will include medical experts, and economic and spiritual leaders from different parts of Africa.
”I believe churches have not done enough in the fight against Aids [and] the conference will encourage Christians to do more,” he said.
The conference, to be held at Beulah Park International Conference Centre in Johannesburg, will run from Tuesday to Saturday. Entrance is free of charge.
”By having the conference, we want churches to participate in the fight against the disease and people to disclose their Aids status in the church,” he said.
The institute said the conference had drawn support from a wide spectrum of Christian organisations. — Sapa