‘He Intends Victory’ at Church for Any With AIDS, HIV

Dateline San Francisco: At the funeral Tuesday for gay newspaperman and author Randy Shilts, who died of AIDS, about a dozen pickets supporting a Kansas minister carried signs that bore such slogans as “Shilts in Hell” and “Fags Burn in Hell.”

Dateline Orange County: Bruce Sonnenberg, pastor of the Village Church of Irvine, an evangelical congregation of about 250, is talking with me about his church’s response to AIDS.

Sonnenberg forced the issue from the pulpit about five years ago. He already knew that two men in his congregation had the AIDS virus and he had recently heard the story of a Los Angeles church that told a church member with AIDS that he was no longer welcome. “Those are the types of things that get my spiritual blood boiling,” Sonnenberg says, “and I decided we needed to make a commitment as a church that we were not going to be like that.”

So on that Sunday morning, Sonnenberg made his case and asked the congregation to stand up and show support for him. “It wasn’t something where I said, ‘It’s up to you and I’ll do what you want,’ ” he says.

So, he asked for support . . . and he waited.

Over the next 10 or 20 or 30 seconds, or however long it took, he says, everyone in the congregation, about 250 strong, rose to their feet.

The story about Sonnenberg’s congregation is one of several told in a just-published book by Garden Grove religious writer Dan Wooding, a former British tabloid journalist turned Christian soldier. The book, titled “He Intends Victory,” derives from the name of an AIDS support group Sonnenberg set up that plays on the letters HIV.

The support group, the first by an evangelical congregation in Orange County, meets twice monthly and has incorporated behind its slogan. Sonnenberg says there is no requirement that attendees commit themselves to religious instruction or make any pledges to renounce their gay lifestyle, if that’s how they got the disease.

Bear in mind that Sonnenberg’s flock is no group of liberal dissidents. As evangelicals, they generally adhere strongly to the Bible’s teachings and subscribe to its missionary calling. Even more to the point, they aren’t willing to budge from the belief that homosexuality is a sin. They see it as one sin in a world of sin, and not one any more or less worthy of condemnation than their own.

Sonnenberg conceded that the steadfast belief of the sinfulness of homosexuality will automatically maintain a barrier between the church and many gays. “I’ve been emphatic to say that as Christians we have no right to mock or make fun of homosexuals in any way,” he says. “I don’t think there’s a homophobic attitude in the church. I believe there is a sense of compassion for people who are homosexual, and I understand that in the homosexual community they say what right have I got to do that (to label homosexuality as sinful). I say that I have every right to do that.”

Sonnenberg was involved early on with Wooding’s book. “The real purpose of the book,” Sonnenberg says, “is to provide an opportunity for people, specifically Christians, to see the challenges before us with those people who are HIV-positive or who have AIDS and those affected by the disease.”

Why do you use the word challenge, I ask.

“Because there are stigmas and pain involved. Therefore, there are a lot of issues that aren’t real clear in the culture and society and certainly in the church, in how to live and deal with and relate to people who are HIV-positive or have AIDS. So, the challenge is to learn how to do that.”

I know the Bible verses Sonnenberg refers to. I also know that other clergy have said they don’t necessarily interpret them as blanket condemnations of homosexuality.

As someone who doesn’t consider homosexuality a sin requiring divine forgiveness, I can’t be completely in the Sonnenberg camp. But at a time when some preachers take to the streets to condemn gays and proclaim AIDS as God’s retribution against gays, Sonnenberg deserves acclaim.

The simple truth is, he could have remained silent on the issue.

So how risky was it to confront his congregation?

“In one sense, it wasn’t risky at all. I knew their hearts, I knew they would stand up and make a commitment. They had already been helping the homeless for years, it’s a sensitive congregation and so I was real confident they would make the commitment with me. But I also knew there would be a few who would be really wrestling with it, and I wanted to be sensitive to them, but I thought it was time we made the commitment together.”

The story of Sonnenberg and his Village Church seems appropriate in the week of Randy Shilts’ funeral. Perhaps Shilts would have eagerly debated Sonnenberg over what constitutes sin, but I’m reasonably sure he also would have been happy to shake his hand.