A.I.D.S. a consequence, says church leader

Press, 20 October 1986, Page 7

A.I.D.S. a consequence, says church leader

A.I.D.S. was not a punishment from God, said the district overseer of Jehovah’s Witnesses in New Zealand, Mr Mervyn King, at a two-day conference at Canterbury Court which ended yesterday.

Neither was A.I.D.S. a "vindication” of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ belief that blood transfusions were wrong and went against the “Bible’s command to abstain from all blood,” said Mr King, one of the main speakers at a public lecture yesterday attended by more than 1100 people from throughout the South Island. The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ view was that the appearance of the virus was “evidence of the law of natural retribution, of reaping what you sow,”

said Mr King. It was the “natural consequence of breaking one of God’s laws, namely that men should not lie with other men,” he said. “This does not mean it is a punishment from God,” he said. Mr King said he realised that A.I.D.S. could be acquired by sexually active heterosexuals as well as homosexuals. Jehovah’s Witnesses were not against homosexuals themselves but, according to the Bible, they could not condone the act, said Mr King.

An increase in diseases and the high crime rate were, among other disturbing trends, merely indications that the world was “in its last days.”

Mr King said he could not put a date on the end of the world, as it “would happen in God’s time.” Mr King has almost completed the first year of a three-year term as the New Zealand district overseer. He says he offers encouragement and spiritual guidance to congregations, and he canvasses house to house with his wife, Mrs Gwen King, three days a week. Mr King has been a member of Jehovah’s Witnesses for 50 years, and has worked in Australia as an overseer for about 17 years.

About 8000 New Zealanders were members of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the New Zealand district, including the Cook Islands and Niue, he said.