
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, April 21, 1990                   TAG: 9004210210
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHICAGO                                LENGTH: Medium

CHURCH WILL ACCEPT 5-YEAR-OLD WITH AIDS

A church barred a 5-year-old boy with AIDS from Sunday school, then reversed itself Friday after an uproar.

"We love [him] and we want [him] back in our Sunday school and [he] will be back in our Sunday school," the Rev. Erwin Lutzer, senior pastor of the Moody Church, said at a hastily called news conference.

But Lutzer said other parents would be notified that a child with AIDS would be attending Bible class, "and they will have the freedom to keep their children from Sunday school."

"Our position and our concerns have not changed," Lutzer said. "We have decided to shift the burden of responsibility from us as a church."

The church had drawn fire when its decision to bar the boy became public, a few weeks after the death of young AIDS victim Ryan White.

"I'm pleased that they reversed themselves. . . . I don't feel any bitterness," the Chicago boy's foster mother, Terry Rucker, said in a telephone interview Friday afternoon.

Rucker said she had not decided whether to return to the church on Sunday. "I have made no plans to go elsewhere," she added.

On Thursday, Rucker had said the church officials' initial decision stemmed "from fear and ignorance."

Before announcing the reversal, the pastor said the 65-year-old church had decided to bar the boy "to give us time to think it through."

His secretary, Evelyn Rankin, said officials of the non-denominational evangelical church acted out of concern over how AIDS is spread and fear it could be passed on through saliva.

There has never been a documented U.S. case in which AIDS, which cripples the body's defenses against disease, was spread through saliva, said Charles Fallis, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

"We are well aware of Ryan White and the implication of his death," Lutzer told reporters Friday.

by CNB