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Black pastors forge crusade against AIDS
Oregonian (WWW)
Portland, OR
By Wendy Lawton
03.02.02
With gospel music and prayers for the well and the wasting, leaders
of Portland's African American churches on Sunday will break a 20-year
silence about AIDS.
The worship service marks the first time African American pastors
-- powerful catalysts for social change in their communities --
are banding together and publicly pledging to battle the disease.
Its effects are devastating.
In Oregon, African Americans are seven times more likely than whites
to contract AIDS. Nationally, African Americans make up 12 percent
of the population but account for more than 50 percent of all new
HIV infections. AIDS, which destroys the body's immune system, is
the leading cause of death for African Americans aged 25 to 44 in
the nation.
"These statistics are so overwhelming," said the Rev.
LeRoy Haynes Jr., pastor of Allen Temple Christian Methodist Episcopal
Church. "For so long we said that AIDS and HIV didn't affect
our community. We were wrong. Now there must be a clarion call from
the pulpit. There must be a movement to turn the tide of this disease."
Haynes invited pastors from about 30 churches to attend the interfaith
event at his Northeast Portland church -- and to bring two parishioners
who will work on education and prevention campaigns.
People in the pews also will be asked to take up the cause. At
the end of the service, they'll read a "call to commitment"
that includes the lines: "We choose compassion. We choose to
respond."
Similar calls will go up from Seattle to Staten Island to kick
off the annual Black Church Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS.
Sponsored by a New York-based nonprofit called The Balm in Gilead,
the string of services, vigils, workshops and testing clinics is
billed as the nation's largest AIDS awareness campaign targeting
the African American community.
An estimated 10,000 churches will take part in the observance,
according to founder Pernessa Seele. The former Harlem Hospital
immunologist started the event 13 years ago after watching dozens
of African American AIDS patients suffer -- and die -- alone.
"That's just not black culture," Seele said. "But
the African American community, like every community, has been in
denial about this disease. The role of the church is essential in
breaking down this denial. The church is the center of social life,
the point of political activism."
But Portland churches that are predominantly African American have
been slow to respond to the epidemic, community leaders and national
experts say.
For years, pastors in the deep South, Northeast and Midwest have
preached prevention and offered spiritual support or service referrals
to the infected or their families. Some churches even give out condoms
or offer HIV tests.
But compared with the rest of the country, Oregon's African American
population is small and its overall AIDS and HIV rates are lower.
And some African Americans don't think they are vulnerable. A recent
survey by Oregon State University found that of all racial and ethnic
groups in Oregon, African Americans were the least likely to report
that they're at risk of contracting HIV.
"You find that people still identify this disease with gay,
white males," said Larry Hill, a state HIV specialist working
with minorities. "There is still a lot of denial in the community."
Church leaders face additional challenges, said the Rev. T. Allen
Bethel of Maranatha Church of God. Contracting HIV may involve promiscuity,
drug use and homosexuality, either firsthand or through a partner
or parent. These behaviors aren't typically talked about openly
in churches. If they are, they're often condemned.
"Churches have moral teachings and people don't always follow
them," said the Rev. Cecil Prescod, who's on sabbatical. "The
challenge is what happens next. Do you reject them or welcome them?"
Some choose rejection. Delia Gilbert, an outreach intern at Women's
Intercommunity AIDS Resource in Southeast Portland, said one HIV-positive
client approached her pastor and asked him to pray for her. The
pastor, Gilbert said, asked her to leave.
Attitudes like these, however, are changing.
In November 2000, Portland's African American faith leaders came
together for an HIV/AIDS meeting called by public health and community
advocates. The daylong session planted the seeds for more action.
Last year, Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church held an AIDS service.
This month, Allen Temple started a support group for women with
HIV or AIDS. The Rev. Renee Ward leads the sessions. The 41-year-old
associate pastor has personal reasons to do so: Her first husband,
Joe, died of AIDS.
Ward learned of Joe's HIV infection in 1988, right after he got
a routine blood test. The Oakland, Calif., couple was engaged. Devoted
to Joe's generous spirit, Ward went ahead with the wedding. And
she stepped into a world of fear and pain.
Worried about gossip and judgments, Ward kept Joe's diagnosis a
secret from some family members and friends. When Ward did confide,
some snubbed her. But the worst part, Ward said, was being pregnant.
Some days, sick with worry, Ward would walk to a park alone, look
out at San Francisco Bay and pray that her child would be spared.
God heard her, Ward said. Twelve years later, neither Ward nor
her daughter has the virus. After battling AIDS-related cancer,
Joe died in 1999.
Ward went on to become a minister, got remarried, and had another
healthy child. Like other advocates, she is pushing for change in
the church. "We have to separate the medical and the moral,"
she said. "There is no place for ignorance or prejudice in
God's house." You can reach Wendy Lawton at 503-294-5019 or
by e-mail at
wendylawton@news.oregonian.com.
(C) 2002 OregonLive.com. All Rights Reserved.
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