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HIV/AIDS: Are Our Churches Doing Enough?
Part Three of a Three Part Series on the Black Church
AOL Black Voices
June 12, 2006
By Angela Bronner
page: 1 | 2
Historically,
the "Black church" has been many things to the African
American community -- literal refuge, political foundation, social
safe harbor, economic center, and unequaled spiritual base.
| AIDS & The Black Church |
Steve J. Sherman
Pernessa Seele, Executive Director of The Balm in Gilead, says, "The good news is that as devastating as AIDS is, it's become a common point of bringing people together from many walks of life, who never would come together before."
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When an issue arose in or plagued the community -- Jim Crow, Civil
Rights -- more often than not, the black church was at the forefront,
providing not only moral guidance, but many times, actual leadership.
And then, along came HIV and AIDS. Though initially not viewed
as a black disease, at present, the rate of HIV and AIDS has reached
epidemic proportions in the black community.
While only 13 percent of the American population, black people
make up over half of all new HIV and AIDS infections. There is
an obvious disconnect -- AIDS is the leading killer of African
Americans ages 25 to 44, and over 82 percent of African Americans
belong to a church -- yet the black faith community has been unusually
muted for far too long around this issue.
Where is the black church in the midst of this AIDS pandemic?
"We initially responded in a negative way," says Pernessa
Seele, Executive Director of Balm
In Gilead, a not-for-profit which
mobilizes the black church community around the virus. "It
was a gay disease; it was about drug abusers and 'those people.'
It was a wrath from God on people who didn't live right.
"In my opinion, [the spread of] HIV has its roots in how the
faith community first responded to this epidemic 25 years ago," adds
Seele. "Yet, as more and more churches and faith communities
speak out against the disease and not just people living with HIV
and or AIDS, the more the stigma decreases in that community. And
that's one of the reasons the faith community is very important in
this epidemic."
Beginning 18 years ago with only 50 churches, Balm in Gilead now
works with over 20,000 churches and faith based communities, a
significant increase to be sure, but still only about one fourth
of the 85,000 black churches in the country. Balm in Gilead does
everything from helping churches to develop HIV Ministries to organizing
national testing campaigns to working within existing church structures
(i.e., men's programs, women's programs, prison ministries, and
youth fellowships.)
Bishop Yvette Flunder, pastor of City of Refuge Church in San
Francisco, as well as the international AIDS non-profit, Ark
of Refuge, says that there is something positive coming from this
most ugly disease, but that shame has contributed to its rapid
increase.
"We have two things that are making us have the big numbers
in this epidemic. One is religion and the other is shame and denial," says
Flunder. "The plus side of that, however, is that this is
creating a need for dialogue in our community about where we are
around the issues of sexuality and what I call a need for a non-punitive
discourse."
This discussion (even acknowledgment) of sexuality has recently
been embraced by prominent leaders such as the Rev.
Al Sharpton,
who in August 2005 launched a radio-based initiative to fight homophobia
in the black community, an issue he says has contributed to the
spread of HIV and AIDS.
page: 1 | 2
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