Religious Responses to HIV and AIDS

Religious institutions shaped the ways individuals, communities and societies responded to HIV and AIDS since the 1980s. This book draws on research studies ranging in context from sites in sub-Saharan Africa to New York City in the USA to examine the complexity of responding to the epidemic both globally and locally. Religious systems of meaning, practices and institutions have been central to the articulation of projects for social change and inversely sometime strongly resistant to change in diverse institutional responses to HIV and AIDS. Sometimes, religious movements provided powerful forces for community mobilisation in response to the social vulnerability, economic exclusion and health problems associated with HIV. In other contexts, religious cultures have reproduced values and practices that have seriously impeded more effective approaches to mitigate the epidemic. By highlighting these complex and sometimes contradictory social processes, this book provides new insights about the potential for religious institutions to address the HIV epidemic more effectively. More broadly, it shows how research can be done on religion in the area of global public health, showing how civil society organizations shape opportunities for health promotion: a crucial and new area of global public health research. This book was originally published as a special issue of Global Public Health.

Miguel Muñoz-Laboy is an Associate Professor at Temple University, USA, and a public health and social work researcher whose work focuses on the intersections of social and cultural factors on determinants of HIV risk. Jonathan Garcia is an Associate Research Scientist at Columbia University, USA, and a political anthropologist with extensive field research focused on HIV and AIDS and community mobilization in Brazil and the United States. Joyce Moon-Howard is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University, USA, and a specialist in community-involved public health research primarily among minority communities with a long-standing research and programmatic interest in religious responses to HIV and AIDS. She is a specialist in community involved public health research primarily among minority communities and has had a long-standing research and programmatic interest in religious responses to HIV and AIDS domestically and internationally. Patrick A. Wilson is an Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University, USA, and a community psychologist with more than a decade of experience examining the intersecting roles that psychological factors and socio-contextual factors (i.e., discrimination and stigma, religion) play in explaining HIV risk and protective behaviours among racial/ethnic and sexual minority populations. Richard Parker is a Professor of Sociomedical Sciences and Anthropology at Columbia University, USA, and is one of the pioneer scholars in examining the structural factors and the political economy of the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.

1. Introduction: Religious responses to HIV and AIDS: Understanding the role of religious cultures and institutions in confronting the epidemic Miguel Muñoz-Laboy, Jonathan Garcia, Joyce Moon-Howard, Patrick A. Wilson and Richard Parker 2. AIDS, religious enthusiasm and spiritual insecurity in Africa Adam Ashforth 3. Fighting down the scourge, building up the church: Organisational constraints in religious involvement with HIV/AIDS in Mozambique Victor Agadjanian and Cecilia Menjívar 4. Pentecostalism and AIDS treatment in Mozambique: Creating new approaches to HIV prevention through anti-retroviral therapy James Pfeiffer 5. Free love: A case study of church-run home-based caregivers in a high vulnerability setting Robin Root and Arnau van Wyngaard 6. Conflicts between conservative Christian institutions and secular groups in sub-Saharan Africa: Ideological discourses on sexualities, reproduction and HIV/AIDS Joanne E. Mantell, Jacqueline Correale, Jessica Adams-Skinner and Zena A. Stein 7. Civic/sanctuary orientation and HIV involvement among Chinese immigrant religious institutions in New York City John J. Chin, Min Ying Li, Ezer Kang, Elana Behar and Po Chun Chen 8. Ideologies of Black churches in New York City and the public health crisis of HIV among Black men who have sex with men Patrick A. Wilson, Natalie M. Wittlin, Miguel Muñoz-Laboy and Richard Parker 9. Vulnerable salvation: Evangelical Protestant leaders and institutions, drug use and HIV and AIDS in the urban periphery of Rio de Janeiro Jonathan Garcia, Miguel Muñoz-Laboy and Richard Parker 10. Blood, sweat and semen: The economy of axé and the response of Afro-Brazilian religions to HIV and AIDS in Recife Luis Felipe Rios, Cinthia Oliveira, Jonathan Garcia, Miguel Muñoz-Laboy, Laura Murray and Richard Parker 11. A time for dogma, a time for the Bible, a time for condoms: Building a Catholic theology of prevention in the face of public health policies at Casa Fonte Colombo in Porto Alegre, Brazil Fernando Seffner, Jonathan Garcia, Miguel Muñoz-Laboy and Richard Parker