Religion and HIV/AIDS

Religion and HIV/AIDS

Religions Need To Change Policies To Embrace Prevention Commodities and Include MARPs

Religious Health-Care and Support

Religious faith based groups globally contribute significantly to the care and treatment of persons living with HIV/AIDS. Hospitals, clinics, hospices, and home-based care serve to alleviate much suffering and pain and serve as important centres for testing and counselling. Much more should and could be done by religious organizations in these areas, but without this religious contribution, the struggle against HIV and AIDS would be much more difficult. However, what is most problematic globally is the role of religion in encouraging and discouraging HIV/AIDS prevention. Religious beliefs, attitudes, teachings, and practices can contribute both negative and positive dimensions to efforts aimed at promoting HIV/AIDS prevention. 

Beliefs and Practice: Faith and Action

Restrictive or judgmental religious tenets and tendencies may complicate efforts to eradicate the disease, and to discern how theological and ethical convictions combined with compassion can contribute to protecting the well-being of persons and promoting the goal of an AIDS-free world. No world religion has a monopoly on either creating or eliminating obstacles to promoting HIV and AIDS prevention. Each religious tradition must be challenge to draw from its own rich resources of faith and play a key role in addressing programs of prevention and becoming partners in the struggle to conquer HIV and AIDS.

Obstacles/Barriers

By citing some of the factors that inhibit, if not prohibit, more religious involvement and failure to cooperate more fully with public health officials, we hope to illustrate the detriments and effects that they cause. In doing so, we hope to rouse them to act, even if in defiance of all they hold as truth, so that we can help eradicate this scourge and help those in need. The five factors listed are illustrative, not exhaustive, and do not necessarily pertain to each and every religious community. Fortunately, within every religion there are exceptional persons and groups that transcend the barriers and diligently contribute to HIV prevention efforts.

1. Silence Kills

Many religious groups and leaders have been unwilling to openly address HIV/AIDS and make it a priority in their mission and ministry. It remains a low priority despite the fact that 33 million people worldwide are infected, 25 million or more have died, 15 million plus have been orphaned, and many have deemed this the world’s world health crisis in 700 years.  Many religious leaders, particularly at the grassroots level, lack education about HIV transmission and prevention. Their theology is dysfunctional to life. They are ill-equipped to teach others about this subject. This silence has meant many people, even within a particular religious community, have been left with no helpful messages or information about how to protect themselves and their families. Life-saving and health-protecting information and preventive commodities, has been denied not only to the broader community—and those most impoverished and marginalized—but to the young and others in a particular religious family.

2. Stigma Destroys

What makes HIV/AIDS prevention particularly difficult is the stigma that has been attached to this disease. Few, if any other disease, suffer this degree of stigmatization and discrimination. Religious teachings and practices have intensified this stigma by “labelling” persons infected as “sinners” and treating persons as second or third class citizens. Whether it is teaching that “you reap what you sow,” or saying “people get what they deserve” or suggesting it is a result of karma or previous life behaviour, religious beliefs have combined with negative cultural customs in often ostracizing and shunning the person infected and the families affected with HIV/AIDS. Particularly stigmatized have been men who have sex with men (MSM), commercial sex workers (CSW), transgendered persons, injecting drug users, and prisoners. Stigmatization presumes the infected and the affected are “other” rather than “us.” Instead of embracing everyone as sister and brother, the tendency is to categorize and judge others as less worthy and outside the realm of the religious.


3. Idealism Blinds

By focusing on religious doctrines and ethical teachings, too often religious leaders either cannot see or are unwilling to recognize the realities of human behaviour, especially sexual activity and lifestyles. Many a religious group and leader attempts to adhere to moral principles deemed divine regardless of human consequences. It appears they are more eager to preserve the “purity” or “correctness” of their theological perspective than to protect human lives.  Denial of reality means not recognizing what people actually do in a particular culture, society, or religious group. This does not require a religious group to approve or accept the behaviour but it does insist on recognition of reality. For example, it may mean pretending that young people regularly abstain from becoming sexually active until they are married or pretending that married couples are always mutually monogamous. Denial may mean ignoring the reality that many men enjoy sex with other men, whether they are married or not. 

4. Sexuality Threatens

Nothing seems more difficult for religious groups and leaders than honest, open communication about human sexuality. Even though most religions affirm sex as a good gift of God, sexuality still seems like a threatening taboo topic, only to be discussed in vague terms. Since addressing HIV/AIDS prevention necessarily involves talking about sexual health, religious leaders often find themselves embarrassed or even “tongue-tied,” unsure how to relate their divine theology to human sexuality.  In terms of prevention, religious groups are strong in emphasizing the first two letters of the alphabet of life, namely “A for abstinence” and “B for being faithful,” but when it comes to “C” that too often represents “controversy” rather than advocating for the “correct and consistent use of condoms.”  Some religious groups oppose condoms because they are against artificial birth control. Other religious groups may not be opposed to condoms, but fear their promotion encourages promiscuity. However, as Melinda Gates, reminds us, “In the fight against AIDS, condoms save lives. If you oppose the distribution of condoms, something is more important to you than saving lives.”

5. Gender Inequality Cripples

Religious patriarchal thinking and leaders have proved insensitive to the dilemmas women face in the contemporary world. Women suffer enormous stigmatization and discrimination everywhere. Violence against women is too often tolerated by religious practitioners. The “ABC’s” of prevention are inadequate unless gender equality is underscored and women are accorded autonomy over their own bodies and destinies. Religious teachings and customs often increase the vulnerability of women to infection from HIV, as they are told to “obey” their husbands, even if those same men have been unfaithful to them. Failure of religious authorities to insist on legal protections for the human rights of women has compounded female vulnerability. A quite different gender topic is that of circumcision. Encouraging male circumcision as a preventive HIV measure will find encouragement within many religious circles, but resistance in some faith-based communities where lack of circumcision appears to be a distinguishing mark of the male in that religion.

Opportunities/Bridges

Lest we become disheartened by the obstacles or barriers religion presents in regard to HIV and AIDS prevention, there are five opportunities that religion offers in the battle to stymie HIV/AIDS in today’s world. 

1. Silence can be broken

Increasingly religious leaders and faith-based communities are taking a positive, pro-active role in the struggle against HIV and AIDS. Belatedly, there is recognition on both the part of civil society and religious groups that both are needed if we are to move to an AIDS-free world. AIDS cannot be defeated by religious groups alone, but without their involvement it certainly cannot be conquered.

2. Stigma can be overcome

Religious communities at their best affirm the worth and dignity of every human being. Some teach that every person is made in the image of God and is to be cherished, protected, and preserved. By focusing on the human rights of every person, religious groups can become partners and champions in fighting stigma and discrimination. The teachings of most religious groups stress care and compassion, love and life, hope and healing. Most often fundamental to the faith is an emphasis on the marginalized, the poor, the hungry and the suffering. If HIV and AIDS are viewed through the lens of global poverty, rather than simply as a matter of human sexuality, most religious leaders will agree that the vast majority of persons infected and affected by HIV and AIDS in the world are more “sinned against, than sinners.” Faithful monogamous women infected by their husbands, persons trapped in demeaning poverty, victims of violence, uneducated persons, and babies born with the disease are just a few examples of those who suffer from the disease. Religious traditions sensitive to the complexities of social structures and economic deprivation can be allies in the fight against HIV and AIDS. In Kenya the Centre for the Church and Global AIDS works with one religious community, where its leader has made stigmatization and discrimination the “enemy” and mobilized persons of faith to build a community-based program that identifies and supports HIV positive persons, welcoming them into the life of the faith-based community as active members and participants. Stigma can be overcome if the highest values of the faith are stressed, namely, love and compassion, hope and health.

3. Idealism inspires

What attract religious followers are the ideals and norms that faith traditions advocate and to which disciples aspire. The deep theological wells of faith and grace inspire people to seek personal behavioural change for the better, greater care for the neighbour, and deeper commitment to action. Thanks to ideals like compassion without borders and serving the Divine by helping humans in need, religious communities can be challenged to join in the life-changing and life-saving tasks of HIV and AIDS prevention. This religious idealism, challenged by the AIDS crisis and channelled into specific ways of helping through prevention, can make a profound difference.

4. Condoms

When condoms are used correctly and consistently they are humanity’s best protection against getting infected by HIV while engaging in sex. All sexual behaviour involves a degree of risk, so practicing safer sex using condoms is imperative. With no cure or vaccine in existence or in sight, condoms remain the greatest “weapon of mass protection” available; without condoms millions more people would be infected each year. Is that not a good reason to thank the Divine? It is risky behaviour for religious traditions and leaders to deny evidence based protection methods. To do so ultimately violates the fundamental premise on which most religious traditions are based, the preservation and protection of life. Denying people access to condoms, or the knowledge of how to use them, has serious ethical consequences for religious traditions and leaders. Choosing possible disease and death for others rather choosing possible sexual health and fullness of life for others has grave moral consequences, not to be considered lightly. If a religious leader cannot in conscience prescribe condoms

5. Gender equality is a religious value

After centuries of patriarchal perspectives and leadership, with the men making the rules and interpreting the sacred scriptures, religious scholars are increasingly affirming equality and inclusion over inequality and exclusion. Those who subjugate women in the name of religion defy basic tenets of the faith that emphasize God’s commitment to equality. Elevating the role and status of women in the world would provide women greater freedom and autonomy in dealing with the challenges of AIDS. Increased educational opportunities for women enhance the prospect of HIV prevention. A woman without an education is a woman without a future. Working with women for meaningful economic empowerment could mean offering realistic opportunities for many women who otherwise might be destined for commercial sex work. By emphasizing religion’s pacifistic and non-violent norms, gender violence can be confronted and condemned. Religious leaders should be challenged to speak out against domestic violence and provide shelter and support for those who have been mistreated and harassed. As it does so, the church can play a vital role in preventing HIV.

Towards An AIDS-Free World

Yes, religion both discourages and encourages HIV and AIDS prevention, but the weight of discouragement need not prevail. Religious groups can be and are regularly recruited for involved in prevention campaigns. By recognizing there are certain limits or restrictions which tether religious groups to non-involvement on certain issues, all can move ahead by emphasizing those factors that are helpful and operative in fighting HIV and AIDs through prevention. Prevention should never be reduced solely to the ABC’s of prevention. A broader understanding of prevention that includes a broad range of personal and society strategies holds the potential for greater religious involvement and engagement.