Religion & HIV/AIDS

ARTICLES ABOUT HIV/AIDS AND RELIGION

TheBody.com has a collection of articles about Coping with HIV/AIDS: Getting Support from Religion/Spirituality, with articles such as:

• How Spirituality Can Heal What Meds Aren’t Made to Mend
• AIDS is Not a Punishment: Overcoming Guilt and Shame
• and more

TheBody.com also has a collection of articles on Religion & HIV/AIDS, broken down into:

• Protestant Christianity
• Roman Catholicism
• African-American Churches
• African Churches
• Other Churches
• Islam
• Judaism
• Buddhism
• Hinduism

Follow those links for articles about issues around HIV/AIDS and these religions/sects, profiles of what different religious communities are doing, and more.

RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS WORKING ON HIV/AIDS & LINKS TO THEIR PUBLICATIONS

The Balm in Gilead works on HIV/AIDS and other health issues among the African diaspora and publishes:

• Pamphlets, Posters, and a Pastoral Counseling Manual for HIV/AIDS
• A YouTube Channel of Religious Figures Talking About HIV/AIDS
• A handbook called Who Will Break the Silence: Liturgical Resources for the Health of AIDS

The National Catholic AIDS Network is no longer staffed as of 2007, but published a Parish Manual for AIDS Minstry (available in English and Spanish), which is presumably still relevant.

The National Episcopal AIDS Coalition has a website that publishes:

• Understanding and Challenging HIV Stigma: Toolkit for Action
• a YouTube Channel
• a page to Search for HIV/AIDS-Supportive Episcopalian Churches
• and more

The NGO Family Health International has a page of Faith-Based Initiatives that includes:

• Family Life Education: Teaching Youth about Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS from a Christian Perspective
• HIV/AIDS Prevention, Care and Support Across Faith-Based Communities:  An Annotated Bibliography of Resources
• and more

The AIDS Ministry of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of San Francisco publishes an AIDS Ministry Manual for Greek Orthodoxy.

The Christian AIDS Bureau of Southern Africa has a number of resources for Christian HIV Ministries, such as:

• Sermon Guidelines, which includes dozens of sample sermons
• Prayers that relate to HIV/AIDS
• Christian Thinking about HIV/AIDS
• and more

The Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance takes a more international perspective, but also includes resources that could be useful for faith communities in the US, including an
HIV Faith Advocacy Toolkit, and a book free for download called HIV Prevention: A Global Theological Conversation (in English, Spanish, and French), with essays on such subjects as:

• Behavior change and the role of the Church: towards reducing and eliminating risk
• Jesus, community compassion and HIV prevention
• The virus and the Bible: how living with HIV helps the Church to read it
• and more

The Statewide HIV/AIDS Church Outreach Advisory Board publishes Healing Begins Here: A Pastor’s Guidebook for HIV/AIDS Ministry through the Church

DignityUSA, an LGBT Catholic alliance, has an National AIDS Project (with articles and prayers on the topic), as well as some useful related resources, including:

• An FAQ on Catholicism and Homosexuality
• A Collection of Liturgical Readings, Homilies, and Inspirational Writings
• Recommended Readings on Homosexuality and Faith (not only Catholicism)
• A Page to Find a Chapter of DignityUSA
• and more

In a similar vein, The Metropolitan Community Churches Alliance has a set of downloadable pamphlets on Homosexuality and the Bible (from a pro-LGBT perspective), and a place to Search for LGBT-Welcoming Ministries in the USA and around the world.

RESEARCH ON RELIGION AND HIV/AIDS

For scholarly research into the effects of faith on people living with HIV, see the literature review, ”Spirituality/Religion and Quality of Life in Patients with HIV/AIDS.” (Some of the articles listed will require scholarly database access to read in full.  If you need help with this, contact me.)

For religion and prevention The Kaiser Family Foundation has an archive of the session Is Religion a Barrier to HIV Prevention? from the 2008 International AIDS Conference.  This includes full transcripts, videos, and podcasts.

For an international perspective, The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) has a webpage about Religion & AIDS, which includes reports on many faith-based initiatives.