Somebody's Knocking at Your Door

AIDS and the African-American Church

Harold G Koenig, Carole B Weatherford, Ronald J Weatherford

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781135410414
• Topic: Medicina
• Subtopic: Prestazione di assistenza sanitaria

Examining the black church's response to AIDS, Somebody's Knocking at Your Door: AIDS and the African-American Church analyzes sexual ethics and homophobia in the black church to provide pastors, social workers, and health professionals with intervention strategies for parishioners or members of the community who have AIDS. By discussing the church's historic and successful activism and its relationship to the community, along with AIDS statistics, relevant theologies, and other AIDS ministries, this book suggests the benefits of increased church involvement versus other agencies or organizations. Somebody's Knocking at Your Door will help you develop prevention education and pastoral care programs that will alert individuals to the risks of AIDS and will offer people with AIDS the comfort and assistance they need in coping with the disease.Through the voices of leading clergy, AIDS advocates, and people living with AIDS (PLWAs), this book calls on the African-American church to become more involved in helping communities deal with the disease. Somebody's Knocking at Your Door offers you ideas on how to improve the lives of individuals with AIDS through the church, including:

• welcoming PLWAs into the church through announcements by local media, church newsletters, and Sunday bulletins
• offering AIDS support groups at the church or loaning office space, equipment, or clerical assistance to AIDS organizations
• recognizing the power of intercessory prayer for PLWAs
• caring for PLWAs by delivering meals to their homes, preparing meals at the church, and developing a transportation network that will take parishioners to doctor appointments, church, or on recreational outings
• preparing meals, running errands, housekeeping, handling paperwork, negotiating legal issues, and offering friendship-- possible components of volunteer "buddy programs" for homebound PLWAs
• training pastors, clergy, and Sunday school teachers to educate ministries on AIDS in the African- American community, sexual intimacy, intravenous drug use and needle sharing, monogamy, community resources, and condom useSince some clergy still believe that AIDS is a "gay" disease, Somebody's Knocking at Your Door discusses the issue of homosexuality within the church. By analyzing passages from the Bible, the authors refute the belief that homosexuals were neglected by God and undeserving of care and love. This belief, according to the authors, inhibits some churches and individuals from discussing HIV/AIDS because of fear they would also be acknowledging homosexuality. Highlighting AIDS ministries throughout the United States, Somebody's Knocking at Your Door encourages the African-American church to confront the issue of AIDS and understand that the disease can affect anyone. This book will give you the necessary strategies for starting and implementing AIDS ministries and intervention programs that will educate and support your community.

Chapter 1

Why the African-American Church?

Long before the civil rights movement… we went to the church for everything. The church was our social service organization as well as our spiritual service organization. The church is still being looked on … by large segments of our community as being central in our lives.¹

Jim Harvey
Executive Director
New City Health Center
Chicago, Illinois
(quoted in Positively Aware, 1997)

In the nation’s predominately African-American inner cities, urban ills—drugs, crime, and poverty—are literally knocking at the doors of some churches. Now, some African-American leaders are urging the church to join the fight against AIDS. Doesn’t the African-American church have enough to do?

With collective and individual power far surpassing any single civil rights organization, the African-American church is a sleeping giant. In the 1990 book, The Black Church in the African-American Experience, C. Eric Lincoln and Lawrence H. Mamiya estimated that 23.7 million African Americans are church members. A 1997 Gallup Poll found that weekly church attendance is much higher among African Americans than among whites: 40 percent versus 29 percent. Emmett D. Carson, author of A Hand Up: Black Philanthropy and Self-Help in America, reports that 90 percent of an African American’s charitable contributions go to the church and other religious organizations—giving what Lincoln and Mamiya say approaches roughly $2 billion annually.²

In addition, the African-American community is undergoing a spiritual renaissance. This trend is evident in the growth of African-American megachurches, the popularity of spiritual self-help books, and the growing interest in spiritual retreats and discussion groups. At the same time, African-American baby boomers are returning to church, seeking inspiration, fellowship, and constructive ways to revitalize their communities.

Given these trends, the nation’s 65,000 African-American churches would appear to have reason to rejoice. A ten-year study by Lincoln and Mamiya, however, found that African-American clergy perceive several problems, including: lack of evangelism, secularization, sin, inadequate finances, criticism of leadership, and aging memberships. While 80 percent of African Americans went to church two decades ago, only 40 percent attend today. Amidst these mounting challenges, the African-American church’s delayed response to AIDS is somewhat understandable.

POWER IN THE PEWS

Perennial problems aside, the African-American church is uniquely suited to address AIDS in the African-American community. Since slavery times, the African-American church has taken the lead in the African-American community. In fact, the first national African-American leader—Bishop Richard Allen—hailed from the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

African-American churches were the first communally built institutions in some Reconstruction-era communities. The churches, in turn, established hundreds of schools and colleges without gov ernment funding. In many areas, these church-run schools were the only educational institutions open to African Americans. Churches continue to support more private African-American colleges and universities than any other institution.

The founding of educational institutions is by far the church’s most lasting, but by no means its only, contribution. Early on, African-American churches promoted economic uplift. By 1900, the African-American church served as the community’s social hub, as a funding source and recruitment arm for organizations such as the NAACP and the National Urban League, and as an incubator for publications, hospitals, and financial institutions. Some African-American banks and insurance companies actually began as burial societies, mutual aid societies, and benevolent associations in African-American churches and fraternal orders.

This focus on self-help continues today. In low-income African-American communities, the church is the one enduring institution that can secure major credit for community development. African-American churches operate more day care centers, construct more affordable income housing, and administer more tutorial programs than all others institutions in the black community combined.³

Since the days when northern African-American churches were stations along the Underground Railroad, liberation theology has permeated the African-American church’s preaching and teachings, and African-American clergy have helped wage the freedom struggle. A roll call of the twentieth century’s leading activists would certainly include these clergymen: Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell; James Farmer, cofounder of the Congress of Racial Equality; Vernon Johns, Martin Luther King Jr.’s predecessor at Montgomery, Alabama’s Dexter Avenue Baptist Church; Leon Sullivan, founder of Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America; former Southern Christian Leadership Conference President Joseph Lowery; former NAACP Executive Director Benjamin Hooks; former United Nations Ambassador and Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young; Rainbow/PUSH Coalition President Jesse Jackson; and, of course, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

It is no coincidence that the African-American church has also been a breeding ground for politicians. From Reconstruction-era Congressman Hiram Revels to New York Congressman Floyd Flake, the pulpit has catapulted African-American preachers into seats of power. If there was previously any doubt, Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns proved once and for all that African-American churches could get out the vote. Equally important is the role of the African-American church in grooming community leaders.

The church is the oldest institution that African Americans can truly call their own. The African-American church is a city of refuge and source of empowerment for African Americans. They invest not only considerable time and money in the church, but also their hope. That could explain why African-American churches are prime targets of white supremacist hate groups.

Racists, however, are not the only ones who recognize the power of the African-American church. So do major marketers. Segmented Marketing Services, Inc., an African-American-owned firm in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, developed the SMSI Church Family Network, a promotion system that distributes product samples to urban African-American churchgoers. With the capacity to reach half of the nation’s African-American households, the Church Family Network taps into the grapevine, a vital communications link in the black community. Studies of African-American consumer behavior show that word-of-mouth advertising wields more influence when the endorsement comes from perceived peer group leaders such as pastors.

POWER OF THE PULPIT

For generations, the church was the sole arbiter of social norms in the African-American community. Though the power of the pulpit waned slightly as church attendance declined, what African-American preachers say is still often regarded by many churchgoers as gospel. And once parishioners leave the sanctuary, they spread the message throughout the community.

In a February 1998 interview, AIDS advocate Pernessa Seele, founder and director of The Balm in Gilead, said, “The black pulpit’s reach goes far beyond the doors of the church.”⁴

With faithful followers in the pews and a constituency in the community, the African-American church has the clout to disseminate mass information and mobilize volunteers. That’s just what’s needed to address the AIDS crisis.

The church “could do a lot in terms of mass information,” activist minister Al Sharpton said in a February 1998 interview. “It can give a platform to people who can mass educate and mass inform. It can use its political power to influence those in public office about AIDS policy and funding.

“Once the African-American church makes up its mind,” Sharpton continued, “there are no obstacles that can stop it. It has not been challenged. The biggest obstacle is its will.”⁵

If faith indeed moves mountains, African-American churches must summon that faith to tackle the AIDS epidemic. “If we’re going to address the AIDS issue effectively,” said Pernessa Seele, “we must engage the black church.”⁶

Public policies on welfare, drug abuse, law enforcement, health care, education, and affirmative action have led some African-American leaders to believe that the government considers minorities and the poor to be expendable. If that is the case, the African-American community should probably not rely on the government to stem the spread of AIDS.

Unlike other problems the African-American church has addressed, AIDS is not merely a quality-of-life issue, it is also a life-or-death issue. On AIDS Awareness Sunday in 1995, Reverend Jeremiah Wright of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ asked parishioners to stand if they have had a friend or family member die of AIDS. One-third of the 2,000-member congregation stood up. This is a state of emergency. But this is by no means the first time that the African-American community has endured suffering.

NOBODY KNOWS THE TROUBLE I’VE SEEN

“The African-American church,” said George McKinney, pastor of Saint Stephen’s Church of God in Christ in Los Angeles, can “deal with the urban crisis, because we have been in the crucible of pain.”⁷

Indeed, the American legacy of racism is so agonizing that tennis champion and humanitarian Arthur Ashe declared in his posthumous memoir Days of Grace: “Race is for me a more onerous burden than AIDS.”⁸ Neither wealth nor celebrity made him immune to bigotry or to HIV. Ashe, who contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion following 1988 heart surgery, died in 1993.

In African-American communities across the country, AIDS continues to inflict pain and claim lives. Just as the church collects benevolence offerings for needy families and conducts health screenings for senior citizens, it must also bring its influence and energy to bear in the fight against AIDS. The epidemic presents an opportunity to not only save lives, but to redefine the church for the twenty-first century.

The African-American church has long understood the holistic nature of the gospel. To minister to the whole person and the whole community, many churches have ventured into the business, social, and political arenas, developing businesses and real estate, creating jobs, mobilizing voters, and tackling problems such as substance abuse, crime, teen pregnancy, and AIDS. The African-American church, however, needs to expand its scope even more.

Churches and community-based organizations need to find ways to partner in the delivery of AIDS services and prevention education. This synergy is crucial as AIDS advances in the African-American community.

In July 1997, Mario Cooper, a trustee of the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care, briefed the Congressional Black Caucus on the AIDS crisis. “African-American leaders,” he lamented, “have virtually ignored HIV/AIDS. We must throw aside the shackles of ignorance, homophobia, and fear, and grasp this window of opportunity to help our communities.”⁹

Cooper led the Harvard AIDS Institute’s October 1996 Leading for Life Summit. At the event—billed as an emergency summit—members of the Harvard AIDS Institute blasted the African-American church and prominent civil rights organizations for sitting on the sidelines as AIDS took its toll on their congregations and communities.

During the Harvard summit, Henry Louis Gates, chair of the university’s W.E.B. DuBois Institute, called the disease “our generation’s war.”¹⁰ Regardless of whether Christian soldiers join the fight, AIDS is ravaging the African-American community. Ultimately, truth will be the most effective weapon in this battle. And the church is the most revered messenger of truth. The African-American church has a responsibility to lends its voice and leverage its strength to help combat AIDS.

The church must first help the community to overcome homophobia and fears stemming from misconceptions about AIDS transmission by opening dialogue on sexuality. The 1997 National Black Religious Summit on Sexuality, sponsored by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, encouraged such discussions. Setting the tone for the Summit, Reverend Carlton Veazey stressed, “To help our brothers and sisters live the abundant life, our ministry must be holistic in its approach, addressing the sexual aspect of each person. We must talk about areas of sexuality which have traditionally been unspoken in the church, including… HIV/AIDS.”¹¹

Today, thriving African-American churches—including mega-churches with huge congregations and budgets to match—appear to have one thing in common. They work all week long to uplift the community. Instead of simply looking up to God, they look down to help the disenfranchised and relieve suffering. Apparently, the spirit of caring is contagious, for members flock to churches that face crises head on.

“Whatever the church stands for, it must stand for ministering to the least of these,” Veazey asserted during an interview.¹²

A health and social problem, AIDS is one of the most serious threats facing descendants of Africa since the slave trade. The African-American church is slowly awakening to the enormity of the crisis. During the dise...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• ABOUT THE AUTHORS
• CONTENTS
• Foreword
• Preface
• Chapter 1. Why the African-American Church?
• Chapter 2. Two in Five: AIDS Statistics in the African-American Community
• Chapter 3. Sex—A Hang-Up in the African-American Church
• Chapter 4. Theology in the Time of AIDS
• Chapter 5. What the Church Can Do
• Chapter 6. Teaching What We Preach: AIDS Prevention Education
• Chapter 7. Pastoral Care for People Living with AIDS
• Chapter 8. In the Trenches: African-American AIDS Ministries
• Chapter 9. In the Spirit of Cooperation
• Chapter 10. Africa: From Cradle to Grave
• Chapter 11. A Sense of Loss, a Sense of Purpose
• Appendix A: Why the African-American Church Must Liberate the Community from AIDS
• Appendix B: First Steps to Forming AIDS Ministries
• Appendix C: Major Obstacles to Involvement
• Appendix D: Directory of AIDS Resources
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index