[HIV Prevention: A Global Theological Conversation] Risk-increasing context or individual behavior?

Abstract

HIV transmission is preventable. HIV and AIDS are treatable. And yet for every two people starting on antiretroviral treatments, five more become infected. Faith groups, which are close to the lives of communities and their members, should be ideally placed to engage with issues of HIV prevention. Too often, though, the prevention messages coming from organized religion have been ambivalent, moralistic, stigmatizing, or divorced from the realities of people’s lives. What is it about HIV prevention that causes some Christians to spend more time disagreeing with each other than developing sensible, achievable responses? And what can we do about it?

Wide-ranging, open and accessible, this landmark publication addresses those questions head-on. It is the work of thirty-five Christian theologians, from different churches and theological traditions, who have struggled together to achieve a common understanding of the moral, theological and ecclesiological challenges of HIV prevention. Their deliberations and insights have been brought together by the editor, Dr Gillian Paterson, in the profound and insightful reflections which form the subject-matter of Part One.

But ‘agreeing common ground’ does not mean abandoning deeply held convictions. Part Two therefore consists of a series of powerful, often passionate essays by individuals from this group, all internationally known theologians or practitioners, who set out their own distinctive and challenging positions.