T.D. Jakes: HIV/AIDS fight about saving lives

Deepti Hajela

NEW YORK — For Bishop T.D. Jakes, the black church has to emphasize saving lives in its response to HIV/AIDS, not theological debates about homosexuality.

“Tomorrow we can save souls,” Jakes, leader of the Dallas megachurch, The Potter’s House, said last Tuesday at a two-day conference of black clergy organized by the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS.

The black church has faced criticism for not doing enough to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS among blacks, at least in part because many conservative churchgoers are put off by the disease’s association with gays.

Black ministers called on the federal government to declare HIV/AIDS among blacks a public health emergency and unveiled proposed legislation to address the disproportionate impact of the disease on their community.

The church leaders called for the creation of a national AIDS plan and pledged to promote HIV/AIDS testing and awareness among their congregations.

“Just as African American clergy fervently came together 50 years ago to fight for civil rights, we are banding together today to bring an end to HIV/AIDS and its potential to obliterate our community,” Jakes said.

Ministers pledged to work with the Congressional Black Caucus on proposed legislation titled the National HIV/AIDS Elimination Act that they hope to introduce in Congress as early as January.

The act asks the president to declare HIV/AIDS among blacks a public health emergency, a declaration that would trigger the use of certain funds and resources against the disease, said commission president Debra Fraser-Howze.

Jakes said the clergy would be looking to make HIV/AIDS prevention in the black community a part of the presidential campaign.

“We will scrutinize the prospective candidates that are moving into the Oval Office to make sure this is on their agenda,” he said. “We will support only those candidates who have this as a primary interest item on their agendas as well.”

Over the last couple of years, there has been a distinct call for black megachurches and congregations to refocus their energies on social and political activism and away from what some have criticized as an overemphasis on economic prosperity.

The Rev. Calvin Butts of New York City’s Abyssinian Baptist Church, who co-chaired the conference with Jakes, said the idea that the black church hasn’t been involved in the struggle against HIV/AIDS is a misperception.

“The clergy has always been involved,” he said. “Not enough people have paid attention to what the church has actually been doing.”

According to 2005 figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost half of all new HIV diagnoses are among blacks. Black men were diagnosed with the disease at a rate eight times that of white men, while black women were diagnosed at a rate almost 23 times that of white women.

Meanwhile, attention has shifted to the global impact of AIDS, with prevention efforts and funding going towards getting treatment and drugs to those suffering from the disease in less developed parts of the world.

(Associated Press)