Every year since 1989, the National Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS (NWPHA), has encouraged Black church folks to recognize and utilize the power of prayer to defeat the HIV epidemic just like we use prayer in other aspects of our lives.
Simply put, NWPHA that begins on the first Sunday in March, uses prayer as a call to action. There are some things that are considered taboo — like sex, sexuality, sexual desire, and sexual health — that can be easier for people of faith to pray about than to talk about. Let’s be clear though, one can not “pray the gay away,” but one can pray for the healing of AIDS.
Too many of our Black bodies are in need of healing from both disease and dis-ease.
In the year of our Lord 2021, we are in need of healing from HIV, SARS-CoV-2, and anti-Black racism. The Black Church, the Black Synagogue, and the Black Mosque all have a role to play in that healing process. The Black AIDS Institute’s “We The People: A Black Strategy to End HIV” lays out four pillars to uplift and protect Black people. The New Testament Gospel of Matthew lays out six expectations. Those ten guidances taken together give Black people who love God and their neighbors a blueprint for action.
We The People recommends that institutions like churches “provide resources and services that address the fullness, richness, potential, and expertise of Black people and mitigate social and structural factors that worsen health outcomes in Black communities.” In the Parable of the Sheep and Goats, Jesus makes it clear that he expects people who follow him to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, house the homeless, clothe the naked, and visit our sick, shut-in, and incarcerated siblings (Matthew 25: 31–46). Food, housing, health care, and policing are social and structural determinants of Black people’s health in America. And these social and structural determinants of health are specifically called out in scripture as issues to be proactively addressed by people of faith. “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (James 2:17). We must act.
For so long, church folks have damned LGBTQ+ communities and people living with HIV straight to the pits of hell. Yet, as an ordained minister and a same-gender-loving Black man living with HIV, I know the truth spelled out in the red letters of the Christian Bible tells a different story.
It turns out that the Word says that the folks who will be damned to eternal punishment are the ones who say they love God but ignore the needs of “the least of these’’ in the body of Christ.
It is the churches, faith leaders, and congregants who decide not to provide resources and services to help mitigate the social and structural factors that worsen health outcomes for ALL BLACK LIVES, who need to “humble themselves and pray” (2 Chronicles 7:14).
During this National Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS, if you do nothing else, I hope you will pray. I encourage all Black people who believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Joseph to pray that when we get to the end of the HIV epidemic, Black people will not have been left behind.
Pray for young Black men and boys, cisgender women, and transgender women in our communities who are disproportionately impacted by HIV.
Pray for people like me who are living and aging with HIV.
Pray for essential workers who provide services to prevent and treat HIV in our communities.
Pray for individuals and institutions continuing to research new biomedical options for HIV prevention, treatment, vaccine, and cure.
And after you pray, I need you to act. God needs you to act. We are closer to the end of the HIV epidemic than we have ever been, and this is when we need all hands on deck.
Let this National Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS mark the beginning of a renewed commitment to action. The work doesn’t end at “Amen.” That’s when the work begins…
Reverend Rob Newells is the Director of National Programs at Black AIDS Institute — the nation’s only uniquely and unapologetically ‘think and do tank’ fighting to end the HIV epidemic in Black America. He is an Associate Minister at Imani Community Church (www.imanicc.org). Read and connect with Rob here.