4.1. Resultados
4.1.2. Estadísticas
An important strategy used by religious leaders as part of their rhetorical approach to addressing HIV/AIDS is the use of small group ministry. It is important to think deeper about the concept of safe spaces and its intersection with Christian thought. Christian doctrine maintains that the “church” is not the physical building but actually the individuals who meet in the building or houses of worship. 192 Said another way, the faithful followers of Christ are said to be the “called out ones” i.e., the church.193 That said, I consider further Ugandan narrators who spoke of a major trend within their Christian circles, and largely across the world: small- group ministries. Small-group settings, e.g., homes, coffee shops, that played host to religious rhetorics on HIV/AIDS have a greater potential to create widespread safe spaces for PLWHA in community settings where they share a common identity much the similar to a localized setting, i.e., the physical church. Even as home-based care has been effective in (re)intergration of
192The Greek New Testament word ekklesia is translated “church” in the English Bible, which means an assembly of individuals who have been “called out” to form a collective body.
193 For more information, see Spiros Zodhiates, ed. The Complete Word Study New Testament (Chattanooga, TN.: AMG Publishers, 1991), 910.
PLWHA back into African society, Vhumani Magezi and Daniel Louw further state the contributions that African churches are making through the use of “Congregational home based pastoral care.”194 Peter Byansi maintains that the smaller house-based ministries approach for PLWHA and the communities affected by HIV/AIDS is effective in that is helps to mobilize the Christian community in smaller models and structures.195 Rhetorically, these approaches have been used to place PLWHA and their families at the center of ministry.196
As churches have often provided a prime meeting location for community purposes, I observed small groups ministries on HIV/AIDS that took place in a localized church that often became an intimate safe space in which people reflected in religious ways about HIV/AIDS and it consequences, while building community among the members.197 This was the case for Ugandan Pastors Joseph and Frida Kakande. Their church, Christ Ambassadors Church, houses an orphanage and an elementary school, Champions Community School, offering a specialized small group ministry for their parishioners and community members based upon demographics. For example, in addition to speaking about HIV/AIDS from the pulpit, the Kakandes address the issues within their marriage meetings, single-mothers meeting, and youth and children’s small groups. Using a style and manner appropriate for each group, the Kakandes speak to the group members of “the painful death or the pain of HIV that HIV patients go through.”198 The small group format has proven successful for them; yet, capitalizing on the discursive power of the pulpit has been most effective. In one case when after the burial of a young man who died of
194 Vhumani Magezi and Daniel Louw, “Congregational Home-based Pastoral Care: Merging the African Family and the Church Family Systems for Effective HIV Ministry,” Journal of Theology for South Africa 125 (July 2006): 67.
195 Peter Byansi, “Kamkoya Christian Caring Community: A Place for Education for Life,” African Ecclesial Review 47, no. 4, 48, no. 1 (2005/2006): 309-328.
196 Frederiks, “I Told Them, ”11. 197 Ibid., 17.
198 Pastors Joseph and Fred Kakande, interviewed by Christopher A. House (July 19, 2009), digital recording in possession of interviewer.
AIDS related complications, the Kankades, so moved by the circumstances of his death, returned to their church that evening and in their own words, “had to preach on this man’s death that was caused by HIV.” Consequently, that sermon addressed those living with HIV and those who practiced discrimination toward PLWHA. To the latter their message was pointed: “The Bible says that we are all sinners except for the fact that we are changed today. And the fact that we are not infected today does not make us more righteous.” Arguably, such statements like “we are all sinners” rhetorically creates common ground amongst all human kind, HIV infected or not, thereby rejecting us-versus -them judgmental rhetorics based upon oppositional difference between religious groups and PLWHA.
Narrators in Kenya, South Africa and Uganda all spoke of the use of small groups in their HIV/AIDS ministries. No small group setting can be effective in addressing HIV/AIDS without the rhetorical strategy of the religious emissary. While senior pastors cannot physically be in every location at once speaking to those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, they can and do commission an emissary to go and speak in his/her/their stead within homes and small group settings throughout the community. This strategy is at work in the ministry of Sarah Wafula, pastor of the 15- member, Pioneer & Deliverance Ministry in Bungoma, Kenya. Conscious of the constraints placed on her as one pastor in a fight against a ubiquitous disease that has ravished her country in epic proportions, Wafula taps into the rhetorical power of a “sent one” with a pulpitized message. Within her church, Wafula encourages “those ones that are trained to speak to others in the community about HIV/AIDS…because,” she said, “I cannot reach the whole community.”199 As pulpitized rhetoric, the messages of emissaries theoretically carry the same weight and rhetorical influence as sermons heard in pulpits across Kenya, Uganda, and South
199 Pastor Sarah Wafula interviewed by Christopher A. House (July 14, 2009), digital recording in possession of interviewer.
Africa. Hence, the rhetoric of the church is extended through emissaries as Wafula and others take their messages to communities beyond the four walls of the church to reach “to those ones who fear coming to church,” and who may also fear knowing their HIV status.
Small groups help to form a communal identity that is rhetorical in nature for it members and has a powerful influence on actions and behaviors through support that is reciprocated in settings that allow for greater accountability of its members’ behaviors.200 Sermons and small groups create an abstract spiritual space for people to actively imagine lives affected by AIDS and to consider how their own families and communities have been impacted.201 Through real- life testimonies, alternative representations of HIV/AIDS are presented which could help the church challenge the idea of HIV as “the gay male disease,” a myth that perpetuates stigmatization of the disease. Testimonies also serve as a way for PLWHA to tell their story in their own words, which Christina Landman and Musa Dube have shown helps to aid those infected and affected in accepting their illness and in contributing to their healing.202 Much like the sermon was used for indoctrination in the physical, local church, small groups provided another space for indoctrination through teachings, songs, scripture reading, and testimonials to bring about changes in sexual behaviors and attitudes within the community for those who may have never attended a religious service in the church buildings. Additionally, messages of HIV/AIDS are reaching a wider audience through the rhetorical influence and authoritative stamp of the approval of African churches.
200 Gardner, “Safe Sects,” 61, 62.
201 Michelle Beadle-Holder, “Black Churches Creating Safe Spaces to Combat Silence and Stigma Related to AIDS,” Journal of African American Studies 15 no. 2 (2011): 238-266.
202 Christina Landman, “Spiritual Care-giving to Women Affected by HIV/AIDS,” 189-209; Musa Dube “Social Location as Story-Telling Method of Teaching in HIV/AIDS Contexts,” in HIV/AIDS and The Curriculum: Methods
of Integrating HIV/AIDS in Theological Programmes, ed. Musa Dube (Switzerland: World Council of Church