Rhetoric Race and Religion
The destructive effects of HIV/AIDS on humankind have gone beyond victims, their families, and their health practitioners to become the focus of international attention among leaders of the faith community who are entrusted to preach sacred words of life, hope, and grace to the hurting in times of hopelessness. This has occurred despite these leaders’ traditional reluctance to address openly the interrelationship of sexual practices, sexually transmitted diseases, and the larger society. Take, for example, this statement from an oral history interview I conducted with Reverend Al Miller, pastor of Fellowship Tabernacle in Kingston, Jamaica. He said of Jamaican clergy that “we must have a proper understanding that HIV/AIDS is not just the homosexual issue, we [all] need to be responsible in our sexual behavior. I have to give a balanced perspective on the issue.” Therefore, “we should call all of our citizens, both church and community, to more responsible sexual behavior” (A. Miller, oral history interview, June 21, 2010).
In another interview that same year, Reverend Denza Cunningham, pastor of Christ Community Church in Nassau, Bahamas, spoke of the gravity of the epidemic in his country and the breadth of religious rhetoric needed to address the issue. He put it this way: “HIV/AIDS is a real issue in the Bahamas. There is a high rate of it, especially among young people. We deal with it not only from the pulpit, from preaching and teaching, but in our various ministries. It is addressed on the children’s level straight up to the adult level of our church” (D. Cunningham, oral history interview, June 30, 2010). In an interview I conducted in South Africa in 2009, Pastor Titus Sithole recounted how he used his sacred space of influence to speak about the issue as part of his divine mandate to preach the gospel. He had no moral qualms about this move, bluntly stating that for three months, “I began to preach on HIV/AIDS from the pulpit. I read, I studied and preached on it from every angle” (T. Sithole, oral history interview, June 27, 2009).
For all these leaders, the HIV/AIDS crisis has occasioned an important broadening of the scope of their ministerial rhetoric. Historically, Judeo-Christian traditions and scriptures brim with examples of trusted individuals who were “called” by God to be his spokespersons—to stand in sacred spaces and address exigencies of social ills, epidemiological crises, and destructive individual behaviors within religious communities (House, 2007). Scholars (Clement, 1965; Westerman, 1991; Zulick, 1992) have already focused on the rhetorical dimensions of earlier historical instances of religious public address, especially in sermons, but few have addressed what religio-rhetorical challenges the HIV/AIDS crises have posed for people of African descent or how Black religious leaders are responding nationally to this epidemiological terror wreaking havoc in their communities (Bongmba 2007; Moore, Onosomu, Timmons, Abuyu, & Moore, 2010; Muturi, 2008). However, comparative identification of religiously grounded discourses used by religious leaders across the diaspora has been largely neglected, even by communication scholars who might be expected to probe into the rhetorical, interventional, and performative dimensions of such discourses (Beckley & Koch, 2002). Muturi (2008) employs social influence theory to examine Jamaican religious leaders’ contributions to addressing HIV/AIDS across various traditions and practices. Her work, however, stops short of addressing the rhetorical strategies, warrants, and underpinnings of their communication on HIV/AIDS through prayers for healing, health fairs, seminars, and workshops.
This study, propelled by questions surrounding rhetorical strategies used by religious institutions in the diasporic battle against HIV/AIDS, aims to understand better the rhetorical and interventional use of power that resides in the collective voice of religious institutions. Through grounded inquiry (Glaser & Strauss, 1967),1 it examines how oral history methodology and testimonies collected from pastors of African descent across the diaspora illuminate ways of addressing HIV/AIDS through sermons and other forms of religious rhetoric. Specifically, this study uses oral history to investigate religious uses of rhetorics of identification that function as a predominant interventional strategy and rhetorical resource for many Black diasporic religious leaders. Further, I argue that the rhetorical strategies identified through the use of oral history methodology can serve as models for churches that use their most powerful weapon, religious rhetoric, along with everyday pastoral work to create a theological framework for helping people of African descent lead their lives under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. Moreover, the use of such a framework strengthens the overall messages that aim to reconfigure at-risk behaviors and practices and work to counteract the disproportionate epidemiological presence of the disease in communities. Accordingly, religious safe spaces dedicated to improving the life chances of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) emerge when Black diasporic religious leaders integrate these effective tools into their rhetorics on HIV/AIDS (Beadle-Holder, 2011; Fullilove & Fullilove, 1999; Lemelle, 2004).
Using oral history methodology, I localize the rhetoric, religious performances, and discourses of health and healing of several pastors across the African diaspora within one study as part of a larger and ongoing diasporic intervention in the battle against HIV/AIDS. To begin, I briefly present epidemiological background information on the three regions under consideration, followed by a discussion of oral history methodology as the framework from which I gathered excerpts of religious rhetorics. Next, I discuss my data collection practices. Finally, I present my findings of excerpts of identificational religious rhetoric on HIV/AIDS that operate as rhetorical interventions.
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