Theology in the Age of Global AIDS & HIV: Complicity and Possibility

Trentaz proposes an inclusive, complex framework for understanding the creation and maintenance of risk of contracting HIV & AIDS, takes a hard look at dominant theologies and proposes a new way of approaching a theo-ethical response to the pandemic within a communal ethic of 'risk-sharing,' privileging the voices of the marginalized. Today's shifting discourses regarding life and death are about theology, medicine, economics, and politics as much as they are about life and death. At the heart of one of these discourses is HIV & AIDS, a pandemic that allows for a slippery discussion about its origins and nature. Those who live in the borderland this pandemic creates are often blamed for the affliction; they are seen as 'dirty.' Yet, those who live or work with persons with HIV & AIDS know another story of marginalizing macrostructures that indicate that the issue is as much structural injustice as individual responsibility. "Theology in the Age of Global AIDS and HIV" is a courageous and challenging call to look at how dominant theologies have participated in the creation of 'risk environments' for susceptibility to this virus and to act so that our weeping and raging with the suffering helps us learn how to care for one another and be responsible theo-ethicists and global citizens in this age of global AIDS and HIV. "This book explores both theo-historical complicity and theo-ethical possibilities for compassionate response to HIV & AIDS. It summarizes interpretation from "risk groups and behaviors" to a more nuanced framework of "risk environments." It analyzes body-denying theologies ambiguous about human sexuality and supporting social hierarchies among people groups and creating risk environments systematized through ideologies in the European colonial project in Africa and African America. In order to counter these legacies, this book ends by asserting a constructive theological anthropology for the age of global HIV & AIDS and calls for the embodiment of a communal ethic of "risk-sharing."" Front Matter....Pages i-xi Introduction—Beginning Again....Pages 1-9 Front Matter....Pages 11-11 The Language of “Risk”: Setting the Story....Pages 13-22 Compounding Risk: The Move Toward “Risk Environments”....Pages 23-30 Reluctance to Risk: The Story of the US Christian Church....Pages 31-38 Front Matter....Pages 39-39 Mind over Matter: Risk and Stigma in Early Operating Theologies....Pages 41-56 Dirty Details: The Making of “Risk Environments” at “Home” and “Abroad”....Pages 57-66 What Race Is Your Disease? Africanizing “Dirt”....Pages 67-80 Two More Considerations: Poverty and “Social Sin”....Pages 81-84 Interlude: The Making and Unmaking of the World....Pages 85-90 Front Matter....Pages 91-91 Roots of Resistance and Possibility: A Theological Anthropology....Pages 93-107 Risk of a Different Kind: “Risk-Sharing” Through Listening and Confession....Pages 109-118 Risk of a Different Kind: “Risk-Sharing” Through Faith, Hope, and Love....Pages 119-139 Back Matter....Pages 141-204 "This book explores both theo-historical complicity and theo-ethical possibilities for compassionate response to HIV & AIDS. It summarizes interpretation from "risk groups and behaviors" to a more nuanced framework of "risk environments." It analyzes body-denying theologies ambiguous about human sexuality and supporting social hierarchies among people groups and creating risk environments systematized through ideologies in the European colonial project in Africa and African America. In order to counter these legacies, this book ends by asserting a constructive theological anthropology for the age of global HIV & AIDS and calls for the embodiment of a communal ethic of "risk-sharing.""-- Provided by publisher