Evangelical leaders and people with HIV

Abstract

A concern of much HIV-related public education has been the stigma associated with the disease and campaigns calling for solidarity between people with HIV aim to combat discrimination against them. There is evidence, however, that an influential minority of the population world-wide continues to hold hostile attitudes. The literature reports that religiously committed people are more likely to have less accepting attitudes towards people with HIV . This article thus examines the attitudes of leaders of a growing religious movement, Evangelism, to see (a) whether and in what respects their attitudes differ from the general population; (b) whether they contribute to stigma felt by people with HIV; and (c) how hostile attitudes among this group may be combated. It was found that Evangelical leaders are more likely to attribute blame to people with HIV than are the general population and that this aspect may contribute to stigma felt by people with HIV . In other respects, however, attitudes of Evangelical leaders to people with HIV are not very different to those of the general population and their belief that 'all (humans) have sinned' predisposes many of them to be accepting of, and offer support to, people with HIV.