Conflicts between conservative Christian institutions and secular groups in sub-Saharan Africa: Ideological discourses on sexualities, reproduction and HIV/AIDS

Abstract

Religious and secular institutions advocate strategies that represent all points on the continuum to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS. Drawing on an extensive literature review of studies conducted in sub-Saharan Africa, we focus on those secular institutions that support all effective methods of reducing HIV/AIDS transmission and those conservative religious institutions that support a limited set of prevention methods. We conclude by identifying topics for dialogue between these viewpoints that should facilitate cooperation by expanding the generally acceptable HIV/AIDS prevention methods, especially the use of condoms.

Keywords:

• Religious institutions
• Christian Church
• Evangelical
• Roman Catholicism
• Pentacostalism
• secular groups
• sexual and reproductive health rights
• gender
• homosexuality
• HIV/AIDS
• prevention
• condoms
• sub-Saharan Africa

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by a centre grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University [P30-MH43520; Principal Investigator: Anke A. Ehrhardt, PhD] and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [R01-HD054303; Principal Investigator: John J. Chin, PhD]. The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official view of the National Institute of Mental Health and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.