| Do something! The black church must confront AIDS now  By Cecil Conteen Gray and Sonya Hunt Gray At the Baltimore-Washington Conferences second AIDS and the Black Church symposium, Dec. 13, 2003, our keynote speaker urged African-American church leaders to examine the crippling impact that AIDS is having on communities of color in the United States and throughout the African Diaspora. Pernessa Seele, founder and CEO of Balm in Gilead, Inc., told us how the disease is destroying millions of lives around the world simultaneously. Calling this an urgent moment in the history of people of African descent, she challenged every pastor and layperson to do something! She pleaded with us to ask God to deliver us from all biases, fears and silence. She warned us that our fears and prejudices and the deafening silence in too many of our pulpits can only hinder us from stopping the AIDS epidemic that has ravaged our communities for the past 20 years. Do something! Seele urged repeatedly. We hear that cry. Yet, many ask, How do you get ministers involved in talking about, addressing and ultimately, eradicating this disease? We have been working in our respective ministries over the last 15 years, trying to provide answers. The black church continues to be a critical point of contact for key information in the black community. Thus, it seems all ministers of African descent must challenge themselves ourselves and each other to provide the bold, Christ-centered leadership required at this point in time. Once every hour a teenager or young adult in the U.S. becomes infected with HIV/AIDS, and eight out of every 10 of those young people are persons of African descent. Therefore, the response from black clergy must be serious, unapologetically loud, loving and aggressive. That means every black clergy leader in the U.S. and around the globe must immediately become: z well educated about AIDS; z committed to educating others about HIV/AIDS, how to prevent it and how to access care and treatment for people who are already living with it; z involved in this struggle for the long haul until HIV is no longer a plague; z a visible and vocal supporter of the annual Black Church Week of Prayer for the Healing of AIDS held in December and similar efforts. Our clergy leaders should preach and pray about this pandemic during the Black Church Week of Prayer and many other occasions. They should facilitate and host weekly discussions on overcoming the spread of HIV/AIDS with our young people, including college and university students who are relatively oblivious to the crisis, yet at maximum risk. They should develop presentations that are effective at reaching and mobilizing their colleagues who are yet silent and frozen in the face of this scourge. As we face this challenge, which is before and all around us, God will be with us and will enable us to overcome. As in the past, God will help us to become very serious about obeying Gods call on our lives, a call to foster healing. Clergy leaders are not called to be comfortable and self-indulgent. Rather, we are called to care profoundly and encourage others to do likewise. We must care for people who are sick, unsaved, almost saved, pseudo-saved, frightened, poor, homeless, helpless, left out, blocked out, broken down, beat down, held down, unappreciated, uncared for and unloved. Thus, all who call themselves followers of Jesus the Christ are called to care for people living with and struggling with HIV/AIDS. Our prayer is that our caring goes beyond cute caring, comfortable caring, small caring, safe caring. We pray that our caring grows as large and comprehensive as possible and that God will free each of us to care and love actively, holistically and boldly. As we trust God fully and respond to our people as good shepherds should, we will respond to the challenge of HIV/AIDS aggressively and prayerfully. Then God will bless us to make an immeasurable difference in the lives of people living with this disease, and that will benefit our own lives and the lives of our children and generations yet unborn. The Rev. Cecil Conteen Gray is pastor of Northwood-Appold UMC in Baltimore. Sonya Hunt Gray is a senior project officer at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington D.C., and chairwoman of Northwood-Appolds HIV/AIDS ministry committee. They are married to each other. | 
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