ABSTRACT

Facilitating a community-engaged course like “Religion, Sex, Black Men, and HIV/AIDS” by its very nature requires more work than teaching a traditional course. Black men living in Atlanta are nearly five times more likely than their white counterparts to be living with HIV. Georgia’s capital, Atlanta, consistently ranks in the top ten metropolitan areas for HIV incidence, rivaling many of the hardest-hit areas in Africa. A study conducted by Emory researchers with black men who have sex with men (BMSM) in Atlanta found that compared to their white counterparts they were less likely to identify as gay, to be employed, to have insurance, or to have been tested for HIV in the last year. The Emory University classroom was a fitting site for a community-engaged course like ours to explore the “complex and paradoxical relationship between religion and the health of African American” in relation to HIV/AIDS. The Atlanta metropolitan area is home to a majority of the Black Protestant congregations and adherents.