This book is a collection of chapters by seasoned scholars of religion covering the role played by various religions at home in Botswana in the struggle against HIV and AIDS. The book is a direct result of field research projects conducted by the authors on the role of religion in a country that once ranked as the worst affected by HIV and AIDS in the world. It comprises of twelve chapters that are divided into four parts. The first part, comprising of three chapters, provides a background of the faith sector in Botswana. Part II of the book focuses on the Christian religion and comprises of four chapters. Part III comprises of three chapters discussing other religious groups apart from Christianity. Part IV addresses the role of culture and religion in HIV and AIDS response in Botswana. With several attempts to mainstream HIV and AIDS in education both in schools and in tertiary institutions, the book serves both the academic and research community at national and international levels. It does not serve only those studying religion, but all who address issues of HIV and AIDS from whatever field of study.

Animated by the belief that public health programs in Botswana, or other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, would be more effective if those who designed and implemented them possessed a better understanding of existing ethno-medical as well as religious beliefs and cultural practices, Parallel Discourses provides a revised topology of religious identity in Botswana and then shows why it is important to disaggregate or otherwise distinguish between diverse faith-based communities – from traditional African religions and African Independent Churches to mainline Christian denominations and Muslim communities – when designing or implementing faith-based HIV prevention programs. It also describes the identity politics at work within various faith communities as well as between the faith sector and public health officials. And while it may be true that there have existed parallel if not competing discourses on HIV and AIDS in Botswana, between the public health sector and the faith sector or between traditional healers and allopathic physicians, each with their own paradigms of authority and evidence, these strands of discourse are, as suggested throughout this book, amenable to a dialogical rapprochement. Interweaving parallel discourses on HIV and AIDS is itself instrumental to the implementation of increasingly effective HIV prevention programs, enhanced HIV diagnostic capacities and better care for PLWHA (People Living with HIV and AIDS). Though these essays focus on the many obstacles to collaboration between faith communities and the public health sector in Botswana, they also suggest common ground for increasingly collaborative and effective faith-based HIV prevention interventions.

The book has 3 parts: re-reading the Bible, challenging faith communities and practical resources for faith communities. It is the fruit of a conference of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians on "Sex, Stigma and HIV/AIDS: African Women Challenging Religion, Culture and Social Practices."

This volume explores how AIDS is understood, confronted and lived with through religious ideas and practices, and how these, in turn, are reinterpreted and changed by the experience of AIDS. Examining the social production, and productivity, of AIDS - linking bodily and spiritual experiences, and religious, medical, political and economic discourses - the papers counter simplified notions of causal effects of AIDS on religion (or vice versa). Instead, they display peoplea (TM)s resourcefulness in their struggle to move ahead in spite of adversity. This relativises the vision of doom widely associated with the African AIDS epidemic; and it allows to see AIDS, instead of a singular event, as the culmination of a century-long process of changing livelihoods, bodily well-being and spiritual imaginaries.

The African AIDS epidemic has sparked fierce debate over the role of religion. Some scholars and activists argue that religion is contributing to the spread of HIV and to the stigmatization of people living with AIDS. Others claim that religion reduces the spread of HIV and promotes care and support for the sick and their survivors. Religion and AIDS in Africa offers the first comprehensive empirical account of the impact of religion on the AIDS epidemic. Jenny Trinitapoli and Alexander Weinreb draw upon extensive fieldwork in Malawi, including hundreds of interviews with religious leaders and lay people, and survey data from more than 30 other sub-Saharan African countries. Their research confirms the importance of religious narratives and institutions in everything related to AIDS in Africa. Among other key findings, Trinitapoli and Weinreb show that a combination of religious and biomedical approaches to prevention reduces risk most effectively; that a significant minority of religious leaders encourage condom use; that Christian congregations in particular play a crucial role in easing suffering among the sick and their dependents; and that religious spaces in general are vital for disseminating information and developing new strategies for HIV prevention and AIDS mitigation. For anyone wishing to move beyond the rhetoric and ideology that plague debates about one of the most challenging crises of our time, Religion and AIDS in Africa is the authoritative account. It will change the way readers think about religious life and about AIDS in the region.

Addressing the need for an in-depth understanding and analysis of how Churches in Africa are living with the epidemic of HIV/AIDS, Ezra Chitando's book insists that the church must accompany people and communities living with HIV and AIDS on their journeys of faith. He argues that the church in Africa must be one with friendly feet, which ministers to every need, thus repenting its negative attitudes as well as the stigma and discrimination surrounding the disease. As it works with and among those living with HIV, it must also interrogate its theology, its attitude to sexuality and its gender insensitivity and awaken to the realisation that it must become an all-embracing community. Chitando insists that a church with friendly feet does not pose questions about the moral standing of those with whom it is journeying. African churches need friendly feet to journey with individuals and communities living with HIV and AIDS, warm hearts to demonstrate compassion and anointed hands to effect healing. Reflecting on these themes, Living with Hope is the first of two books.

This edited book offers an engaging portrait into a vital, religious movement inside this southern Africa country. It tells the story of a community of faith that is often overlooked in the region. The authors include leading scholars of religion, theology, and politics from Botswana and Zimbabwe. The insights they present will help readers understand the place of Pentecostal Christianity in this land of many religions. The chapters detail a history of the movement from its inception to the present. Chapters focus on specific Pentecostal churches, general doctrine of the movement, and the movement’s contribution to the country. The writing is deeply informed and features deep historical, theological, and sociological analysis throughout. Readers will also learn about the socio-political and economic relevance of the faith in Zimbabwe as well as the theoretical and methodological implications raised by the Pentecostalisation of society. The volume will serve as a resource book both for teaching and for those doing research on various aspects of the Zimbabwean society past, present, and future. It will be a good resource for those in schools and university and college departments of religious studies, theology, history, politics, sociology, social anthropology, and related studies. Over and above academic and research readers, the book will also be very useful to government policy makers, non-governmental organizations, and civic societies who have the Church as an important stakeholder.

When scholarship presents the histories, belief systems, and ritual patterns of specific religious groups, it often privileges victorious and élite fractions of those communities to the detriment and neglect of alternative, dissonant, and resurgent voices. The contributions in this volume, which include case studies on various religious and academic contexts, illustrate the importance of listening to those alternative voices for the study of religion.