You are on page 1of 95

The New Faces of

Christianity:
Women & Men
By: Gildardo Corona, Bryce Hinderlider,
Shanna Swezey, Melanie Toth & Renaldo
Williams
Chapter Outline
Women & Men (CH 7)
o Far Above Rubies (Pg. 159)
o Women Voices (Pg. 163)
o Womens Reformation (Pg. 164)
o Pastors (Pg. 166)
o Women, Arise (Pg. 168)
o Reading Critically (Pg. 169)
o Women and the Plague (Pg. 171)
o Honoring Widows (Pg. 173)
o Outsiders (Pg. 175)



Far Above Rubies
"I want to put a warning sign on a bible just like
tobacco companies put them on cigarette
packs."(Hyun Kyung Chung)
o New churches use Bible passages to support ideas of
conservative notions of gender roles.
o Biblical texts regulate and constrain womens roles withing
the churches. (The Letter os Paul)
o Traditionally African women were religious leaders.
o The Book of Ruth
o Churches combine local tradition tradition with Hebrew
laws to create a ritual cide in which menstrating women
are excluded from church services.
o Female circumcision

Womens Voices
Ecumenical Association of Third World
Theologians.
Womans groups promoted feminist-oriented
studies.
Ruth is a great role model for women
Feminist Bible readers seek overtly political
role for women.
Hyung Kung
Myung Sook Han
Feminist Verses
"Women should learn quietlyand submissively. I do
not let women teach men or have authority over
them. Let them listen quietly."(1Timothy 2:11-12)
The women should keep silent in the churches. For
they are not permitted to speak, but should be in
submission, as the Law also says. If there is anything
they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at
home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in
church.(1 Corinthians 14:34-35)
Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the
Lord. (Colossians 3:18)

Womens Reformation
CCAWT
Western Feminism
Promotion of Womens Political
Consciousness
Separation Between Scholars and
Church Members

Womens Reformation:
Changes
Grassroots
Changes in Gender Attitudes
Reformation of Machismo
Latin America

Womens Reformation:
Literacy
Tradition
Access to the Bible
Achieving Literacy
Navigating the Scriptures
Global South Recitation
Failure to Recite
Ex) Kent
Drawing Swords



Pastors: Prayer & Worship
Charismatic forms of prayer and worship
democratize African and Asian churches by
emphasizing
Personal
experience
Individual
inspiration
Prophetic gifts
Without
limitation of
age or gender

Pastors: Roles of Women
This emphasis affects both liberal and conservative
churches alike allowing significant roles for women
as
o Exorcists/healers
o Church founders
o Prophets
o Clergy
o Honored wives
Pastors: Scriptural
Foundation
Scriptural Foundation for the role of women in the
church
o Suppressed books of the Bible obscure the role of women
in the early church and the position of Mary Magdalene as
an apostle
o Deborah (Judges 4)
Womens role in Christs ministry and resurrection
o Marys exalted role, especially in the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55)
o Financial support of apostles
o Mary listening at Jesus feet (Luke 10:38-42)
o First witnesses to the resurrection who then took the news to
the apostles.


Woman, Arise
Recognition of the worth and determination of
women and girls
For African and Asian churches the miracle stories
of Luke 8 are key to ideas about healing and
exorcism but for African women scholars this section
is central to social change.
o Two stories hold special meaning (Luke 8:20-56)
o The hemorrhaging woman
o The raising of the daughter of Jairus
The Woman with the
issue of Blood
Zulu women use this story to
combat the blood taboos
maintained by many
Independent churches
today.
Gikuyu women associate this
story with complications due
to female circumcision.
Readers noted the care Jesus
took to aid outcaste and
oppressed women.

Woman, Arise:
Talitha cum
Western feminist readers note that the girl was not
given a name but for African women it is significant
that she is recognized by her family and status.

Woman, Arise:
Significance
A call to Christian activism and resistance for
women and girls.
Traditionally women and girls were to be submissive
and dependent
In this story Jesus speaks directly to a little girl and
calls her to rise up.
These words have been used by womens ministries,
and others, in publications and convocations
dealing with issues of faith, healing, and recovery
from sexual abuse and exploitation.


Reading Critically
In Kenyan societies, male elites are fiercely worried
about independent female organization.
o Even the ideology of the loyally Christian good wife
quietly reading her Bible may carry within it the seeds of
sedition, (169).
The Proverbial "good" wife is expected to be pious,
raise her children in a Godly manner, and study the
Bible.
Kenyan women commit all their energy to living a
religious life.
o They have also diverted their labor to church groups,
and appropriated Christian norms of femininity in court
cases to promote their own interests, (170)
Reading Critically
But leaving women to pursue domestic piety
through Bible reading is like forbidding a restive
population to carry weapons, while giving them
unrestricted access to gasoline and matches,
(170).
Biblical passages relevant to women often times
inspire and ignite dynamic readings.
Inspritaion comes from scripture that is read and
interpreted in its context verses soely isolated and
sought-out verses.


Reading Critically

Ephesians 5:22-24
Jenkins argues that this passage places a burden
and responsibility on men so that both sexes are
mutually submitting to one another.
A way of dizening the common interpretation
Shows that many people hold very different
perspectives on the same biblical passage.



Reading Critically
Oftentimes subject matter is substantiated not because of how it is
conceived of in the bible, but because such text exists at all
o The fact that an issue is mentioned in scripture permits it to be addressed
and debated in ways it could not be if it was imported as the latest Western
thinking, (170).
A perfect example of this is the controversial practice of female
circumcision. In Kenya in the 1920s, once the vernacular Bible was
released, the women of Gikuyu began to explore the Bible and told of
its stories to one another.
women came to the conclusion that it was biblically correct to
circumcise men but not women. In response to these conclusions
Christian women came together to form the Council of the Shield, in
order to protect women from circumcision. Given the nature of the
central importance of circumcision Jenkins calls this stance a Biblically
fueled social revolution, (171).
Reading Critically
The shortcomings of scriptural literalism can be seen
especially in biblical passages which legitimize
abuses, however, as Jenkins puts it, Once these
matters are brought into public view, participants
can never forget the questions that have been
raised, and it is difficult to restore them to the realm
of decent silence, (171).

Women and the Plague
The Christian response to the AIDS epidemic in
contemporary Africa is controversial
We see this in Catholicism, with its objection to the
use of condoms and emphasis on abstinence and
chastity.
Women and the Plague
Many Christians hold the belief that the Ugandan government is
acting effectively on this issue , while secular critics believe that
chastity programs are unrealistic and pernicious.
Do not forget that he led you through the great and terrifying
wilderness with its poisonous snakes and scorpions, where it was
so hot and dry. He gave you water from the rock! He fed you
with manna in the wilderness, a food unknown to your ancestors.
He did this to humble you and test you for your own good.
(Deuteronomy 8:15-16).
This biblical passage is used by some Africans to justify not taking
necessary precautions against AIDS.
Women and the Plague
Biblical passages more often though serve to
provoke awareness of disease, AIDS in particular.
The scenes in Luke 8 are all too familiar for a contemporary
African, who sees in the gospel account almost an unfolding
documentary, (172).
Jesus healed incurable ailments such as leprosy.
Cultural secrecy and stigma surrounding Aids
complicates the disease, adding to it the notion of
tainted blood in societies where blood has with it
various ritual associations.
Causes denial of the disease
Women and the Plague
Some traditionally-oriented communities dont even recognize
AIDS as a topic for discussion. Clergy who acknowledge they
have HIV contribute much to AIDS prevention- that it is not
divine punishment but rather a disease that anyone can
contract.
Readers have looked to the passage in Luke about the
woman of the city who anoints Jesus feet and dries them
with her hair. Though the exact nature of her sin is unknown, it is
widely held that it is a sexual one. Thus she is the anointing
prostitute.
This example of Jesus' willingness to love and embrace those
who have committed sexual sins is a powerful example for
African churches dealing with those inflicted with Aids.

Honoring Widows
In Honoring Widows we see Jenkins touch on the
treatment of widows, and issues of charity, respect,
independence and freedom from oppression that
widows in the Global South experience because of
the Christian faith.
Jenkins notes that in Acts we see Greeks and
Hebrews divided on the issue of Charity.
In his letter to Timothy, Paul describes the criterion
for assessing which widows are deserving of charity.

Importance of Honor and
Protection
Scriptural passages that advocate protection and
respect for widows resound with Africa, because for
them life and death are a very real threat.
In southern African society, when a man dies, often
his house and goods are pillaged by his relatives
leaving his widow and children in extreme privation.
This act is justified by the belief that a mans
property belongs to him alone, or in the case of his
death, belongs to his family. it is assumed that the
widow will remarry.
Importance of Honor and
Protection (cont.)
In many traditional cultures in Africa, widows are
obligated to perform certain rituals.
o Sexual cleansing is one such ritual. This is where a woman
engages in intercourse with the late husbands brother in order to
exorcise the dead mans spirit and to prevent curses from
spreading through the community
HIV is a threat
o Widows undergo a social death
Churches do not always do well to care for their
widows
o When a woman is widowed, not only do churches and society fail to
care for her needs, but in some churches, widows are actually required to
give up their church positions (Jenkins, 174)
o This almost warrants the deduction that women are worthless and
meaningless without men.

Importance of Honor and
Protection (cont.)
In India, widows are treated like a member of the
living dead, who are a burden and a hateful
object. They are socially excluded. (Udit Raj, 174)
Jenkins remarks that widowhood is seen as an
urgent womens right issue in parts of Africa and
Asia.
African Islamic law gives widows legal protection
however this legal protection isnt applicable to
Catholic Christians in Africa.
Respect for Widows
Respect for Widows is a survival issue
o The Book of Ruth
o Romans 7:2
o This scripture can be a catalyst for radical change in
the treatment of women in the Global south
o Pauline theology

Support for Widows
Scriptural support for charity
o 1 & 2 Kings
o Story of Elijah and Elisha
The tale of Elijahs miraculous save has been used
for the creation of guilds and fellowships for
women
o James 1:27
1 Timothy 5:9-14, coupled with the churchs ministry
provides impoverished widows with supports and
resources in defense of her faith



Outsiders: Women as
Outsiders
God chooses those whom the world rejects. Jesus
ministered to the oppressed, the marginalized, and
the outcasts
o Women Fit into this Category
The new testament in its entirety shows how God
expanded the idea of acceptance beyond its
conventional limits
Scriptural passages
o Elijah
o Rahab
o Jesus, side-stepping social boundaries, in his interactions with women
In a sense women outsiders stand at the very
beginning of the Christian story (Jenkins, 176).


Women Challenge the
Status Quo
Sinful Women and the Genealogy of Jesus
o Challenges pride in family and ancestry, both of
which are fundamental in African and Asian societies.
Tamar : played a prostitute
Rahab: was a prostitute
Ruth: woman of a foreign race
Mary: found to be pregnant with Jesus during her
engagement
o God chose the lowly things of this world and the
despised things--and the things that are not--to nullify
the things that are. 1 Cor. 1:28
Jesus Challenged the Status
Quo: Women do too
African and Asian writers stress the theme of trampling
traditional restrictions.
o This is clearly seen in Jesus interactions with women, encouraging and
praising them for their faith
o When Jesus, a higher caste Jew, accepted water from the Samaritan
woman
Story of the Samaritan woman suggests Jesus willingness to overstep
social boundaries and violate traditional rules about gender and
create dialogue about unity across tribal and ethnic boundaries.
Story of the Syro-Phenician woman who begged Jesus to heal her
possessed daughter. Jesus reaching out to a foreigner
These stories are especially meaningful in societies with stringent rules
regarding contact between the sexes. Listeners are united by a
common thread of maternal love which traverse cultural and ethnic
lines.
Women and the radical
message of faith
Faith grants women freedom from traditional and
societal norms
Pentecostalism erases social and political boundaries
and grants one the freedom of speaking to those whom
they never could before on the grounds or class, race,
and gender.
The bible in its entirety speaks to outsiders and the way
God uses the lowly and despised to bring about his
purpose while it often discredits those secure in comfort
and power.
It is especially from the texts dealing with women that
readers discover the radicalism of the Christian
message (Jenkins, 177)


Individual Research
Outline
Gender and Sexuality in the Context of Religion and
Social Justice
Women, African Reality, and the Bible
The Africana Bible
Woman Lost in the Global Maze
Reading the Bible with Women in Poor
Marginalized communities in South Africa
Gender: Religion Shapes
Culture
Religion plays a key role in the social justice issues of
gender and sexuality
Gender and sexuality are changing and contested
categories
What does it mean to be a sexed being?
How we think about gender and sex effects laws and
policies
Marriage and inheritance
What it means to be a person
What it means to be a moral person
Christianity and Judaism have the most social influence
o Equal Rights Amendment and Employment Non-Discrimination Act are
informed by religious concepts


Gender
Emerged in the 19
th
century over womens right to
vote
Prior to this time, sex was seen as a bipolarity, men
and women were considered different, and women
were subordinate to men who solely governed all
household affairs other than chores
o Gender norms and gender roles shaped and reinforced by scriptures
Genesis 1:1- 2:3
Genesis 2:4-25
Ephesians 5:25
o This view held until the twentieth century
Remnants of this earlier view remain

Women as Human Beings
Unless women were understood as full persons in a
religious sense, and not as limited, impartial, or
underdeveloped beings they would not be treated
equally in civil law
o Elizabeth Cady Stanton
o Susan B Anthony
Legislated on behalf of womens rights
Took on the interpretation of the bible as a source of cultural
information about women
The womens bible, 1895
o An effort to interpret scriptures regarding women and offer
alternative explanations to the ways the text Is taught and
preached
o Approach helped to change minds about the place of women
in society
o Went out of print; revived in 1974 by second wave feminists
Women as Human Beings
(cont.)
Right to vote: 1920
ordained to ministry: 1853
circuit-riding preachers
Funding schools and hospitals
o proof that women could do what men could
Ideas about women and gender change after WWI
and WWII

Women and Religion
Valerie Salving (1960) The Human Situation: A
feminine view
o Women and men sin differently
Men- through acts of pride and power
Women- through distraction and diffusion
o Self-sacrificial love detrimental to women
o Religion as a gendered activity

Women and Religion
(cont.)
Salvings work paved the way for religion to be
scrutinized through a gender lens
o Church history is re-read to look for areas where women were sublimely
obscured, ignored, or denigrated
o Scriptures reanalyzed and framed as if gender matters
o Ministry and liturgical life re-examined
o Reflection and integration of gender-inclusive language and imagery
applied both to the divine and humanity
o Ethics and moral theology re-thought from a gender sensitive starting
place as if womens experience were unique and heterosexual
normativity was a sin
o Ongoing opposition to these efforts
It is now considered a given, in the field of theology
and society at large, that issues of gender have a
religious element

God as Man's Puppet
Mary Daly: Catholic Feminist theologian
o If man is God, then God is man (1973)
o A Fundamental problem exists when we use masculine language to
describe the divine
Reflects masculine power and reinforces and legitimizes this power as
a value in society
Those with the power to name the divine surely possess other powers
as well (Hunt, 537)
o Women, unrestricted can, too, reflect the divine fully- A revolutionary idea
in the 1970s
Opposes Terutllians view women as the devils gateway
Opposes Thomas Aquinas idea women as misbegotten males
o Language and Imagery of the divine inexplicably related to the ways in
which men and women acquit themselves in society.
Racialized, and genderizied images of God have a negative impact
on society
God as white and powerful lord serve to legitimize and
systematize the authority of those in power.
God as Man's Puppet
(cont.)
By the 1970s virtually all protestant denominations
and Jews were wrestling with gender issues
o If only men could serve in ministry and leadership positions in religious
communities then there was no doubt how it could be justified by the
larger society as whole the inadequacy and faults of womens nature to
keep them out of jobs and in their place.
o Religious claims about justice and equality now had to include justice and
equality for women.
Gender and Social Issues
as Human Rights Issues
Religious changes mirrored social and legal
changes for birth control, and abortion (1973), and
diligent efforts to ratify Equal rights Amendment.
Changed the way men and women live together in
society
o From gender-oriented ways of living to more egalitarian
ways of being
Gender and Social Issues as
Human Rights Issues (cont.)
Women take up roles in leadership and ministry
o National Council of Jewish Women (1893)
o Hadassah (1912)
o Regina Jonas - First woman Rabbi ordained, Germany 1935
o Sally Priesand- First women ordained in the reform movement, US,
1972
o Reconstructionist movement- 1974
o Conservative movement- 1985
o Women Priests ordained in the Lutheran church, 1970, and
Episcopal church in 1974
o Catholic church has yet to institutionally ordain women
o Muslim women, Imam, who lead congregations of prayer
o Buddhist women experience similar changes
o Wiccan and pagan groups have long been lead by women


Gender and Social Issues as
Human Rights Issues (cont.)
The religious progress on viewing women as fully
human, who are beings capable of their own
religious agency and moral decisions, has been
decisive in bringing about social justice
At the same time, opposition to womens religious
equality has echoed the opposition to womens
civil equality
Womens tangible religious accomplishments help
to bring about social change by providing contrary
evidence to the old models of thinking and instead
replace them with more egalitarian ones

Abortion
Roe vs Wade (1973)
Ruling ensures womens right to make decisions
regarding their own bodies
Abortion as a legal issue is probably the most
pressing issue of womens rights around the world
o The Vatican and some Muslim countries have attempted to block
consensus at UN meetings on womens rights
o Opponents of legal abortion: Base their arguments on the idea that the
fetus is a living being who deserves to live
o Proponents of legal abortion: Women are moral agents who can and
should decide what happens to their own bodies.
o Both sides hold deep-seeded beliefs: People kill other people over these
ideas
Religion central to this social justice issue
The Intersectionality of
Gender and Religion
Although progress has been made, gender equality
is not universally assumed
o Disparities in pay and promotion
o Birth control and reproductive rights
o Property rights
o Rape and sexual violence
Most religions acknowledge the theoretical advent,
that being treated equally regardless of gender is a
human right

Sexuality
Heterosexuality was taken, without question, as
normative until the mid- 19
th
century.
Until the 20
th
century, if encountered, homosexuality
was seen as unnatural, immoral, and illegal
Gay Liberation Movement (1960s)
o Transgendered individuals especially challenged pervasive and previously
held concepts of sexuality
Religious arguments surround all sides of the
question
Traditional views on sex as a binary distinction led to
the conclusion that heterosexual relationships were
the normative human experience
Sexuality (cont.)

The 1960s presented the possibility for people to live
well and to be open about their sexual orientation,
and receive social validation and recognition
After WWII the customary of seeing same-sex
relationships grew

Recognition, Rights and
Progress
Kinsey Reports, 1948, 1953- Opened up
commentary on the topic of sexual orientation
suggesting that about 10% of the population was
oriented toward same-sex-loving.
Mattachine Society, 1950- Mens group dedicated
to protecting gay rights
Daughters of Bilitis, 1955- Lesbian social and support
group
APA (American Psychological Association)
removed homosexuality from their DSM as a
diagnostic category, 1973
Recognition, Rights and
Progress
Same-sex loving people fought for legal and social
rights:
o to not be arrested for same-sex conduct
o to serve in the military
o access to fair and adequate housing and jobs without discrimination
o religious rights
seen as healthy, moral, and natural human beings who are doing
their best to love others
Stonewall Bar in NYC, 1969- same-sex-loving people
fought back against the police who raided the bar
to arrest patrons. Led to-Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
Transgender (LGBT) Movement

Fight for Social Rights
Efforts to bring about same-sex rights in religious circles
have proved challenging
Implications are significant and far-reaching
o Deep seeded belief that heterosexuality is divinely given to all humans
Homosexuality as morally wrong
o Genesis 19:1-5
o Leviticus 18:22
o Leviticus 20:13
o Deuteronomy 23:17
o 1 Cor. 6:9-10
o 1 Timothy 1:9-10
o Romans 1:21-31
o Early psychological ways of seeing same-sex love were informed by
biblical texts in the absence of other literature
All of these are subject to stringent scholarly revision
Rethinking the Text
LGBT or Queer Theology- emerges a source to
rethink the fundamental issues of sexuality
Activists and Scholars deal with the religious
dimensions of heterosexism to the exclusion of legal,
moral, and social rights of same-sex loving people
Same-sex loving seen as a variant on human loving-
just another way to live
o Has come about by expanding gender roles and the social sciences:
psychology, sociology, and economics,
o Becoming educated about these issues decreases fear and stigma
surrounding it

Discrimination
Discrimination against LGBT people still exist, but is
being fought
o The Employment Non-Discrimination Act is pending
legislation to counter this situation
o Repeal of dont, ask dont tell policy 2011

Religion Shapes Thought
Religion shapes how we think about marriage,
divorce, sexual practices, and bearing and raising
children
Religious traditions and religious communities
change on the basis of social input
o Slavery is an example of this
The idea that religion is an immutable is hard to
validate
Religion Shapes Thought
(cont.)
Evolving gay and lesbian groups since the 1960s
o Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC)
founded by Rev. Troy Perry who gathered together a small group of
lesbian and gay people for religious services in his living room
o Currently 300 MCC congregations in 22 Countries
o Dignity started in 1969, and now has dozen of chapters all over the US.
o Social changes intimately linked to changes in religion
Both the problem and the solution can be found in scripture
Bernadette Brooten, Love Between Women (1996)
o Scholar of religion
o Lesbian relationships in the early Christian period were taboo not because
it was two women but because the relationship tended to be egalitarian
in nature; the normative master-slave, teacher-student pattern was
missing

Religion and LGBT
Being religious and a member of the LGBT
community does not have to be inharmonious
o Members of LGBT religious communities formed their own faith traditions
o These groups existed alongside mainstream denominations not within
them
o Some denominations, like the Unitarian Universalist Association and United
Church of Christ set up offices as part of their structure to deal with LGBT
issues
Ordination became once again became a
contested matter
If publicly sanctioned religious leaders taught
included LGBT people then it would be difficult to
teach against same-sex love
Religion and LGBT (cont.)
William Johnson, 1972, United Church of Christ- first
ordination someone who identifies as openly gay in
the US Christian denomination.
Steven Greenburg, 1983, first openly gay orthodox
Rabbi
Ellen Barrett, 1977, first openly lesbian/gay person
ordained by the Episcopal church
That All May Freely Serve (TAMS)- developed by Jane
Spahr; a well-organized ecclesiastical change group
in Presbyterian circles
2010 The Presbyterian denomination voted at the
national level to affirm a single standard of ordination.

Marriage
Marriage functions as the locus of the family
o Legal benefits
o Marriage in the civil vs. religious arena
Marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples
o Quakers and Unitarian Universalists have permitted ceremonies for years
o Roman Catholic and Southern Baptist oppose it
Proposition 8 (2008)- The institutional Roman
Catholic church and the Mormons worked to pass
the California Marriage protection act which
declares marriage legal only between a man and a
women.
Same-sex marriage remains the most contested
social justice issue under the sexuality umbrella
Uprooting Traditional Notions
of Gender and Sexuality
Transgendered persons have uprooted all assumptions about
human embodiment
As biological matters are being sorted out by scientists,
theologians have taken up the religious aspects of trans
peoples experiences
Medical fields treatment of trans people raises religious
questions
o Are they treated fairly?
o Are cost of services reasonable?
o Is too much influence given to doctors, when the problem is actually more
holistic?
Religious overtones and implications in these questions:
o How is gender constructed?
Fluid and changeable? Or fixed and immutable? Relative or
universal?

Uprooting Traditional Notions
of Gender and Sexuality (cont.)
Transgendered people pose a greater challenge to
the way conceptualize what is normative; makes
us re-think what it means to be a sexed being
Virginia Ramey Mollenkott: Omnigender: A Trans-
Religious Approach (2001)
o Galatians 1:28, neither male nor female
Christine Gudorf, a Catholic Theologian The erosion
of sexual dimorphism: Challenges to religion and
religious ethics (2001);
We should recognize that both sex and gender
are socially constructed categories; both sex and
gender must be interpreted
Uprooting Traditional Notions
of Gender and Sexuality (cont.)
Sexuality and gender are still controversial issues
within todays religions. They are sites of struggle
and power within some US religious groups. Just as
at one time, slavery was progressed from something
allowed to something forbidden, so too should
religious claims of love, justice, and equality support
and promote the social justice on sexuality and
gender.

The Global South and Issues
of Sexuality and Gender
How it all ties together
o In Far above Rubies we see how scripture can be used,
and is still being used in the Global South to oppress
women and keep them in their place. In Woman Arise and
Reading Critically we see the opposite: we see women
searching scripture and using it in a liberating and
emancipatory way. In accessing gender and Sexuality, it is
clear that scripture can be used to both denigrate and
uplift gender and sexuality, just as it can women. It really is
a matter of how one poses the question and how one
seeks the answers. The women of the Global South know
this all too well: Using scripture to empower themselves is
freeing.

Women, African Reality,
and the Bible
Zulu song used to protest black masses each verse repeated
eight times.
Senzeni na (What have we done?)
Isono sethu ubumnyama (Our sin is our blackness)
Amabhunu ayizinja (Whites are dogs)
The Bible was used to sanction racial segregation in South
Africa.
Circle of Concerned African Woman Theologians
God's will for Africans was that they had to be slaves as
preached by ministers
Woman had the lack of education to read the Bible.
Woman are not allowed to serve

Bathepa Maja
Bathepa Maja obtained the Shoprite-Checkers
Woman of the year award in 2006 for her tireless
efforts toward establishing the Sentahle Community
Home-Based Care in her rural village.
Community Care Center was built through Maja
relentless efforts.
Maja accomplished alot through her faith.
Bible to be used as a positive use to better the
community.
For better, For worse.

The Africana Bible: Ruth
Summary of Ruth
o Naomi Widow/Mother in law
o Ruth Daughter in Law/Widow
o Journey to Juddah
Mara - Bitter
o Boaz Brother in law
o Threshing Floor
o Ruth and Boaz

The Africana Bible: Ruth
and Marriage
Book of Ruth on Marriage for the Global South
Cultural Familiarity
Translations of Ruth and the OT
o Nasah
o Lakh
Moabite and Africana Women
Saved by Lions
The Use of Ruth


Themes of Ruth
Sex and Marriage
o Ruth Reflects Cultural and Moral Values
o Naomi Ordering Ruth in Chapter 3
Gender and Marriage
o Heterosexual vs. Homosexual Relationships
o Ruth and Naomis Relationship
Ruth 1:16-17
Family First
o Family Importance for Children
Ruth 1:3-5
Border and Boundary Crossing
o African Diaspora Creates a Border-Crossing People
o Parallels to the Book of Ruth
o Common in Ruths Later Family
Crossing
Borders

Woman Lost in the Global
Maze
16 th century slave trade
Colonialism (1895-1963)
o Economic exploitation
o foreign control
Neo-Colonialism and
Globalization
o foreign control (at arms length)
o continued exploitation of land and
o labor
capitalism, materialism, individualism
East African Religious
Pluralism
From the eight century
o Indigenous Religions
o Islam
o Christianity
19th - 20th century
o Pentecostal
o Charismatic
Present day Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya
o 70%-80% Christian
o Traditional beliefs, "coexist, compliment, and overlap," religious affiliations
African Women's Spiritual
Roles in Pre-Colonial
Society
Healers
Mediators
Prophets
Religious leaders
Women were believed to
have a special relationship
with the divine.
Colonialism and the
construction of
"Womanhood"
Based on European ideal and English law
No legal voice
Denied property rights and ownership
Barred from wage labor
Mission schools (and the Victorian ideal) taught that
women were the bearers of morality and civility
o Literacy
East Africa in the Age of
Globalization
Poverty
o 57%of Kenyans live in Poverty due to political corruption, foreign debt.
drought, AIDS, and declining life expectancy.
60% of the population of Nairobi live in the sprawling slums
surrounding the city.
o 75% of women live in rural areas and
practive subsistence and small market
agriculture.
Women and Poverty
Health
o Life exetancy 57 years
o Infant mortality 118 per 1,000
o Maternal mortality 590 per
100,000
o Higher rate of HIV
o Rate of HIV infection five times
higher among adolescent girls
than boys
o Little access to reproductive
and other health services
o Women often the ones left to
care for the regions 1.8 million
orphans created by AIDS.
l
Education
o 66% of Kenyan women are
illiterate
o Few girls ever go to school past
the first few years
o 29.9% employed in wage labor
o 6% in management positions
Farming
o Subsidies provided for cash
crops. Land appropriated for
large scale farms
o Deforestation, desertification,
water shortages.

"Is Another World
Possible?"
Positive Movements for economic, social, and
enviromental justice.
o African Independent Churches
o African Conference of Churches
o Charismatic movement
o Greenbelt Movement
Feminist theology and Liberation theology
o Old Testament - God's indifference toward wealth and power
o New Testament- Discipleship of equals
Uplifting the poor and marginalized
Magnificat - "Blueprint for feminist theology" (Luke 1:46-55)
Indigenous Spritiual
Traditions
Biocentric rather than anthropocentric
Urumwe - Interconnectivity of all life
Ubuntu - Interreliance of all people

"I am because we are and since we are I am."
Christian and
Indigenous syncretism

Context
Liberation theologians for many years now have
debated the essential question in theology and biblical
studies in that of who an individuals conversational
companions are in the matters of theology and in
interpreting the written word of the Bible. Strictly
speaking, who are our main dialogists? The essay
Reading The Bible With Women in Poor and
Marginalized Communities in South Africa by Malika
Sibeko and Beverly Haddad of the University of Natal
proceed vigorously with this question electing regular
women, as oppose to the academically untrained
variety to be at the forefront of the reading of the Bible.
Context (cont.)
Women who read the Bible, especially when they are regular,
disadvantaged, and African women readers, more often
times than not are trivialized and enslaved readers of the
Bible. Sibeko and Haddad analyze these women when they
are afforded the favorable circumstances of actually being
able to speak. Mark 5:21-6:1 is the central text for this biblical
study.
In this way, Sibeko and Haddad are akin to Jenkins (although
he does not just use regular women) who in his chapter
Women and Men tells of stories highlighting themes found
across a great deal of the global South, particularly that
women locate in the new churches the capacity to speak,
and frequently lead, and in this interpretation of Christianity, it
revolutionizes womens ambitions and roles.

Analysis/Synthesis
Reading the Bible alongside women in poverty-stricken
and depreciated communities in Africa and the global
South in general put forward specific challenges when
keeping in context their cultural, financial, and churchly
subjugation. Sibeko and Haddad use the women of
Amawoti in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa at the center of
their Bible readers. These women represent the majority
of women in Africa, what Sibeko and Haddad have
dubbed the triple oppression of race class and
gender, (Sibeko and Hadddad 84). The Subordination
of women is perhaps best exemplified in the church,
ironic, or perhaps tragic, seeing as that the majority of
the churches congregation are in fact women.

Analysis/Synthesis (cont.)
Jenkins posits like Sibeko and Haddad that the
churches that have arisen as Christianity grows in
the global South, it is within the framework of
cultures with conservative viewpoints on gender
roles, causing them to be attracted to biblical texts
that can be used for traditional values.
The women of Amawoti were only asked three
questions when it came to their Bible study of the
Mark text.
o Read Mark 5:21-6:1 and discuss what the text is about.
o Can we say this text is about women and why?
o How does this text apply to you as women in your context.
Analysis/Synthesis (cont.)

The first question was used to bolster the members of the
group to read the text more deliberately and closely. The
second question was to encourage the women to once again
look at the text, in doing so provide opportunities for questions
about the society in which the text was created. And lastly,
the text and the context are brought together and discussed.
Jenkins too wants women in the global South to read critically.
Analyzing biblical texts pertinent to women often yield
inventive readings, as Jenkins writes sometimes by taking the
simple step of placing a scriptural text in context, rather than
simply reciting an isolated verse, (Jenkins 170). As Sibeko and
Haddad concur, once one becomes more familiar with
sections of the Bible, the more impact it can have by giving a
different renderings of the same passages.


Reflections
My personal reflections on the research and how it has expanded
my appreciation for the nature of Christianity in the global South
is that while I was certainly aware that women had it bad in the
global South, from female mutilation to female sex trafficking, it
wasnt until my research that Ive truly understood how bad they
have it within the church. As Ive stated before, Sibeko and
Haddad have dubbed what women go through in Africa as the
triple oppression of race class and gender. As Jenkins describes
in his Women and Men chapter women are like outsiders in the
global South when it comes to the matters of church, family and
personal relationships. For this is why Christianity is so appealing to
many women in the global South; Jesus went to people who
were at best at the fringes of society, (Jenkins 175). I was never
ignorant of the suffering of women in the global South, but now,
after my research, I have a new appreciation for it.


Discussion Questions
1.) How do women in the Global South interpret
scripture? How might they see it differently than women
in the West? Why is this? Do men in the Global South
read gender _into _scripture, or rather, are traditional
gender roles affirmed and exasperated by scripture? If
so, how, and in what ways? Do you think this _gendering
_of scripture is experienced similarly or differently by their
western counterparts? Why or why not?
2.) In what ways can scripture be used to exploit and
justify the oppression of women in the Global South? In
what ways can it be used to edify, encourage and uplift
women? Provide examples and share your thoughts.

You might also like