Women, Rights Talk, and African Pentecostalism
Issue: Vol 36 No. 2 (2017) Religious Studies and Theology
Journal: Religious Studies and Theology
Subject Areas: Religious Studies Buddhist Studies Islamic Studies Biblical Studies
DOI: 10.1558/rsth.35161
Abstract:
In this essay, I seek to bring a rights perspective to women’s religious leadership and agency in Africa, notably in the case of the newer forms of Pentecostal-charismatic Christianity that now pre-dominate in many parts of the continent. Rather than adopting a legal approach, I focus on the concept of “rights talk” which provides a more productive and inclusive way to approach ideas about women’s leadership in locally grounded (and often transnationally connected) African Christian communities. The protagonists are the women church founders and leaders who have publicly addressed the emancipation of women in the varying contexts of gender inequality. I contend that the way modern Pentecostal-charismatic women leaders argue for equality, justice, and dignity in their religious communities can also be traced back to their forbears in the African-initiated or independent churches that date from the seventeenth century onwards. There are interesting parallels, as well as some differences, in the ways that they frame, explicitly or implicitly, their understandings of equality and freedom from oppression, and balance compliance and resistance to perduring patriarchal limitations on their religious agency.
Author: Rosalind I.J. Hackett
References :
Abdullah, Hussaina J. 2002. “Religious Revivalism, Human Rights Activism and the Struggle for Women’s Rights in Nigeria.” In Cultural Transformation and Human Rights in Africa, edited by Abdullahi A. An-Na’im, 151–191. London: Zed.
Abusharaf, Rogaia Mustafa. 2011. “Gender Justice and Religion in Sub-Saharan Africa.” In Religion and the Global Politics of Human Rights, edited by Thomas Banchoff and Robert Wuthnow, 129–155. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195343397.003.0006
Adogame, Afe. 2008. “ ‘I am Married to Jesus’ The Feminization of New African Diasporic Religiosity.” Archives de Sciences Sociales des Religions 143: 129–149. https://doi.org/10.4000/assr.17133
Akintunde, Dorcas Olu, ed. 2001. African Culture and the Quest for Women’s Rights. Ibadan: Sefer.
Ampofo, Akosua Adomako. 2017. “Africa’s fast-growing pentecostal mega churches are entrenching old injustices against women.” Quartz Africa June 16. https://qz.com/1007819/pentecostal-churches-in-ghana-and-nigeria-are-entrenching-sexist-gender-roles-for-women/
Badran, Margot, ed. 2011. Gender and Islam in Africa: Rights, Sexuality, and Law. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Badru, Pade, and Brigid M. Sackey, eds. 2013. Islam in Africa South of the Sahara: Essays in Gender Relations and Political Reform. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow.
Barrett, David B. 1968. Schism and Renewal in Africa. an Analysis of Six Thousand Contemporary Religious Movements. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bateye, Bolaji Olukemi. 2007. “Forging Identities: Women as Participants and Leaders in the Church among the Yoruba.” Studies in World Christianity 13(1): 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3366/swc.2007.13.1.1
Bhatasara, Sandra, Rumbidzai Shamuyedova, Choguya Naume Zorodzai, and Manase Kudzai Chiweshe. 2017. “Women and Pentecostalism in Zimbabwe: Negotiating Leadership in the Zimbabwe Assemblies of God ‘Forward in Faith’ (ZAOGA FIF) Ministry, Harare.” In Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion, edited by Michael Wilkinson and Peter Althouse, 291–306. Leiiden: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004344181_017
Bond, George C. 1979. “A Prophecy that Failed: The Lumpa Church of Uyombe, Zambia.” In African Christianity: Patterns of Religious Continuity, edited by George C. Bond, Walton Johnson and Sheila S. Walker, 137–160. New York: Academic.
Chong, Kelly H. 2007. Deliverance and Submission: Evangelical Women and the Negotiation of Patriarchy in South Korea. Vol. 309, Harvard East Asian Monographs. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Cole, Catherine M., Takyiwaa Manuh, and Stephan F. Miescher, eds. 2007. Africa after Gender? Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Coleman, Simon, and Rosalind I. J. Hackett, eds. 2015. The Anthropology of Global Pentecostalism and Evangelicalism. New York: New York University Press.
Crumbley, Deidre H. 2010. Spirit, Structure, and Flesh: Gendered Experiences in African Instituted Churches among the Yoruba of Nigeria. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Dube, Musa. 2014. “Between the Spirit and the Word: Reading the Gendered African Pentecostal Bible.” Hervormde Teologiese Studies 70(1): 1–7. https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v70i1.2651
Elmadmad, Khadija. 2002. “Women’s Rights under Islam.” In Human Rights of Women: International Instruments and African Experiences, edited by Wolfgang Benedek, Ester M. Kisaakye and Gerd Oberleitner, 245–268. London: Zed.
Garvey, Brian. 1994. Bembaland Church: Religious and Social Change in South Central Africa, 1891–1964. Leiden: Brill.
Gender is My Agenda Campaign. 2017. African Union Headquarters, Addis Ababa. June 27–28. http://www.genderismyagenda.com/
Glendon, Mary Ann. 1991. Rights Talk: the Impoverishment of Poltical Discourse. New York: The Free Press.
Hackett, Rosalind I. J. 2007. “Competing Universalisms: New Discourses of Emancipation in the African Context.” In La rationalité, une ou plurielle?, edited by Paulin Houtondji, 163–171. Paris: UNESCO.
———. 2000. “Power and Periphery: Studies of Gender and Religion in Africa.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 12(1/2): 238–244. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006800X00148
———. 1995. “Women and New Religious Movements in Africa.” In Gender and Religion, edited by Ursula King, 257–290. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hastings, Adrian. 1994. The Church in Africa 1450–1950. New York: Clarendon.
Hayward, Susan, and Katherine Marshall, eds. 2015. Women, Religion and Peacebuilding: Illuminating the Unseen. Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace.
Hinfelaar, Hugo. 1991. “Women’s Revolt: The Lumpa Church of Lenshina Mulenga in the 1950s.” Journal of Religion in Africa 21: 99–129. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006691X00258
Hodgson, Dorothy L. 2008. The Church of Women: Gendered Encounters between Maasai and Missionaries. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Hoehler-Fatton, Cynthia 1996. Women of Fire and Spirit: History, Faith, and Gender in Roho Religion in Western Kenya. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195097900.001.0001
Horn, Jessica. 2009. Christian Fundamentalisms and Women’s Rights in the African Context: Mapping the Terrain. Toronto: Association of Women in Development (AWID).
Kayanja, Jessica. 2017. Girl Power Ministries. http://www.robertkayanjaministries.org/girlpowerministries/
Kevane, Michael. 2014. Women and Development in Africa: How Gender Works. Second Edition. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
Kisaakye, Esther M. 2002. “Women, Culture, and Human Rights: Female Genital Mutilation, Polygamy and Bride Price.” In Human Rights of Women: International Instruments and African Experiences, edited by Wolfgang Benedek, Ester M. Kisaakye and Gerd Oberleitner, 268–285. London: Zed.
MacGaffey, Wyatt. 1986. Religion and Society in Central Africa. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Mapuranga, Tapiwa Praise 2013. “Bargaining with Patriarchy? Women Pentecostal leaders in Zimbabwe.” Fieldwork in Religion 8(1): 74–91. https://doi.org/10.1558/firn.v8i1.74
Marshall, Ruth. 2009. Poltical Spiritualities: The Pentecostal Revolution in Nigeria. Chicago, IL: The University Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226507149.001.0001
Meyer, BIrgit. 1999. Translating the Devil: Religion and Modernity Among the Ewe in Ghana. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.
Mikell, Gwedolyn, ed. 1997. African Feminism: The Politics of Survival in Sub-Saharan Africa. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812200775
Mountain of Fire and Miracles (MFM). 2017. North Providence, Rhode Island. http://www.mfmprovidence.org/mfm-group/women-foundation/
Mwaura, Philomena Njeri. 2012. “Concept of Basic Human Rights in African Independent Pentecostal Church of Africa and Jesus Is Alive Ministries.” Journal of World Christianity 5(1): 9–42. https://doi.org/10.5325/jworlchri.5.1.0009
———. 2007. “Gender and Power in African Christianity: African Instituted Churches and Pentecostal Churches.” In African Christianity : an African story, edited by Ogbu U. Kalu, 410–445. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press.
Oduyoye, Mercy Amba. 1995. “Calling the Church to Account.” Ecumenical Review 47(4): 479–489. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-6623.1995.tb03742.x
Olademo, Oyeronke. 2003. Women in the Yoruba Religious Sphere, McGill Studies in the History of Religions. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Olajubu, Oyeronke. 2005. “Gender and Religion: Gender and African Religious Traditions.” Encyclopedia of Religion. http://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/gender-and-religion-gender-and-african-religious-traditions
Olaniyi, Dorcas S. 1988. Woman, I Condemn You Not. Ibadan: Agbala Daniel Church Ministry.
Otas, Belinda. 2015. “Empowering African Women: Gender is the Agenda.” NewAfrican, April 4. http://newafricanmagazine.com/empowering-african-women-
gender-agenda/
Parsitau, Damaris. 2011. “’Arise, Oh Ye Daughters of Faith’: Women, Pentecostalism, and Public Culture in Kenya.” In Christianity and Public Culture in Africa, edited by Harri Englund, 131–145. Athens: Ohio University Press.
Parsitau, Damaris S., and Philomena N. Mwaura. 2012. “Perceptions of Women’s Health and Rights in Christian New Religious Movements in Kenya.” In African Traditions in the Study of Religion in Africa: Emerging Trends, Indigenous Spirituality and the Interface with other World Religions, edited by Afe Adogame, Ezra Chitando, and Bolaji Bateye, 175–186. London: Routledge.
Peel, J. D. Y. 2002. “Gender in Yoruba Religious Change.” Journal of Religion in Africa 32(2): 136–166. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006602320292898
Phiri, Isabel. 2012. “The Church and Women in Africa.” In The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to African Religions, edited by Elias Kifon Bongmba, 255–268. Oxford: Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118255513.ch17
Roberts, Andrew D. 1970. “The Lumpa Church of Alice Lenshina.” In Protest and Power in Black Africa, edited by Robert I. Rotberg and Ali A. Mazrui, 513–570. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sackey, Brigid M. 2006. New Directions in Gender and Religion: The Changing Status of Women in African Independent Churches. Lanham, MD: Lexington.
Shepperson, G. 1970. “The Comparative Study of Millenarian Movements.” In Millennial Dreams in Action: Studies in Revolutional Religious Movements, edited by Sylvia L. Thrupp, 44–54. New York: Schocken.
Soothill, Jane E. 2007. Gender, Social Change and Spiritiual Power: Charismatic Christianity in Ghana. Vol. 30, Studies of Religion in Africa. Leiden: Brill.
Thornton, John K. 1998. The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement 1684–1706. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511572791
van Binsbergen, Wim M. J. 1981. Religious Change in Zambia: Exploratory Studies. London: Kegan Paul.
Wanyeki, Lynne Muthoni, ed. 2003. Women and Land in Africa: Culture, Religion and Realizing Women’s Rights. Black Women Writers Series. London: Zed.
Yusuf, Bilkisu and Sr. Kathleen McGarvey. 2015. “Women, Religion, and Peacebuilding in Kaduna State, Nigeria.” In Women, Religion, and Peacebuilding: Illuminating the Unseen, edited by Susan Hayward and Katherine Marshall, 169–190. Washington, DC: US Institute of Peace.