Mapuranga, ... The Politics of Pentecostalism and Women’s Ministries in Zimbabweof their husbands. The argument is that these women Pentecostal lead-
ers tend to be married to charismatic founders of these churches, with
notable examples such as Apostle Eunor Guti, Apostle Petunia Chiriseri,
Dr Faith Wutawunashe and others. This implies that these women
preachers never have full authority in a church, unless supported by
their husbands. For J.E.Powers,
This ambiguity has meant that Pentecostals have expanded the traditional
ecclesiastical roles of women and allowed them to preach as ministers em-
powered by the spirit and at the same time, have never been certain of this
spirit empowering ability to assume positions of authority (Powers 1999:
317).
As such, some would argue that these women still have that patriarchal
power controlling them, and they are not totally in charge. For Soothill,
‘While Pentecostalism may empower women as ‘mouthpieces of the
Lord’, it does not empower them as women (Soothill 2007: 54). One may
begin to doubt really if Pentecostalism accords these women leaders
with ‘sustainable female power’ (Sackey 2006: 196) in the church. One
questions their authority if there is a total absence of male leadership. As
asked by Kalu, would these women be able have the capacity to confront
society in these churches? (Kalu 2008: 154).
It is because of this notion that Mavis Muguti (a worshipper in Pentecos-
talism Interview: June 2011), expressed how sad she felt because from
her church , she has observed that it is only men who play most of the
leading roles, and only men perform gifts of the Holy Spirit (1Cor
12:1ff). For example when the deliverance service is ongoing, wives of
Pastors are there only to take care of those congregants who are over-
powered by the Holy Spirit and fall. Never has she seen a wife to a pastor
(nor does the church have female pastors) who actually ‘do’ the deliver-
ance. This means it is a preserve for men. This assumes that women are
either too weak or too defiled for the Holy Spirit to work through them
and perform the same miracles that males do. However, despite this
observation that may be appropriate in some instances, names such as
listed above have shown that women are indeed preaching and prophe-
sying in most of the Pentecostal churches.
As highlighted in this section, women have made great strides in creat-
ing space for themselves in an area which was predominantly mascu-
line. But does the larger society wholly accept this phenomenon? The
forthcoming section looks into the politics behind women preachers,
with special reference to 1Tim 2:11-14, and 1Cor 14:34-35.