BiAS 7 – The Bible and Politics in Africa
and culture. Apart from the theological reasons that this article deals
with which emerge through perceptions stemming from the selected
biblical texts, culture and history have also immensely contributed to the
negative views about women preaching in the church by society at large.
Historically, in the churches, there was no space for women in the
church’s leadership positions, as they had been denied the opportunity
to do so, through lack of the requirements, that is: necessary education
and qualifications, as was dictated by missionary education. This is
noted by L. Lagerfwerf (1990: 43) when she argues that, ‘financially,
spiritually and socially women in Africa are the backbone of the
church...however, this fact is not reflected in the official structures of the
church, with all its consequences, e.g. in the field of decision making’.
As such, women lagged behind in the leadership roles of the church
because of a lack of access to the prerequisites, and this was highly likely
to have been informed by patriarchy and sexism.
Whereas in traditional African cultures women had enjoyed consider-
able space and freedom, Christianity was promoting domesticity. The
missionary emphasis was on developing “respectable and responsible
women” (Hinfelaar 2001) who were subordinate, passive and humble to
their husbands. Such women were to be confined to the household,
while men were to go out and become ‘breadwinners.’ This was a new
development as in traditional cultures both men and women had the
responsibility ‘to win bread’ (Lindsay 2007). The combination of Church
teachings and the colonial economy altered the existing gender relations
decisively in favour of men. Women have therefore struggled to find
leadership roles within the church and in contemporary society in gen-
eral; including in politics, the academia, among other sectors of the
society. However, despite the fact that it has been an uphill task for
women to be preachers in the church; this has not made them com-
pletely inactive. The society has accommodated some roles for women,
as is discussed in the upcoming section which highlights women’s ac-
cepted roles in the Bible, in mainline churches, and in African Inde-
pendent churches. This broad analysis lays bare the status of women in
the church in general: for the sake of comparison with the status that
Pentecostalism has brought to its women leadership in Zimbabwe; the
discussion that comes up thereafter.