Reflections on African Women's Theology - On Religion and Health 1

Some reflections on readings for seminary class: Global Theologies of Women of Color 

African Women, Religion, and Health Ch. 4-6

From the beginning of this reading, I was reminded of our class discussion last week and previous weeks as well. Sarojini Nadar quotes Teresa Okure in the beginning of her essay, describing the unique style of theological study for African women, whose “primary consciousness in doing theology is not method, but life and life concerns- their own and those of their own peoples” (78). These readings are striking contrasts to the political philosophy I’m reading in Cosmopolitan Theology and the history of Pastoral Theology in another class. In fact, after discussing last night Homer Ashby’s Our Home Is Over Jordan: A Black Pastoral Theology (2003), I Nadar’s concern that scholars are just not GETTING it when it comes to truly liberating the texts of the bible. Ashby tries to reimagine the exodus story in new ways for African American Christians to rally together in solidarity. While an admirable exercise and a compelling book in other ways, his deconstruction of the biblical text lacks depth when addressing the displacement and genocide of the Canaanite people. The stark honesty that the African women theologians are demonstrating needs to be heard by more academics, by people who influence the ministers and churches that live out the interpreted example of these texts. Women who experience, witness, and anticipate misogyny, sexual violence, abuse of body and of mind, NEED to have the troubling texts of the bible addressed. Women NEED teachers demonstrating that the Bible is not just for the oppressor. The stories of the bible relate to their lives and speak to each of them in their experience.

I loved how each chapter begins with a re-telling/re-imagining of a biblical text. My initial reaction to Chapter 5’s opening poem surprised me. I realized that my Americanized (and patriarchal) image of Psalm 23 always implies Jesus as the representative of God, the Shepherd. To see the entire psalm retold, lifting up the incarnation of God’s love and care within another, within a woman scholar, took me off guard. But once I got over that reaction, and the bits of shame that my fundamentalist upbringing still influences my perspective, I LOVED it. Now I want to use that psalm to lift up so many other women (and men) who have shepherded me as representatives of God’s love and care.

Related to Chapter 6, I contemplated my role as healer of souls. As a chaplain, I greatly appreciate the concept of a ritual of cleansing and healing after traumatic violence and violation of rape. I wonder how US culture receives such ideas. I am concerned, though not surprised, that men who act so violently are allowed to participate in the regular life of the church, village, and country without any need for cleansing or healing. While women need ways to process and heal from violence and domination out of their control, the dis-ease of the people continues to fester and grow if society does not see the  need for men to heal and reconcile this within themselves.

Reflections on African Women's Theology - On Passionate Compassion

Some reflections on readings for seminary class: Global Theologies of Women of Color

With Passion and Compassion

I loved this reading. To hear so many different voices whose passion shines through is inspiring. The power of the words of these women scholars derives from the wisdom acquired through marginalization, suffering, even abuse. To hear one proclaim hope in a future free from suffering when she, herself, is suffocating within a reality of oppression, is to hear the Christ-event incarnated, to hear the prophets of God call us to solidarity.

So many quotes stand out, but the opening page of the first essay, “Church Women of Africa: A Theological Community”, describes the situation of the church so succinctly. “The Christian church has suffered and is suffering from a growing cultural alienation because evangelization has not been that of cultural exchange but of cultural domination or assimilation” (3). I knew from that quote, these women, speaking from their own unique worldview, are prophets to the entire Christian world and that I would learn much from their wisdom. At first, the premise of the book to base a Woman’s theology of the church upon the Bible made me uncomfortable. I grew up in a fundamentalist misogynistic church that “claimed”, as so many evangelical churches do, to be directly inspired by the bible. But later, the authors explain that the source of theologizing is not only the Bible, but that “revelation has to be interpreted and applied to our contemporary situations and experiences,” including the particular experience of women (8).

In the second essay, by Dorothy Ramodibe, she posits that women and men cannot work together to build a church based upon the examples of the past and the structures that keep women suffering inequality and injustice. Ramodibe asks “Which church are we building?...Women want to change the church and not simply “improve” it. Women want liberation of the church from men” (15). And, “men also need liberation from their prejudices of masculinity” (20).

Therese Souga, in the third essay on the view of African women on Christ, writes “Christ is the true Human, the one who makes it possible for all persons to reach fulfillment and to overcome the historic alienations weighing them down” (22). This Christology describes a limitless hope for not only personal transformation, but also community transformation. “False images of women persist in the church in Africa and in turn produce certain negative kinds of behavior. Should not Christology question these images in order to question the real situation of African women and subject it to a critical examination in the light of Jesus Christ?” (25). Christology should not just be about confession of faith and forgiveness of sins, it must use the model Jesus provides as a lens through which to look at our everyday lives, to witness, name, and act upon injustice.

            As we continue to reflect upon the influence of women theologians in church and academia, I am inspired to approach each reflection, each project, with the zeal and love for God and God’s vision for the world that these faithful scholars demonstrate.

Reflections on African Women's Theology - On Mercy Amba Oduyoye

Daughters of Anowa: African Women and Patriarchy

by Mercy Amba Oduyoye   Second Half

In chapter 6 of Daughters of Anowa, Mercy Oduyoye says “The framework of patriarchy is constructed on many pillars. Each requires scrutiny, but patriarchy itself is defective and must be torn down” (153). Within the second half of her book, Oduyoye looks at several of those pillars, including the impact of Western ideology’s influence upon patriarchy. She says “ Traditional norms are enforced whenever they serve to silence women, reduce or eliminate their voices. My observation is that these traditional systems have been strengthened by Western patriarchal structures as national governments and institutions have been formed” (151). The horrific irony of this is exasperated by the prevalence of customary law and ambivalence to civil law. Civil law, constructed from Western models, is limited by lack of provision for important existing structures in Akan society, such as polygyny. Marriage and inheritance for children are often adversely affected by interference of misaligned civil law (161-162). Another angle of patriarchy are the oppressive expectations on African women. Oduyoye says “To expect women to uphold all that is humanizing in African culture and yet deny their participation in the politics of family and nation is like asking them to make bricks without straw (171).

The essay "A Coming Home to Myself: The Childless Woman in teh West Africa Space" which is in the tribute to Letty Russell, is another example of the rich prose with which Oduyoye writes. She shares her personal experience of internalized oppression and shame of the familial and cultural expectations for childbearing and most importantly her journey to acceptance and affirmation of God’s love and call for her life, a call without biological children, but with great potential for creative generation of life. Our reading of this article stems from a question I asked in class about how to care pastorally for women within such a communally driven identity. Dr. Mombo responded graciously, replying that the individual’s experience of pain and suffering is always there and suggested this article as an example. I’m looking forward to discussion in class about this essay. Oduyoye describes thoroughly the despair and grief she lived with during her reproductive years and shares her testimony of grace and healing coming from God, from a specific experience as well as from her theological construction. I wonder, then, what her advice to African ministers and women elders who counsel women would be.

The ambiguity of reproductive potential and reality of infertility are at odds within a woman’s experience. Female autonomy means that we are told we choose whether we want to have children or not. But, in a society that views the choice of childlessness as abnormal, how much choice do we really have in our desires? I envy my friends who have come to the decision to be childfree due to a genuine desire to not have kids. My soul longs for that level of confirmation. But, instead, I am left with fibroids, in a similar way as Mercy, and thanks to access to more testing ability than the actual medical understanding of what’s going on, I am aware of multiple chronic conditions contributing to infertility and access to only vaguely understood interventions that did not work. My passion for reproductive concerns stems from my own experience… one that includes walking down state-assisted hallways with limited access to care as well as walking down privatized hallways with access limited only to your checkbook and your privileges in society. Both were hallways of shame, fear, and grief.