“And the Bones Come Together”: Women’sReligious Expectations in Southern Africa, c. 1900–1945

Abstract

African religious beliefs invaded Christian missions and provided the backdrop for interaction between African converts and women missionaries. African women came to missions not as tabulae rasae; their culture had stamped them with expectations and insights with which they imbibed and moulded the Christian message. They viewed religion as a resource. Their cultural expectations reinforced missionary promises and facilitated Christian conversion. As religious specialists women gained status, respect, social and economic security in pre-colonial society because they provided necessary and important services. These expectations lingered among African women at the missions. Thus, within patriarchal Christian denominations African women often exhibited an assertiveness which missionaries misunderstood and maligned. Mission conflicts were based on missionary attempts to make African women dependent upon their Christian spouses. This role was contradictory to African beliefs and Christian African needs. Differences were further exacerbated by gender discrimination within the church, which affected both European and African women, and colonialism, which provided the background for Christian occupation of the colony. Although familial obligations and cultural expectations were points of contention, motherhood, literacy, and leadership training provided meeting points of mutual concern for African women and missionaries.

Prevalence of Violence against Women: Distress, Coping and Psychological Well-Being. Surviving the Fire?

“…There was also a tendency to seek social support for emotional reasons on the part of those who experienced violence regularly to very often. This concurs with Moss's (1999) contention that African women's relationship with God and their attendance of religious meetings with other women are important support resources. It is note worthy that women who experienced violence in comparison to those who did not, and even those who experience violence riiore often in comparison to those with no or only some experiences of violence, did not differ significantly with regard to other constructive or destructive coping strategies äs measured here.…”

Historical Memory and Expanding Social Networks of Mennonite Mission School Women, Mara Region, Tanzania, 1938 to the Present

“…Similar church women's groups throughout Africa have become some of the most vibrant and longlasting forms of associational life, often taking over the role of kin groups (Gaitskell 1990, Gaitskell 1995, Moss 1999. Many Christian women were members of church women's associations that got together to weave baskets or mats, sew children's clothes, knit or crochet doilies or make pottery.…”

“…Dorothy Hodgson's work shows that whereas Maasai masculinity led to men's rejection of Christianity, women found a place in the church for meeting that enhanced their well-being. Many places throughout Africa produced a 'church of women' precisely because it served their needs at a critical historical juncture when women were most vulnerable, allowing them to draw on their own cultural resources and expertise (Hodgson 2005, Martin 2009, Moss 1999. Women raised in church schools used narratives of individual choice and rejection of the past to shape new identities.…”

‘A Light-Hearted Bunch of Ladies’: Gendered Power and Irreverent Piety in the Ghanaian Methodist Diaspora

“…SeeChong (2006) andGill (1990) for a comparative perspective from Asia and Latin America.7 See for similar pointsMoss (2002) for Ruwadzano fellowships in Zimbabwe, Higgs for the Zenzele movement in South Africa(2004) andEpprecht (1993) on Kapanos church associations in Lesotho.…”