{"id":94707,"date":"2017-06-16T02:47:40","date_gmt":"2017-06-16T00:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/are-africas-men-of-god-preserving-injustices-against-women-the-conversation\/"},"modified":"2017-06-16T02:47:40","modified_gmt":"2017-06-16T00:47:40","slug":"are-africas-men-of-god-preserving-injustices-against-women-the-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/are-africas-men-of-god-preserving-injustices-against-women-the-conversation\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Africa’s ‘men of God’ preserving injustices against women? | The Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are Africa’s ‘men of God’ preserving injustices against women?<\/a>: <\/p>\n

Churches in the global South, especially Africa are growing. <\/span> Reuters\/Akintunde Akinleye<\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Adoley and her husband Mike (not their real names) attend one of Ghana\u2019s mega churches. Both are university graduates. She is a seamstress and owns a small retail shop. He is an accountant. The couple live with Mike\u2019s family, where Adoley sometimes feels she\u2019s blamed for the couple\u2019s childlessness after having three miscarriages.<\/p>\n

When they visited our home in Accra one Sunday in December 2015, Adoley complained about a few things, such as Mike refusing to carry her handbag in church while she went to the bathroom, because \u2013 as he explained \u2013 \u201ca man doesn\u2019t carry a woman\u2019s bag\u201d.<\/p>\n

This anecdote points to a bigger story about the church in Africa today, and the messages that some of its influential male leaders promote about masculinity, marriage and gender roles in society more broadly.<\/p>\n

\u201cMen of God\u201d are powerful<\/h2>\n

While churches in the economic north are emptying out those in the Global South \u2013 and especially Africa \u2013 are growing. Pentecostal and charismatic churches have mushroomed, many influenced by a wave of American-exported evangelicalism in the 1970s and 1980s.<\/p>\n

Churches also carry out important social functions the state has neglected. They are involved in addressing HIV\/AIDS, building hospitals and establishing universities. This kind of work \u2013 sometimes called the \u201csocial gospel\u201d \u2013 makes the church much more than simply a religious space. The modern African church promises a life that is abundant and prosperous \u2013 both spiritually and materially.<\/p>\n

African church leaders \u2013 the bishops and archbishops, prophets and overseers, pastors and deacons, benignly referred to as \u201cmen of God\u201d \u2013 are powerful. Their teachings have a wide reach that is not limited to Sunday mornings and mid-week services. There are TV and radio programmes, audiotapes and books, international branches and YouTube videos that reach a wide audience beyond their own congregations.<\/p>\n

They are also influential voices on gender issues. Jesus\u2019 social gospel subverted gender cultures \u2013 and actively sought to challenge injustice in general. There are several examples of Christ\u2019s counter-culture behaviour when it comes to his relationship with women. Women were generally viewed as the cause of men\u2019s sexual sins. To prevent Jewish men from yielding to temptation, they were instructed not to speak to women in public, including their own wives. Not only did Jesus speak to a woman in public he dared to touch them in public.<\/p>\n

These perspectives are not sufficiently evident in the messages preached from mega church platforms across the continent today. When it comes to the question of gender, injustice seems to have intensified in the church<\/p>\n

Problematic messages about marriage<\/h2>\n

Much of the current discourse from church platforms in Africa focuses on marriage. Subjects include the breakdown of marriages, preparing women to be good wives, and the \u201cunsuitability\u201d of certain types of young women for marriage.<\/p>\n

Archbishop Duncan Williams, founder of Ghana\u2019s Action Faith Chapel International, caused a stir in 2014 when he told women:<\/p>\n

it\u2019s a privilege to be married\u2026 Sister when you get married, be thankful and stop misbehaving\u2026 It doesn\u2019t matter how pretty and beautiful and intelligent you are; until a man proposes to you, you are going to stay beautiful, pretty, intelligent, nice and whatever, and rotten.<\/p>\n

Not long afterwards Bishop Dag Heward Mills, founder of Ghana\u2019s Lighthouse chapel, mocked Ghanaian girls for their inability to cook, saying that they were \u201cless than 10% of what we want\u201d.<\/p>\n

In his book Till Death Do Us Part, Bishop Charles Agyin-Asare, founder of one of Ghana\u2019s mega churches, responded to the issue of abuse in marriage, writing:<\/p>\n

You are not the first woman to be beaten by your husband, and you will not be the last\u2026 Rise up with the Word of God and use your spiritual weapons\u2026 Keep going to church, listen to tapes, pray, notice the blessings around you, keep your vows.<\/p>\n

Women, in this discourse, have no value outside of marriage. And they have no value within it beyond providing domestic services. Women carry the responsibility for keeping the marriage intact, even at the cost of their personal well-being and safety.<\/p>\n

These pronouncements can have a profound impact on women\u2019s position in marriage and, given the importance of marriage in African cultures, on gender relations more broadly.<\/p>\n

A particular brand of masculinity<\/h2>\n

The male gender, just like the female gender, is culturally constructed. And as the church defines and redefines the roles and positions of women in marriage and society, it does the same for men.<\/p>\n

The church has always been a male-dominated institution. Beyond this, my research into the gender discourse of the Pentecostal and charismatic churches shows how they promote a particular brand of masculinity.<\/p>\n

By \u201cmasculinity\u201d, I refer to \u201ca cluster of norms, values, and behavioural patterns expressing explicit and implicit expectations of how men should act and represent themselves to others\u201d.<\/p>\n

On the one hand, the brand of masculinity espoused by the \u201cmen of God\u201d encourages behaviour that can be advantageous for many women in relationships: they generally eschew violence, advocate monogamy and companionship between spouses, and underscore the responsibilities of fathers and husbands.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the \u201cMen of God\u201d portray women as the \u201cweaker sex\u201d emotionally and intellectually, who need protection and guidance. Sometimes they emphasise women\u2019s \u201climitations\u201d. This leads to a devaluing of women, re-inscribing male domination and undermining female autonomy.<\/p>\n

A different approach<\/h2>\n

Pre-martial counselling has been suggested as part of the problem. But, there are churches that foster a more gender-sensitive approach.<\/p>\n

One is the Family Life Ministry at Calvary Baptist church in Accra. They work with a network of professionally trained lay counsellors across several churches in Accra to offer couples practical social and spiritual guidance using an alternative approach to \u201cfamily life\u201d.<\/p>\n

Gender issues are tackled from social, medical, legal and cultural perspectives. Couples are encouraged to see men and women as created equal in the image of God, and to see the development of their partners as a positive investment in their own lives, and those of their families and society.<\/p>\n

Only when approaches like this become the norm will the church become a place where women as well as men, wives as well as husbands, the single as well as the married, can experience comfort, well-being and true freedom from bondage.<\/p>\n

Until then, in our deeply religious context, we can expect some fraught gender relations at best, and many unhappy wives especially.<\/p>\n

\"The <\/p>\n

I have received several grants over the course of my 28 year career in the academy. However, I didn't receive any external support for this work, nor do I stand to benefit from this work in any way, financially or in kind. I am a volunteer counselor with the Calvary Baptist church Family Life ministry mentioned in the article. This work is unpaid. We volunteer our time and resources to support individuals in Calvary Baptist and other churches. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong> The Conversation \u2013 Articles (AFRICA)<\/a><\/small>
\n<\/p>\n

Read more on The Conversation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Are Africa’s ‘men of God’ preserving injustices against women?: Churches in the global South, especially Africa are growing. Reuters\/Akintunde Akinleye Adoley and her husband Mike (not their real names) attend one of Ghana\u2019s mega churches. Both are university graduates. She is a seamstress and owns a small retail shop. He is an accountant. The couple […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[26348,4635,2324,8890,26349,23722,19898,87],"class_list":{"0":"post-94707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-men","8":"tag-africas","9":"tag-against","10":"tag-conversation","11":"tag-god","12":"tag-injustices","13":"tag-preserving","14":"tag-women","15":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94707\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}