THE ROLES OF WOMEN IN THE CHURCH

THE ROLES OF WOMEN IN THE CHURCH

ABSTRACT

Major issues that this dissertation concerns itself with are: patriarchalisation of the church, societal valuation of women, changing culture and the changing images of women, and fmally unmasking the sin of patriarchy. The essay will be examining such issues as what makes patriarchy so strong? Why does the church hold dearly on patriarchal systems that exclude and undermine women yet preaching universality ofthe church which emphazises community of believers? In this community of believers all are believed to be equal in Christ Jesus. How then does the church’s witness to the world remain” good news” and valid when the half or the majority of the community remain marginalised and subjugated?

The study traces the background history of the status and role of women in the church. The historical background examines the place and images of women in the Hebrew culture. Women leadership during the patriarchal period is also examined. Christ being the head of the church, the concept of Christo logy is explored in relation to women. Biblical and Pauline attitudes towards women are also examined since they influence the place of women in the church.

The attitudes towards women in the church leadership roles from both women and men are examined. The status and place of women in the church are influenced by religious, cultural, social and economic aspects. The study therefore, is concluded by raising suggestions that will bring about transformation for the betterment of women’s place and status. This is in hope that, the church will become a community of believers where women and men will participate equally.

Core to this is the investigation, exploration and examination of the leadership roles of women in the church. This is from different perspectives, for instance, how are women represented in church leadership positions? What are the numerical ratios between women and men? What role do the structures of the church play in maintaining this? What is the role played by men and women? Answers to these questions raise the challenges that the church should be prepared to face in the new millenium.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1         Introduction

This chapter encompasses the problem of the study, motivation, research methodology, limitation of the study, the definition: brief description of the SPC and the whole UPCSA. It gives the theoretical framework used and finally the structure of the whole study (chapters 2-6).

1.2         The problem

This dissertation is about a critical study of the roles of women in the church leadership in (South) Africa with specific reference to Scottsville Presbyterian Church, Drakensberg Presbytery. The issues of women, church and the roles they play in the church ancLsociet¥–have been studied from different

perspectives. In the last two decades the.xoles-OfwomerLin th~Chur_chin Africa was the major isslte ad~ressed by a cross-section of theologians and activists concerned with acknowledgment of full dignity and integrity of humanity regardless of gender. The articulation in their areas raised the issues of inclusion of women in the full participation in the church leadership roles!, major decision m~g in the church and formation of the church institution (see Virginia Fabella, M. M. &Oduyoye, M.

• 1988;_Ac~rmann M 1992,1994; Kanyoro, M. R. A & Njoroge, J. N. 1996; Kanyoro,M. R. A

1997; Oduyoye, M. A 1986, 1995, 1997; Oduyoye, M. A. & Kanyoro M. R. A 19!1Q,J922 Ackermann, et aI). This raised among many, the questions of ordination and the place of women in leadership and major decision making organisations or committees. Indeed various churches did ordain some women and placed them in some very major position ofleadership and decision making. However this did not bring to an end the quest for the concerned.

For instance, the Presbyterian Church of South Africa (PCSA) ordained the first woman in 1976; Reformed Presbyterian Church of South Africa (RPCSA) in 1978; Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA) in 1982. These women have climbed the ladders of authority, for instance in 1997 the first woman to be ordained in the RPCSA became the Secretary General of the South African council of Churches (SACC). In 1997, the second woman to be ordained in the PCEA became a Presbytery Moderator. (Information gathered from the interviews carried out). However the question of marginalization remains crucial as many scholars unearth cultural and institutional aspects that continue to question the place and status of women both in the church and society.

“African culture, especially as interpreted today, prevents women from playing leadership roles in our society and church. One hears of powerful women in African history, but their importance is played down in the same manner in which women in the Bible are played down … there are a lot of African cultural practices that need revision if we are to maintain our important cultural heritages ….. Once people exploit, discriminate against and deprive women oftheir God given status in the name of culture, I begin to have problems as a Christian woman” Mpumlwana (in King, 1993: 165). As observed by Mpumwalana, there are social, cultural and religious aspects that deteFI11ine the roles of women in the church. Therefore for successful religious and social transformation articulation these aspects needs to be carefully explored.

African culture and the structural formation of the institutional church influence the roles of women in the church. Ackermann (1986) narrating her struggles in her religious journey expresses that Christianity is designed for men. “The source document of Christianity is written by and for men; the Christian churches are largely shaped and run by men; I try to do theology in an environment dominated by men; I live in a society which is largely patriarchal” .

In my exploration and articulation of the roles of women in the church, it seems to me the roles of women in church leadership are directed or designed on gender lines as expressed by Ackermann. Many books have been written and lobby woman groups formed to address the concerns of women, yet the cultural systems and institutional structures continue to reflect obscurity of the roles of women in the church and society. For instance” the circle of concerned African Woman in Theology grew out of the decision by the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians (EATWOT) at its 1989 meeting to appoint conveners for women’s theology groups in each region of the world. The African women ofEATWOT decided to form a biennial institute for women in religion and culture, an area in which they saw promise for creating a liberative theology that would respond to

their needs” Amoah (in Offelia,1995). Writing on the religious experiences of women in Africa, Phiri (1997), recognizes the cry from women for recognition as full human beings which had been absent in the patriarchal culture and which Christianity seemed to promise. Our endeavour therefore is to investigate how far this promise is realised in African Christian church.

The roles of women in the church determines their place and status. This raises questions on the holistic ministry of the church to bear witness to the good news of Jesus Christ. Due to the status and place of women in the church their roles are either obscured or go unacknowledged. Social, cultural, religious and economic factors influence the roles of women in the church and society. In this study, it is considered appropriate to listen to women’ s own voices. However my contention is that leadership roles of women in the church are influenced by cultural, religious and economic factors . Although much has been done in relation to the status and place of women in the church and society in Africa, yet much is to be done in the area of leadership roles.

1.3         Motivation

I am motivated to explore and articulate women’s understanding of the roles they play in the church more clearly from within the African culture and the institutional church. Examine the scholarly study of one area within the Presbyterian church which is the leadership roles. And also examine the understanding of social cultural religious and economic implications on the place and t~e status of women in the church and society. Investigate the institutional church and the implications on the status of women as a result of her structural formation.

It is my own observation and my daily interaction with woman that has challenged and occasioned my study during the years 1993-1998, after completing my graduate study in St. Paul’s united Theological college in Kenya, I found myself among women and experiencing with them what it means to be a woman in the church. To be a woman means to be ignored, put in difficult situations so as to prove that they can make it and also to be doubted as far as abilities are concerned. Some elders and men ministers insisted that my husband had to be ordained church elder because they felt that I would not keep confidential business of the church from him. Hence we should be both in the inner circle of the church if I have to continue to execute my duties properly. This was not demanded of men ministers. Therefore my being a trained church minister did not erase the cultural, gender and traditional bias that women can not be entrusted with responsibilities.

My period of service in the church ministry before coming to South Africa in August 1998 exposed me to the experience facing women that are faced due to lack of basic facilities such as education, shelter and adequate health care. Despite various disadvantages however, women are people with unique abilities and have a drive for work, but their contributions are underplayed by the socio- cultural economic bias and prejudice based on gender in Africa (Muriithi 1999) •

In the last one and a half years (August, 1998-January, 2000) of my stay in South Africa, my experience has been expanded by my stay and observation especially in the Scottsville Presbyterian Church where I have worshipped since then . My desire to explore the roles of women in the church is raised further. This congregation is unique in that it has black and white people and it has an interdenominational population which raises cross -cultural issues. In my quick observation of the church services, the fIrst impression was that there is equal participation of men and women. However as time passed by I realised there was a need to carry out a research in order to understand the institutional systems.

 

1.4          Aims of the study

The aim of the study is to explore and articulate women’s understanding of the roles they play in the church more clearly within the African culture and the institutional church; to carry out a scholarly study of one area within the presbyterian church: Leadership role . And also to investigate social, cultural, religious and econom.ic implications on the place and status of women in the church and society. I will also investigate the institutional church and her implications on the status of women as a result of her structural formation.

IThe two paragraphs that reflect the writer’s experience are extracted from her Bachelor of Theology Honours Research project which was submitted University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg faculty of Humanities in 1999.

This study will reflect on the roles, places and status of women in relation to men. Further it will show

the participation of women in the areas of leadership roles and decision making. The numerical ratio of men and women in these areas will be very important for it will lead us into understanding the implications it has on the role of women in the church.

The central aim is to create the awareness in women in the church of their abilities and resources and conscientise them to the need to reassess their participation and involvement in the church. This also aims at challenging the church to reassess the structures that create obscurity of the roles of women in the church

1.5         Methodology

The following theories, insight and approaches from Philpott (1993), Phiri (1997) and Schalkwyk (2000), will be used as tools  for this research process.  The three scholars have used different approaches,  therefore this  study will only use their theoretical  framework  as much as will be applicable for the current study.

Graham Philpott (1993) in his Jesus is tricky and God is undemocratic, proposes the requirement of participatory research. This study employs his research methodological theories since he takes the role of an “activist-researcher”, as he considers Huizer’s requirements placed upon activist-researcher important. He outline them as follows:

 

• Required is an awareness of the ones own limitation, a sense of insecurity and of one’s relative ignorance (compared to local people involved) …..

 

• Accepting one’s relative ignorance, one tries to learn from the people concerned through empathy and friendship what their problems and needs and feelings are …..

 

• After acquiring sufficient knowledge and understanding oflocal problems further dialogue with the local people, particularly through discussion in small groups, searching together for possible solution is taken. Huizer (in Philpott, 1993: 19).

Therefore an activist researcher is one who facilitates the research by being actively involved in the research progress. He/she identifies the major themes present in the discussions and the resultant action. Hislher approach is important because the researcher in this particular study had to facilitate the process by being personally involved during the time of her membership and participation in the Scottsville Presbyterian church, and during the research interviews which she carried out in May-July 2000.The role played by the researcher in this study is estimated to that explained by Philpott in relation to activist researcher.

Since August 1998 to date I have been a member of Scottsville Presbyterian church. During this period the Minister has also involved me in other church activities as an ordained minister of the Presbyterian church. I have had an opportunity to interact with church members closely and especially women when the minister assigned me the responsibility of being in charge of Outreach Ministry which involves a group of women. This group meets on Thursdays where they share their experience,

and have Bible study together. They also do sewing, tie and dye and contribute money to help each other meet their economic needs. I  have an opportunity  to work together and share the experiences of their daily life.  Having lived and experienced with them I conducted interviews among the cross- section ofthe church membership which includes men and women. The holistic life ofthe church has implications on the roles of women in the church. Participatory Research is a process “in which the community participates in the analysis of their own reality to promote a social transformation for the benefit of the participants who are oppressed” (Philpott, 1993:21-22). In this study my endeavour is to investigate and explore the roles of women in the church in Africa with particular reference to Scottsville Presbyterian Church of Drakens berg Presbytery geared towards transformation of the fundamental  structure of the church.  I will be focusing my attention to the leadership roles of women in the church. Therefore as described by

Philpott quoting Hammond, this study takes a theoretical framework of participatory researcher since he says;

Participatory research is an educational tool used to help oppressed people gain awareness of their situation through collective investigation and collective analysis and to plan to change these situations through collective action. The researcher in this process is an equal participant in the group who assist others to reflect critically and to work together more productively than might otherwise have been possible Hammond (in Philpott 1993 :22).

Outlined below are the characteristics of participatory research which are important in this current study.

1. The problem originates in the community
2. The ultimate goal is fundamental structural transformation
3. It involves the people from the community in the control of the process
4. Its focus is on work with oppressed groups
5. A central role is strengthening the awareness in people of their own abilities and resources and supporting the mobilising and organizing of the oppressed.

• Those specialised knowledge or training often come from outside the community, but they are committed participants and learners in the process that leads to involvement rather than detachment

7. There is greater use of qualitative method of research than quantitative method of research.
8. The ‘researcher’ and the ‘researched’ work as equal partners. The question of power is unimportant aspect, moving away from a top-down ward to horizontal power relation …” Philpott (in Muriithi, 1999: 16)

While the participatory research is an important framework in this study, in-depth interviews have been significantly used. Phiri (1997) is the source of this important framework. In-depth interviews involve intensive interviews that seek to gather as much information as possible from the interviewees so as to achieve the set goals. She categorises the questions as follows:

1. Personal identification: which includes age, marital status, educational attainment, occupation, name of the congregation, and the position held in the church.

 

2. Position of women in the church with leadership roles which includes women organisations and theological education.

 

3. Chewa Christian women and culture which includes: bride wealth; child marriage; polygamy; widowhood; poverty and remarriage.

To gather information she conducted informal interviews guided by unstructured questions. The goal for her study was not only the liberation of women but also the to realise a community of women and men working together in harmony, therefore her interviewees included men and women.

 

Following this theoretical framework, in this current study, in-depth interviews will be intensively used,  where  it  was    not  possible  to    have  person  to   person  interviews,    I  have   used  detailed questionnaires. In other occasions I have used informal interviews. The questions in this study are categorised as follows:

1. Identification details which includes: Name, (which is optional;) Age range, Sex, Marital status, Education attainment and Occupation

 

2. Church historical background including: Women’s history in church leadership and their general participation in the life of the church

• Women church leadership

4.Women experiences in the church These questions are designed to explore and examine the roles of women in Scottsville Presbyterian Church and to give an approximate picture of the roles women play in the church in (South) Africa.

Schalkwyk (2000), writing on Southern African women’s stories of transformation offers some methodological aspects which departs from the traditional objective approach.  She embarks on positive research and emancipatory research which she acknowledges that: traditional Western Science – and theology – was written from androcentric point of view. This in effect meant that male scientists accepted that they know and represent the whole of humanity, and that they can use an objectivist, rationalist scientific approach to study women and other subjugated groups in order to enter into scientific discourse about them and their behalf.

In the wake of research approaches like critical theory, sociology of knowledge, and various forms of action and participatory research, researchers started to recognise that scholars always work from their own frame of reference and that these standpoints are the basis for emancipatory research. In theology, liberation and contextual theologies started to recognise that (oppressed) people are the subjects of their own histories who are the primary agents in the struggle for their liberation from various forms of oppression (Schalkwyk 2000:22). Schalkwyk acknowledges  the  fact  that  objectivist scientific  model  and  emancipatory research disregards women as serious research subjects but feminist reseachers consciously place the marginal conditions  of women  at  the  center of their research.  Marginalisation of wom~n is  made key interpretive category. Specific experiences of women is stressed. She argues that, “feminist theory now tends to be explicitly temporal, historical and attuned to the culturally specificity of different groups in society”

(Ibid.p.26). The current study takes the dimension of current feminist theory.

Recognition that the oppressed people are the subjects of their own histories, they (the oppressed) considered the primary agents in the struggle for liberation from various forms of oppression. She observes  that the  early emancipatory researchers  and  liberation theologies  did not  sufficiently recognise the place and participation of women in the survival and liberation struggles of the oppressed. This recognition led women researchers to demonstrate the importance of recognising the SUbjective knowledge of women. As she introduces this methodological approach, she has pointed

 

out three important aspects of writing women’s stories of transfonnation.

 

• In the research process, the researcher has to be such a sensitive listener so that she will facilitate and allow the research subject telling of her story in her own voice -as fully, completely and honestly as she desires …

 

• A researcher who is interested in the themes oftransfonnation or salvation! liberation in women’s lives, has to listen carefully to what a research subject herself has to say about the moment of transfonnation or liberation in her life. The research subject is the primary interpreter of her experience of transfonnation or liberation … The researcher’s role is to come in as a secondary interpreter who, in her rendering of the research subject’s life, has to focus in those moments oftransfonnation and liberation and has to put it in the context ofthe whole journey of the research subject…

 

• The transfonnation! liberation in a woman’s life-experience is brought into the open through narrative … (Schalkwyk, 2000:28-29).

Following the above research approach, the primary source for the current study is expected to provide the reality and histories of women in the church in (South) Africa. The primary source includes the Christian women and men of SPC. Some of these women and men will be interviewed personally and others will be requested to answer some questionnaires. All this will be geared towards examining the roles of women in the church specifically in the leadership roles of women. While the research subjects includes women and men, the research is geared towards exploring and examining the roles of women in the church.

1.6         Limitations of the study

My research is limited to the Christian community at the Scottsville Presbyterian Church. This congregation is unique in that it stands on its own as a parish with its own minister and a Kirksession.

It also  consist of an international population due to  its  situation near the University of Natal, Pietennaritzburg. Those interviewed were a cross-section of black and white, men and women of different status social, cultural and economic background and status, and also the leadership positions. While the roles of women in the church (leadership roles) is our main concern, the study takes seriously the experiences of women and their views and observations the contention is that, the reality and histories of women have major implications on women’s place and status in the church. The congregation has a large student population which means they are not permanent members. Therefore, much of the information also does not give the long history of the congregation although it gives the international outlook of the leadership roles of women in Africa. I also had some direct person to person interviews.

My investigations are informed by lived and shared experiences of women since I have been in this congregation as a member for the last one and a half years. While this study is focused on this congregation I spent some time with a few members from the neighbouring congregations which offered an opportunity for deeper understanding of the roles of women in the Scottsville Presbyterian Church and in the other parishes in the Presbytery.

Due to fmanciallimitations the researcher did not manage to go far. Time was a major issue since the time for distributing and getting back the questionnaire was very short. While I had targeted about one hundred respondents I managed to get back only forty five questionnaires. I also had the opportunity for getting information from a group of women involved in the in outreach mission of the church. The cross-cultural perspective of the congregation was another big challenge although it was also very enriching especially when reinforced by literary research by reading books and journals about and on leadership roles in the church in Africa. Those interviewed were a cross-section of white and black; women and men and urban and rural folk.

Schalkwyk observed that the role of the researcher should be secondary putting in the context the whole journey of the research subject. The researcher’s position as an ordained minister, and a postgraduate student (as introduced in the research station) makes it difficult to deny possibility of biased information or interpretation. However it is the intention of the researcher to try and avoid misinterpretation or the possibility of imposition of her world view or experience.

1.7  Definition: The Uniting Presbyterian Church 

The church’s system of government is Presbyterian. The Presbyterian form of church government is held to be founded upon and agreeable to, the Holy Scriptures². In this form of government the many congregations have common doctrine and they are subj ect to a common government. The Interim Manual of Law and Procedure (IMLP) of the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa (UPCSA), is based largely on the manual used by the PCSA. The common government is exercised through the courts. The courts of the church are, Session (Kirksession), the Presbytery (and the Synod where such exist) and the General Assembly which is the supreme court ofthe church. Each court is presided over by a moderator. In the Kirksession the moderator is the minister ofthe congregation. In a higher court the moderator is appointed from among the members. Our study is based at congregational level so the moderator is the minister of the congregation.

The name of the church is The Uniting Presbyterian in Southern Africa (UPCSA). The church comprises, presbyteries in Zimbambwe and Zambia. The present Uniting Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa is formed by the former PC SA and Reformed Presbyterian Church Southern Africa (RPCSA). The General Assemblies of the two denominations dissolved on 25th September 1999 (Lund, 1999: 1)3 to form the uniting church. Uniting which is composed of eighteen Presbyteries. It is referred as uniting because this is a process and there is hope of incorporating other denominations.

THE ROLES OF WOMEN IN THE CHURCH

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