ABSTRACT
To write or talk about women in African Christianities is to bring to light the church in Africa, because they are the church. The significance of women in the African church has begun to receive attention, especially with women naming themselves and telling their stories. From this, one discovers that they were the first converts and missionary Christianity noted their significance. It has taken time, but today the literature on women in African Christianity is growing, even though African women have been part of the church from the beginning. In writing a paper on women in African Christianities, one faces the possibility of running into the danger of generalizing the diverse African communities’ cultures and denominations. Africa is the second largest continent on earth and the reality of Africa and African goes far beyond the continent and the people who live there. There are ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity among Africans, even within the same country. There are different understandings of spiritualities, differing politics and economic systems. Considering these realities, in this paper I use the idea and social reality of women in African Christianities as an overarching context and in some sections refer to specific groups, denominational traditions and organisations such as the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians.
During the nineteenth century, missionary Christianity in most African countries functioned within two overarching realities. In the background, the all-pervasive reality was colonialism. While the reality was ubiquitous and did impinge itself from time to time in the history of the Christian Church, we however will not deal with the influence of colonialism. The second influence, which was very much present in the foreground, was the missionary movement. It was this that
formed and executed the agenda of Protestant Christianity in the nineteenth century. Most missionary societies functioned autonomously, except for a loose arrangement called ‘comity’ or the ‘spheres of influence’ policy to avoid rivalry and competition in certain areas.1 This also had to do more with controlling territory than establishing a church. Within the large scheme of things, the work among women of Africa was stumbled upon rather than thought through and executed. Moreover, it was the arrival of women missionaries from the second half of the nineteenth century which accelerated the ideology of ‘women’s work’.2
