Rev Cheryl Dibeela finds that the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa does not treat women as well as it claims to.
I have been, as a minister, so hurt and frustrated by the stories of women in the Church: stories of violent relationships, of single mothers having to care for their children with no financial or moral support from the father, of one woman abandoned by her partner, HIV-positive and with children to care for, of another who said her husband treated her like a child.
Some women have to work long hours for low pay, sometimes under harrassment. Then they come home and do the cooking and cleaning while their partner sits around. Others are hurt by divorce or broken families and their possessions are taken from them.
In one case, a teenager became pregnant and then had to deal with the death of her baby. Her boyfriend was nowhere to be found.
Each time, different women were robbed of their humanity in different ways. And I realise how much society has moulded us to accept the traditional position of women, since most of the difficulties they experience at home, at work or at church is due to gender inequality.
Worse of all, it's a situation the church seems to have accepted as normal. I'm convinced all this is contrary to the basic principles of the Christian faith. All human beings are created in the image of God: male and female as equals. No gender can claim to have more knowledge or be more human than the other.
The Church has a responsibility to educate society about gender equality and empowering women.
Bible bashing
But gender equality has not been accepted with open arms by many churches. This is evident in their theological beliefs, structures, policies and practices. The Roman Catholic Church around the world is proof of this: it still doesn't ordain women. The Anglican Province of Nigeria, despite the Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops agreeing to women's ordination in 1988, also refuses. Gereja Presbyterian Malaysia does not allow married women to be ordained.
Various arguments are put forth against women leading churches. Some are based on the Bible, like the creation story where man is created before woman. The woman was created to be man's helper (Genesis 2.18), people say. They point to Eve's sinful nature as evidence of female weakness that makes women unfit to lead.
Others argue that Jesus was male and that all religious leaders in Jewish society were men. They also point to Paul's passages, like Ephesians 5.22, "Wives be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord." Women should not speak in Church
(1 Timothy 2.11-12).
Many ministers say God is male, pointing to passages that refer to the fatherhood of God. But theologian Charles Nyamiti in his chapter on the doctrine of God explains that God is Spirit, neither male nor female. We cannot literally apply sexual characteristics to God.
Female sexuality is used to curtail women's involvement in Church. Some ethnic groups in Africa see menstrual blood as impure. Menstruating women and those that have just given birth are kept apart from their communities and forbidden to touch ceremonial objects. The Aladura Church, an African Independent Church in West Africa, does not allow women who have just given birth, menstruating women or women with uncovered hair in the prayer house.
UCCSA isn't much better
Women are also oppressed in the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa (UCCSA), which works in Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Although the church has a long tradition of ordaining women, has had several women in leadership positions at national and denominational levels, and generally sees itself as progressive on the issue, evidence shows that women are often excluded.
Women make up two-thirds of the membership of the church. Yet they only make up five per cent of the decision-making bodies. There are 25 women ministers out of a total of 311. Only one person has been denominational chairperson in 33 years. In Botswana, one woman has been chairperson of the Synod since it started in 1980.
There are no gender-specific policies in the church. There is nothing to promote equal opportunities or improve the balance of representation at meetings. There are no procedures to ensure more women are needed in the ministry.
The UCCSA Women's Ministry programmes are also a concern. The Ministry to Women part of the church's constitution clearly aims at holding women captive in their traditional role and in women's groups.
Women's group objectives include, "making clothing articles and being involved in fundraising activities to assist the needy", "supporting the Girls' Brigade spiritually and financially", "purchasing and making the curtains for the offices of the denomination". They do not seem involved in programmes that promote their concerns within the church.
The way forward
I have always known about the inequalities suffered by women around the world. But I never gave much thought to the depth of the oppression. Our cultures and behaviours are so deeply rooted within us that we accept our traditional gender roles.
But I can clearly see today, after months of study, that women have been oppressed for countless generations. I can see it in my mother, who is concerned that my three-year-old son should not use a pink washing rag. I can see it in him who believes only boys should do certain things: only boys can do karate, only boys can be priests. "You're a mummy. Mummies and girls cannot be priests," he says. Who am I to change all that? I could easily become discouraged.
Yet there are ways of creating awareness about gender issues in the UCCSA. We need to make members at all levels of the church aware of them. We could use common beliefs like "God created us equal – male and female" to highlight the Christian principle of gender equality. We could use advocacy and lobbying to promote this.
As theologian Dr Steve de Gruchy said, "People are not always able to make life better for themselves. But faith provides a resource with which to deal with the struggles and uncertainties that life throws up. It motivates us to change those things that need changing and that we can change. It gives us a bigger vision of life and of God that helps us put all our human efforts into perspective."
Cheryl Dibeela is a minister of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa in Botswana. This article is taken from her Masters dissertation published in June 2000.