Forging Identities: Women as Participants and Leaders in the Church among the Yoruba

Abstract

There is a burgeoning of women in Yoruba church leadership, especially in the African Independent Churches and Pentecostal Churches. These female religious leaders are fast becoming forces to reckon with in contemporary Nigerian society. Who are these female religious leaders? What do they stand for? What are their styles of leadership? How have they negotiated the quicksand of patriarchal traditions and what are their prospects for the future Nigeria ecclesia? This essay grapples with such questions. It argues that women have been forging identities in the church among the Yoruba right from its inception, and the emergence of female leadership is another phase in an ongoing process of continual transformation. It aims at finding the erstwhile and current identities of the women in the church among the Yoruba. This study adopts Wilberta Chinn’s scheme as a working definition of identity. Chinn sets out the following summary of the identity problems faced by women in the church: