World Christianity as a Women's Movement

Abstract

INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH, Vol. 30, No. 4 T recognition that Christian affiliation is shifting to the Southern Hemisphere has released tremendous academic energy on issues of Christianity as a world religion, and it has provoked studies of the particular nature of faith and religious participation in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Scholars like Andrew Walls have been arguing for years that the majority Christians of the non-Western world should be put in the center of scholarly agendas. Yet it appears that the same path is being trod as in other fields of history, namely, to bury women’s participation in a larger narrative, in this case one called “world Christianity.” What would the study of Christianity in Africa, Asia, and Latin America look like if scholars put women into the center of their research? In this article I argue that the current demographic shift in world Christianity should be analyzed as a women’s movement, based on the fact that even though men are typically the formal, ordained religious leaders and theologians, women constitute the majority of active participants.1 First, I examine the evidence for women’s presumed majority in world Christianity. Statements that women are “naturally” more religious than men or that women “always” outnumber men in churches need to be analyzed or else they fail to do justice to the complexity and diversity of women’s experiences of Christianity. Second, I survey recent studies that examine gender-based reasons for conversion. Why do women convert to Christianity? Are there gender-based factors for women’s conversion that extend across different cultures?