Christian Women Research Articles

To Repair a Broken World: The Life of Henrietta Szold, Founder of Hadassah by Dvora Hacohen

Reviewed by: To Repair a Broken World: The Life of Henrietta Szold, Founder of Hadassah by Dvora Hacohen Shulamit Reinharz (bio) To Repair a Broken World: The Life of Henrietta Szold, Founder of Hadassah. By Dvora Hacohen, translated from Hebrew by Shmuel Sermoneta Gertel. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2021. 388 pp. Sitting on my desk is an impressive pile of books about Henrietta Szold, a woman history clearly has not forgotten. Hacohen's task in writing a Szold biography, thus, was not to introduce us to Szold but to broaden or deepen our already existing understanding. Szold (1860-1945) lived and worked in Palestine only in the last twenty-five years of her life. Although like Herzl, who was born the same year, Szold was denied the pleasure of witnessing the creation of the State of Israel, she could take pride in the work she did in laying the State's foundations. Szold was a formidable force in transforming the Yishuv into a more modern society, primarily by improving health conditions and rescuing Jewish children through Youth Aliyah. To say that Szold was indefatigable is an understatement. While still a young woman, she was tireless in her work with immigrants in Baltimore and as an editor in Philadelphia and New York. In her "Palestine Period," in addition to her temporary psychosomatic blindness, she drove herself to near collapse. And yet she continued to toil, dying in Jerusalem only when she reached 85. Work for a cause sustained her. And it seemed she was never without a cause. Hacohen shows how Szold's self-esteem and standing "were a consequence of a social, cultural and professional world entirely dominated by men" (72-73). A remarkable exception was Solomon Schechter, head of the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) from 1902 through 1915, and his wife, Mathilde, both of whom became Szold's unwavering friends. Hacohen tells us that Solomon Schechter had "a keen interest in the role of women in the Jewish community" (87). Not so the leadership of the Jewish Publication Society, where Szold toiled for many years under the thumb of Mayer Sulzberger, nor even at the JTS, where she was compelled to sign a document swearing that she would not seek ordination. The lack of female colleagues in both the JTS and the JPS left her to fight these battles largely alone, if at all. From her father, Henrietta learned to accept the abuse of exploitative organizations. Hacohen details the negative effect that Baltimore's Congregation Oheb Shalom had on Henrietta's father, whom the synagogue eventually fired. On several occasions in Henrietta's life, Hacohen writes, "Szold was aware of the discrimination but accepted [the job] anyway" (134). In 1908, when Szold was forty-eight years old, she wanted to marry Professor Louis Ginzberg, an eminent scholar at the JTS. But he never [End Page 212] proposed, and she, in turn, never loved another man. I would suggest that remaining single for the rest of her life contributed to her success. Women of great potential at that time (and even today?) lost prestige, autonomy and recognition when and if they married. Think of Susan B. Anthony, Jane Addams, Emma Lazarus, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Florence Nightingale and many others who never married, or who became single as widows or divorcees, or women such as Golda Meir who separated from their husbands. Women satisfied their desire for intimacy by forming very close relations with other women. Szold befriended single, accomplished American Jewish women of the Yishuv including Alice Seligsberg, Jessie Sampter, and Nellie Strauss. She also befriended the Russian firebrand and kibbutz founder, Manya Wilbushevitz Shohat, whose unconventional marriage and family life included a husband, Israel Shohat, who lived alone in Tel Aviv while their two young children lived on Kibbutz Kfar Giladi near the Lebanese border. Szold was able to devote herself wholeheartedly to her projects without competing pulls from a husband or children. In an era when American Christian women were creating self-improvement and activist clubs, Szold assembled a small group of Jewish women and deployed her outstanding organizational skills to transform the group into a chapter, and then many chapters, of the ever-growing Hadassah. Her fundraising...

Christian Women Fellowship (CWF) and Evangelisation amongst the Nsos of Cameroon: Challenges and Prospects

This paper examines the challenges or difficulties faced by the Christian Women Fellowship (CWF) Movement of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon (PCC) in Nso, Bui Division of the North West Region of Cameroon. From its inception, the movement faced a lot of challenges in the Nso area in its evangelization drives although several successes were registered. The CWF has been actively involved in spiritual and socio-economic activities which have affected more positively the lives of women in particular and the entire community in general. The spiritual activities helped to strengthen its members in their Christian faith and the socio-economic lessons also empowered the women to become self-reliant. To carry out this work we use data collected from both the primary and secondary sources. Primary data were mostly collected from archival material and oral interviews conducted with some CWF officials and CWF members alike in the Bui Presbytery. Those interviewed were mostly between the ages of 40 and 80. This choice was dictated by the desire for reliability as most of them lived and experienced some of these challenges personally. Secondary data were collected from documented sources obtained through the use of books. The necessity for interviews was created by the lacunae exposed by archival material and secondary sources. It was realized that despite the successes registered, this group faced challenges such as poor road infrastructure, financial difficulty, cultural constraints, administrative bottlenecks and misconduct of some of its members.

Religiosity and Quality of Life in Older Christian Women in Ireland: A Mixed Methods Analysis

This study used a mixed methods approach to understand the ways in which religion and quality of life (QoL) are associated in later life in Ireland. Longitudinal quantitative data from 2112 Christian women aged 57 and over at baseline (2009–10) participating in the Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA), as well as qualitative data from semi-structured interviews from 11 Christian women aged 65 and over in 2018, were used. The quantitative data showed an association between lower religiosity and lower QoL. Qualitative data supported an effect of religious involvement on QoL although certain aspects of being religious in Ireland were accompanied by distress. The data suggested that the relationship between religious attendance and higher QoL could be driven by multifactorial pathways, including psychological, social, and practical benefits.

“Water Fit for a Christian Woman”: The Gendered and Racial Politics of Water in the Wash, 1865–1921

“Water Fit for a Christian Woman”: The Gendered and Racial Politics of Water in the Wash, 1865–1921

Note from the Editors

Previous articleNext article FreeNote from the EditorsStephen Brain, Catherine Dunlop, and Mark D. HerseyStephen Brain Search for more articles by this author , Catherine Dunlop Search for more articles by this author , and Mark D. Hersey Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreThe April 2022 issue, the second produced in partnership with the University of Chicago Press, highlights once again the vibrant efforts of scholars to better understand the historical relationship of humans with the nonhuman world. Its essays and features span the customary geographical and temporal diversity that readers of the journal have come to expect, but also include multiple works with challenging methodological approaches.The forum, for instance, “Extinction and Its Interventions in the Americas,” comprises essays written jointly by historians and scientists, in accordance with the organizers’ contention that interdisciplinary approaches help researchers to eliminate blind spots and yield better results. Just as provocative is the contribution by Andrew Flack, which asks the journal’s readers to consider (and surmount) the biases associated with visual ways of knowing the world, so central to the epistemology of environmental science in general. A different kind of methodological challenge is made in “‘Water Fit for a Christian Woman’: The Gendered and Racial Politics of Water in the Wash, 1865–1921,” in which Alexandra Straub calls attention to the neglected connection between environmental knowledge and the lived experiences of household laborers. Similarly, Michael E. Staub shows how researchers can find insights into prevailing environmental attitudes in unexpected places like military press releases and public health reports. Yet another example of a methodological innovation can be found in Kara Murphy Schlichting’s Gallery essay, “Hot Town: Sensing Heat in Summertime Manhattan,” which analyzes historic paintings and photographs from New York City in order to better understand the elusive but critical concept of a “heatscape.”The book review section, much slimmer than usual due to technical issues related to the transition in editors and presses and compounded by COVID-19, features a review essay by Susan Nance about animals in environmental history, as well as a sampling of the most recent environmental history scholarship. With the new editorial team in place and the new platform fully operational, we anticipate the book review section to return to its former size by the end of 2022.Although we are penning this editorial note in early January 2022—in the midst of the peak Omicron wave—we see bright glimmers of hope on the horizon. Some of the brightest can be found in the fact that we continue to receive a large volume of submissions that reflect a wide array of interests, geographically, topically, and temporally. Our field has never been more diverse, and as this issue shows, there is much yet to be learned about the seemingly familiar—water, war, and darkness to name just three—for those willing to approach it with fresh eyes and in unexpected ways. We hope that readers will seize the opportunity to contribute their own work in this vein, work that encourages environmental historians to push beyond what we know (or think we know) about ostensibly familiar topics and thus think in fresh ways about the past. Our sincere hope is that each issue of the journal allows our readers to do just that. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 27, Number 2April 2022 Published for the American Society for Environmental History and the Forest History Society Views: 609 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/718847 Views: 609 HistoryPublished online March 11, 2022 © 2022 Forest History Society and American Society for Environmental History. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Media, Gender, and Religion in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract This paper asserts that since the Nigerian media is patriarchal, they inexorably present images that give the impression that men have a superior knowledge of God than women. This idea is incidentally reechoing in contemporary Nigerian Christian practices, especially in the age of the new media. The paper examines gender, religion, and media from historical perspectives; analyses the theoretical framework at the root of the construction of the female gender and their representation in religion; and lastly, presents selected examples from day-to-day empirical evidence from Christian organizations in the Nigerian media space with the aim of deconstructing the public image of Christian women in the Nigerian public square. It thus aims to reconstruct the public image of women in religion via the media, showing the importance of equal gender representation. The narrative concerning reconstruction is deeply contextual, analytical, rigorous, and interdisciplinary.

Singing a New Song: Christian Musical Literature for Chinese Women in the Republican Era

This paper focuses on the songs circulated in the first Christian woman’s magazine in China, Nü duo (1912–1951). Its first editor, American missionary Laura M. White (1867–1937), played a crucial role in creating a wide range of music for Chinese girls through journalism. White used print media to circulate songs that were viewed as an integral part of the spiritual life of ideal womanhood. Unlike the hymnody confined to congregational worship, the music circulated through Nü duo aimed to promote a vocalised expression of Christian faith in everyday life. This spiritual life was interwoven with secular concerns about the nation, social issues and home life. An exploration of music literature published in Nü duo shows how Western music was translated into local language that aimed to reach female Christians in mission schools and at home. It provided an alternative to the dominant indigenous development of Protestant hymnody in the Republican era. It went beyond the foreign and local dichotomy with a concept of universal modern citizenship. Furthermore, it added a gendered perspective to Christian sacred music that was linked to the creation of a sense of a female fellowship.

Contempt for the Whos? or: How to Read Nietzsche Autobiographically after the Death of the Bios

This paper examines French philosopher Sarah Kofman’s fractured relationships to her identities as Jew and woman. Active participant in postwar debates surrounding deconstruction and psychoanalysis, acclaimed reader of Freud and Nietzsche, and interlocutor of Derrida, Kofman is today most widely remembered for her autobiographical writings about her childhood as a young Orthodox Jewish girl during the Nazi occupation of Paris. Kofman’s mother sent her to pretend to be the daughter of a Christian woman, which both ensured Kofman’s physical survival and led to an uncanny Freudian doubling of the maternal figure, such that both “Jew” and “Christian” became unstable, mimetic identity categories which Kofman could never again fully inhabit. The paper examines Kofman’s writings on Nietzsche, suggesting that her attempt to absolve the German philosopher of the charges of antisemitism oft leveled against him functioned as a similarly failed and incomplete means of asserting control over her personal identity. If Kofman could demonstrate that Nietzsche was not in fact an antisemite, then she could write herself into the lineage of Continental philosophy and reclaim the stable ancestry she lost during the war. Yet the paper concludes that a counter-narrative running throughout Kofman’s writings suggests an awareness that she could never fully absolve Nietzsche, and therefore that her attempt to claim Nietzsche as a father figure would always fail. The paper thus suggests that the illusion of control and stability epitomized by Kofman’s reading of Nietzsche provides an interpretive thematic to understand the unstable figure of the post-Holocaust Jewish philosopher.

Migration and the Making of Global Christianity

This book documents how Christian migrants from the origins of Christianity until 1500 helped establish Christianity as a world religion. Its sociohistorical methodology identifies and celebrates the contributions of ordinary Christian migrants in cross-cultural and transnational contexts. It argues that Christian missionary engagements are often incorrectly associated with empire and institutional authorities; in reality, however, most of the cross-cultural missionary work was done by ordinary Christian women and men who migrated for various purposes. This book thus embodies a new historiography based on migration, providing ample evidence of the reality, complexity, and relevance of migration for World Christianity.

The city on the Moldau as a liminal space : Prague in Anthony Trollope's Nina Balatka

The article discusses Anthony Trollope's representation of the city of Prague in his 1867 novel Nina Balatka, which first appeared anonymously in the Blackwood's Magazine. The novel tells the story of the eponymous protagonist, a Christian woman, who falls in love with a Jewish man. Trollope's choice of Prague as the backdrop for the story of two lovers separated by the great gulf between Christians and Jews seems particularly fitting, because the spatial division of the city by the river Moldau which separates the Christian and the Jewish parts of town reinforces the sense that the two protagonists come from different worlds. Trollope's characters exist in the realistically represented city; yet, iconic Prague locations, described in picturesque detail, are imbued with symbolic significance which underscores the liminal position of the protagonist, who is torn between her Christian faith, and her love of a Jewish man.

Women's Empowerment and Food Security in Cameroon

The zero-hunger objective of the Sustainable Development Goals is still far from reach as food insecurity continues to be a problem. Literature largely associates women empowerment with food security but its empirical evidence is still sparse, especially in Cameroon. To fill this gap, the study investigates the effect of women empowerment on food security in Cameroon. The methodology employed eight indicators of women empowerment drawn from the Cameroon Consumption Household Survey IV to construct an index of women empowerment using the Multiple Correspondence Analysis. Likewise, Household Food Insecurity Access Scale is used in combination with other food security measures to construct a composite index of food security. The study then employs two stage least square instrumental variable model for analysis. Pre-estimation and post-estimation tests were employed for robustness; such as the Anderson canon LR Statistics to test for the strength of the instruments used and the endogeneity test to validate the need for the instrumental variable regression. The key result posits that women empowerment has a positive and significant effect on food security. A unit increase in women empowerment increases food security by 0.474 and it is significant at 5% significant level. This aligns with apriori expectation. Furthermore, household size, the square of household size, age and the square of age are all not significant. Though, household size and age are negative while their squares are positive. Also, the results show that households located in urban areas are significantly more food secure than those in rural areas at a 1% level of significance. Respondents who were married had significantly lower food security than the unmarried and Christian women had significantly lower food security than their counterparts. The study recommends that there is need to set up programs and institutions that empower women in all aspects so as to ensure food security consequently. Furthermore, the empowerment of women should be incorporated in food poverty reduction strategies that touches the household directly. Conclusively, the study insinuates a positive relationship between women empowerment and food security, therefore all women empowerment measures must be promoted and institutionalized if food security must be improved.

The Ministry of Women in the New Testament: Reclaiming the Biblical Vision for Church Leadership by Dorothy A. Lee

Reviewed by: The Ministry of Women in the New Testament: Reclaiming the Biblical Vision for Church Leadership by Dorothy A. Lee Florence Morgan Gillman dorothy a. lee, The Ministry of Women in the New Testament: Reclaiming the Biblical Vision for Church Leadership (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2021). Pp. 226. $24.99. In introducing her text, Dorothy A. Lee, Australian NT scholar and Anglican priest, comments that it may seem anachronistic to write a book on women in the NT since "surely the work has been done, the arguments canvassed, and the battle in good part won" (p. 1). Although her own church does ordain women, she notes that various sources have more recently promoted arguments against egalitarianism in churches and homes for a new generation of Christians. She views such arguments as influencing particularly young men aspiring to leadership positions "while firmly excluding their female peers and calling for obedience from their wives" (p. 1). Lee states that the purpose of her study is "to revisit the arguments against women's full participation in ministry and leadership within the church . . . from a biblical and theological point of view" (p. 10). This volume is thus generic in the sense that she does not focus on any single non-female-ordaining church but generally has in mind what she terms the more "catholic" opposition to women's ordination as, for example, in the Roman Catholic and Orthodox traditions as well as in some forms of Anglicanism. Her work therefore does not give much attention to the polity of the various traditions and their specific debates and statements about female ordination. Lee sees the real issues underlying the question of ordination as theological, especially christological regarding the nature of God and the significance of a Christian's identity in relation to Christ. She argues that, from a NT perspective, baptized Christian women—like baptized Christian men—share the same fundamental vocation, that is, to be disciples of Jesus Christ. It follows, therefore, that "the particular form their ministry takes should not be restricted because they are women, just as it is not so restricted for men" (p. 11). L. of course recognizes that the lack of NT evidence regarding formal structures of leadership makes any discussion of ordination in the earliest days of Christianity anachronistic. Hence the extension of her study beyond the NT into the second and third centuries. Lee's research is presented in two parts. The first covers women's ministry in the NT, treating the texts in relatively canonical rather than chronological order. She notes, however, that female discipleship and leadership are not a main concern of the NT writings. Rather, she sees the greatest focus of these writings as "the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the creation of the community of faith around that central proclamation" (p. 189). L. challenges the misogyny she detects in much current church teaching that claims to be complementarian. She critiques allegedly egalitarian reasoning that sees women and men as somehow distinctive in their roles as disciples, with access to power being reserved to men, complemented by women's supposedly "unique perspectives." The second and briefer part of L.'s book treats women's ministry in the historical tradition beyond the Scriptures. Here she discusses early texts depicting leadership by Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and others and also surveys art and artifacts portraying women with symbolism or clothing suggesting leadership or liturgical roles. She likewise comments on early church "mothers" whose unordained ministries in their own spheres were extensive (e.g., Perpetua, Egeria, Eudocia). Lee concludes with a chapter setting forth a theological case for women's ordination. In subsections she deals with Women and the Twelve, Women and the Divine Image, [End Page 141] Women and the Virgin Mary, and Gender and the Trinity. She asserts that women's sense of calling to ordination is not a factor arising from Western feminism but a re-calling of the church to its evangelical roots, that is, that all Christians have the capacity to communicate Christ to others. Women, no less than men, are coequal icons of Christ. Lee's text is clearly written and will be especially...

Bama’s Sangati: A Traumatic Chain of Gender Discrimination

Sangati (1994), a novel in translation from Tamil to English, is the second work of Bama (b.1958) also known as Bama Faustina Soosairaj, a Dalit feminist. It is a unique novel without any marked plot or central character, and it seeks to explore the impact of a number of discriminations suffered by Dalit Christian women. This paper is a realistic investigation into the text of the novel to find out the events of gender discrimination resulting into subjugation and marginalization of women especially Dalit women, like Velliaiyamma, Mariamma, Thayi, Vasuki, Maikkani, Maikkani’s mother, Esakki and the narrator herself. All of them are exploited by the male members of their family as well as society and bear the traumatic behaviour at every step of their pathetic lives. In the broad light of day, they are entertained as the home servants and in darkness of night; they are treated as an object of sexual satisfaction. Women have been declared as misbegotten and treated as animals, objects of sexual pleasure, and slaves of men who have their birthrights to exploit, to beat, to burn them alive and so on.

Criminal Offences of Turning and Conversion to Roman Catholicism in Dušan’s Code

Dušan’s Code is the most important monument of Serbian medieval law. It contains a large number of provisions relating to Orthodoxy, the church, the clergy and monasticism. The first 38 articles are directly dedicated to the faith and the church. The Code also prescribes various criminal offences against Orthodoxy, and the most numerous are offences of Roman Catholic proselytism. The introductory part of the paper contains a brief analysis of the position of Roman Catholics in medieval Serbia, the relationship between Serbian rulers and popes, and especially emphasizes the role of Roman Catholic propaganda and the conversion of the Orthodox to Roman Catholicism, which was most prevalent during the reign of Tsar Dušan. The subject of the author’s legal-historical analysis is those provisions of Dušan’s Code that incriminate turning and conversion to Roman Catholicism. So far, it has been indisputably established in science that these are Articles 6, 7, 8, 9 and 21. In Article 6, the Code of Emperor Stefan Dušan proclaims: „And concerning the Latin heresy: Christians who have turned to the use of unleavened bread shall return to the Christian observance. If any fail to obey and do not return to Christian Orthodoxy, let them be punished as is written in the Code of the Holy Fathers.” Article 7 provides: „And the Great Church shall appoint head priests in all market towns to reclaim from the Latin heresy those Christians who have turned to the Latin faith, and to give them spiritual instructions, so that each one of them returns to Christianity.” Article 8 punishes the Latin priest: „And if a Latin priest is found to have converted a Christian to the Latin faith, let him be punished according to the Law of the Holy Fathers.” Article 9 prohibits mixed marriage: „And if a half-believer is found to be married to a Christian woman, let him be baptized into Christianity if he desires it. But if he refuses to be baptized, let his wife and children be taken from him, and let a part of his house be allotted to them, and let him be driven forth.” Finally, Article 21 prescribes: „And whoever shall sell a Christian into another and false faith, let him be crippled and his tongue cut out.” In the concluding remarks, the author points out the basic causes of prescribing these crimes, as well as certain historical data on Emperor Stefan Dušan’s anti-Catholic politics.

A Genealogy of Breakthroughs

Abstract Wong Tsing-yi (1869–1903) was a third-generation Christian woman from a South China family. Focusing on her life story, this study aims to show how her family’s connection and interactions with western missionaries generated new resources for her to reimagine family relations, learning, and social and gender roles, thereby transgressing prevalent social norms. Using the Chronicles of Wong’s family and missionary writings, this study demonstrates how interactions and exchanges with missionaries in practice far transcended the binary view of the hegemonic transmitter and passive receptor. Through a sustained process of exchanges, the family and missionaries engendered a new culture of mutual learning that gave rise to a genealogy of breakthroughs.

“A Model for All Christian Women”. Candida Xu, a Chinese Christian Woman of the Seventeenth Century, by Gail King

“A Model for All Christian Women”. Candida Xu, a Chinese Christian Woman of the Seventeenth Century, by Gail King

Determinants of postnatal care supplements in Bole Sub-City health centers under the COVID-19 environment: Analysis of service user’s perspective

Background: PNC visits helps decrease maternal morbidity and mortality after delivery. The services (both provision and utilization) are severely affected during crisis, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic due to health care services being suspended and shifting to combat the pandemic. Objective: To assess the determinants and challenges of postnatal care service utilization, specifically intake of key supplements (iron, folic acid, and antibiotics) among pregnant women attending Bole Sub City Health Centers under the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: A sample size of 405 mothers with most recent births who got the service in the selected Bole Sub-City health centers were interviewed. A negative binomial regression analysis was used to assess the determinants of postnatal supplement intake. Result: 44.9 percent of the respondents used PNC services but only 10.6 percent of them took the postnatal supplements. For respondents in the age group 25-34, the expected mean number of postpartum intakes increased by 1.22 (95% CI: 1.121-1.346) compared to women 35 and above. The expected mean number of postpartum intake decreased by 38.1 percent (IRR = 0.619; 95% CI: 0.548-0.700) for women who were currently living with their husbands when compared to those who don’t. For women who had 2-3 children, the expected mean number of postpartum supplement intake decreased by 32.8 percent (IRR = 0.672; 95% CI: 0.618 - 0.730) compared to the reference category. Women with primary education, had an expected mean number to decrease by 10 percent (IRR = 0.903, 95% CI: 0.825- 0.987) than those who had college or university education. Those with very low and low household income, the expected mean number of postnatal supplement intake decreased by 25.7 percent (IRR = 0.743, 95% CI: 0.678-0.814) and 22.9 percent (IRR = 0.771, 95% CI: 0.706- 0.841) respectively. But increased by 1.257 (95% CI: 1.227-1.403) for women in the moderate household wealth. Orthodox Christian and Muslim women had the expected mean number to increase by 1.092 (95% CI: 1.010-1.180) and 1.24 (95% CI: 1.136-1.354) respectively when compared to the reference category. Working women had an expected mean number of postnatal supplement intake of 1.13 (95% CI: 1.063-1.202) when compared with those who don’t have work. Lastly for women who had PNC visits, the expected mean number of postnatal supplement intake increased by 1.138. Conclusion: Maternal morbidity and mortality is the highest during post-partum period. But this could be minimized by attending postnatal care services. This study suggests increasing awareness in mothers to attend the recommended number of visit to secure health of the mothers and their newborn. Keywords: postnatal service; iron; folate; supplement; health center.

Li Ma, Christian Women and Modern China. Recovering a Women’s History of Chinese Protestantism

Li Ma, Christian Women and Modern China. Recovering a Women’s History of Chinese Protestantism

Orality, gender and sacred texts in the context of tele-evangelism

In oral cultures such as (traditional) African cultures and the cultures that eventually produced the Christian Bible, women formed an integral part of the art of storytelling. In patriarchal cultures where the normativity of a male is taken for granted, once orality was tampered with by that which happens in the sphere traditionally reserved for men as in, for example, the introduction of literacy, the important role of women as storytellers, including the telling of the stories of Jesus of Nazareth (read: biblical discourse) gets tampered with by subordination and silencing amongst others. Whilst the participation of women in ordained ministry and the delivery of public biblical discourse still remains a challenge in many African ecclesiastical settings, the advent of the digital era (cf. tele-evangelism in this essay) is not necessarily helpful towards the affirmation of women, especially first ladies in the context of huge ministries and mega churches. Contribution: The present essay seeks to answer the following main question: If the intersection among orality, gender, sacred texts and biblical discourse are analysed in the context of the full participation of African Christian women, especially the wives of the ‘men of God’, which power dynamics regarding gender and biblical discourse can be unravelled?

Bride price and Christian marriage in Nigeria

Payment of bride price is a popular tradition in Nigeria as in most parts of Africa. However, in Nigeria, the practice has virtually lost its traditional purpose of marriage validation and honouring because of the commercialisation by many parents. For this reason, some critics have called for a cancellation of the custom, as it has turned women to commodities to be bought and sold. This article examined the purpose of bride price in the traditional African setting, the changes that have crept into the practice over time, and the desirability or non-desirability of bride price payment for Christians in Nigeria. The article employed the exegetical method for the study of the relevant texts and, using the descriptive approach, it gathered and utilised material relevant for bride price payment, as practised in Nigeria. The author found that payment of bride price is not prohibited in the Bible. In the traditional African society, bride price served mainly as the legal exchange that validated marriage. It was discovered that charging exorbitant bride prices by Nigerian parents obliterated the original purpose of the custom. Commercialisation of bride price in this way is partially responsible for the increasing rate of late marriages and non-marriages amongst Christians. The inability to pay high bride prices had created a situation whereby young Christian men and women cohabit without legally getting married. Exorbitant bride price sometimes leads to domestic violence against women. It is for these reasons that some have considered payment of bride price unchristian, whilst others have called for its abolishment. Nevertheless, this study concluded that as payment of bride price is not prohibited in the Bible, it is not wrong for Christians to pay and receive bride prices. Moreover, if its traditional purpose is adhered to, payment of bride price need not cause women abuse. Its cancellation would amount to doing away with the original purpose of the practice, particularly the legitimisation and honouring of marriage. Therefore, rather than abolishing bride price, one would call for a return to its original purpose. More than recognising the value of bride price, the church in Nigeria has the responsibility to educate Christian parents on the adverse implications of charging exorbitant bride prices. Contribution: This article is a contribution in ethics of Christian marriage. It is relevant for educating Nigerian Christian parents against charging excessive bride prices.