This session highlights the work of African women theologians who are noteworthy creators and innovators in the various fields of religion, spirituality, and religious activism. African women theologians have addressed religious, environmental, socio-economic, political, health, gender equality, and other related issues that affect the African continent, yet traditional gender bias, economic status, domestic and occupational constraints, and racist, colonial, and class norms have obscured the noteworthy character of their lives and scholarly work. This session contextualizes issues of colonial bias and maps how African women theologians overcome coloniality in their works.
Esther Mombo's teaching areas are in world Christianity, women, and theology. Esther is a graduate of St. Paul’s, University, Trinity College Dublin and University of Edinburgh. Esther is a member of the Circle of Concerned Women Theologians and Coordinator of East African Region. Esther served as co-chair of the Commission of Education and Ecumenical formation of the World Council of Churches, Advisor of Education for All Africa Conference of Churches.
This paper attempts to conceptualize African women’s theology at the intersection of embodied spirituality and theological imagination through the lens of Afua Kuma’s Christology. A pioneering figure in African women’s theologizing, Madam Afua Kuma was the quintessential oral theologian. Her deeply embodied theological imagination invokes a Jesus that is intimately connected to and yet transcends the boundaries of her Christian and indigenous religious cosmologies and worldviews, and the realities of her religio-politico and socio-cultural situation. This paper, therefore, will locate Afua Kuma Christological imagination and lived experiences within the intersection of African women’s theology, Christianity and African indigenous spiritualities. It will engage the (re)negotiation of African women’s agency as well as the utilization of embodied spirituality and theological imagination as redemptive currencies in decolonial methodologies and epistemologies. The implication of such (de/re)constructive processes could possibly provide regenerative nuances in current discourses within World/Global Christianity.
One of the key methodologies employed by the circle of concerned African women theologians (the Circle) is that of documenting lived experiences. Often, this depicts a person’s experiences and choices, thus allowing us a glimpse into whom they are and a knowledge of what influences their philosophy. It is with this in mind, that this paper seeks to unpack the life and times of Hannah Wangeci Kinoti, the first female professor in the department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the University of Nairobi -Kenya and a founder member of the Circle. Employing a combination of the narrative approach and literature review, the paper discusses her early years, education, involvement in the Circle, her works and finally death. Of interest is her contribution in the circle through her exposition of African ethics and a communitarian philosophy that synthesizes African communal values and Christianity to produce a liberative life affirming theology.
Leading Ghanaian Pentecostal-Charismatic scholar, Dr. Comfort Max-Wirth Phragmos-Kusi works to educate and lead others on a journey decolonizing African Pentecostalism-Charismatic praxis and theology. Her work as a pastor-teacher, religious-political scholar, and lecturer at the University of Ghana in Accra, is pivotal. She paves the way for religious decolonialism through the methodology of life-affirming, Pentecostal truth-telling. In this biography, I will work to unpack her story as a way to understand current West African women’s impact in the de-colonialism of religion, specifically within the Ghanaian Pentecostal-Charismatic Church. Her story can serve as an example and innovative model in which African women theologian’s stories can be disseminated and shared.
This paper seeks to unpack African women theologians and epistemologies as they navigate their faith between social justice activism and decoloniality in Kenya. It aims to document and increase the biographical coverage of Kenyan women theologians and actors from Evangelical and Pentecostal church movements who are not only inspiring and leading social justice movements but are also generating significant social change within their respective church ministries and communities in Kenya and beyond. I appropriate this analogy of an African three-legged fireside research methodology as a site for community making, knowledge sharing, and deep listening to generate biographical data on African women theologians negotiating ministry and social justice.
Jeannie Dove was a 20th century Black African woman who pioneered the teaching and practice of Christian Science in Ghana, applying its theology in the context of the Global South and in a society emerging from colonial rule. The theology of Christian Science interrelates with its practice of spiritual healing. This paper explores how the healing theology of Christian Science was mediated by Dove’s Ghanaian identity. A distinctive aspect of American-founded Christian Science is its lack of a traditional Western missionary apparatus. Its primary messenger is a text, Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Dove wrote about how she encountered this book, and first applied it to her own economic and health concerns, deeply imprinted with her African experience. She came to believe, according to interviews and articles, that her new religion offered a path to liberation from economic, sanitary, and social problems resulting, in part, from colonialist hegemony. For Dove, this changemaking was a rooted, therapeutic practice that offered relief from suffering in the form of a public ministry of Christian healing. Dove’s biography provides windows into her contextualization of Christian Science as a liberating theology she believed was relevant in twentieth-century Sub-Saharan Africa.
Alphama Kanyuru Kinyua was a prominent African woman theologian who dedicated her life to promoting gender justice and women’s empowerment. With a deep commitment to her faith and a passion for social justice, Alphama advocated for the rights of women and girls, challenging patriarchal systems and promoting gender equality in all spheres of life. As a theologian, she drew on her deep knowledge of African traditions and cultures and her extensive education and research to develop the theologies rooted in African women’s experiences. Through her teachings, writing, and public speaking engagements, Alphama inspired and mobilized women across the continent to take action and fight for their rights. Her advocacy work led to numerous achievements, including establishing women’s empowerment programs. Her tireless efforts have earned her recognition nationally and internationally. Her legacy continues to inspire a new generation of African women theologians to advocate for gender justice and women’s empowerment.
| Esther Mombo | esthermombo@yahoo.co.uk | View |