Religious Gullibility and Female Leadership in Pentecostal Churches in Zimbabwe: A Feminist Inquiry

The 1918–19 influenza pandemic killed between 30 and 50 million people worldwide. In Sub-Saharan Africa, as Terence Ranger points out, the pandemic left an indelible mark, including the unforeseen emergence of anti-medical religious movements. None were as significant as Faith Tabernacle Congregation, the Philadelphia-based divine-healing church that spurred a massive revival in West Africa – and a network stretching from Ivory Coast to Nigeria – without ever sending missionaries. They evangelised through personal letters exchanged across the Atlantic, and Faith Tabernacle literature sent from Philadelphia to various leaders in West Africa. The 1918–19 influenza pandemic was the spark that led to the church's massive growth, from one small branch before the pandemic began in 1918 to 10,500 members and nearly 250 branches of Faith Tabernacle in West Africa at its zenith in 1926. After the church's rapid demise between 1926 and 1929, leaders of Faith Tabernacle established most of the oldest Pentecostal Churches in the Gold Coast and Nigeria – such as the Apostolic Faith, the Apostolic Church, the Christ Apostolic Church and the Assemblies of God (Nigeria). Classical Pentecostalism, therefore, is Faith Tabernacle's legacy in West Africa, while abstinence from orthodox medicine continued to be debated within these Pentecostal circles.

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Non-ordained

Fieldwork in Religion ◽

10.1558/firn.32964 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 137-156 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jeanine Kraybill

Keyword(s):

Social Policy ◽

Women Religious ◽

Catholic Church ◽

Social Issues ◽

Female Leadership ◽

Religious Leaders ◽

Religious Congregations ◽

Effect Change ◽

Policy Goals ◽

Institutional Church

The Catholic Church, constructed on an all-male clerical model, is a hierarchical and gendered institution, creating barriers to female leadership. In interviewing members of the clergy and women religious of the faith, this article examines how female non-ordained and male clerical religious leaders engage and influence social policy. It specifically addresses how women religious maneuver around the institutional constraints of the Church, in order to take action on social issues and effect change. In adding to the scholarship on this topic, I argue that part of the strategy of women religious in navigating barriers of the institutional Church is not only knowing when to act outside of the formal hierarchy, but realizing when it is in the benefit of their social policy objectives to collaborate with it. This maneuvering may not always safeguard women religious from institutional scrutiny, as seen by the 2012 Doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, but instead captures the tension between female religious and the clergy. It also highlights how situations of institutional scrutiny can have positive implications for female religious leaders, their policy goals and congregations. Finally, this examination shows how even when women are appointed to leadership posts within the institutional Church, they can face limitations of acceptance and other constraints that are different from their female religious counterparts working within their own respective religious congregations or outside organizations.

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