Living with Dignity: African Perspectives on Gender Equality

2009

2020

South Africa has experienced a long history of patriarchal leadership in the spheres of politics, economics and culture as well as in the sphere of religion, in particular. Many factors influence the current state of religious leadership and the accompanying identity formation. This article aims to do a descriptive-empirical investigation into some of these processes of leadership based on feedback from female postgraduate theology students at the Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. The empirical results will be read through the lenses of Social Identity Theory, in order to establish, with keen interest, whether the concepts we are using are still adequate and to seek the possibility of new understandings of religious leadership identities that might emerge and ways in which it can become part of curriculum development.

In die Skriflig/In Luce Verbi, 2018

This article consists of six parts: firstly, the author will provide orientation on how this research was conducted and the origin as well as the motivation to pursue this research study. Secondly, concepts like gender, equality and human dignity will be defined and clarified to give the reader a better understanding of these main concepts in this article. Thirdly, the position of theologians on the struggle against gender will be discussed. Fourthly, gender policies of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA) and the African National Congress (ANC) will be discussed to explore the correlation between URCSA gender policy and ANC gender policy. Fifthly, the shortcomings in terms of the implementation of these gender policies during an elective conference or synod will be stated. Finally, the author will provide findings and recommendations that can assist to improve the implementation of these policies.

2012

Japhet Ndhlovu's doctoral dissertation tells the story of the "Circles of Hope" and the enormous role that the church in Zambia played to develop a unified strategy to deal with AIDS. Esther eventually worked with the Christian Council of Zambia, where Dr Ndhlovu was the General Secretary.

Religion and State - Development Cooperation: A German-South African dialogue on historical and current challenges, 2020

2012

2009

Gender Works: Oxfam Experience in Policy and Practice, 1999

This article reflects on a joint initiative by Oxfam Canada and Novib in South Africa, the Gender and Development (GAD) Fund.

Acta Theologica, 2023

This article consists of five sections on equality within faith communities. First, the focus is on the creation of human beings as the image of God on an equal basis. The premise is that LGBTQIA+ people are created as human beings in the image of God, deserving to be welcomed in faith communities. Secondly, the article focuses on how missionaries have taught African converts to interpret the Bible on many serious human rights issues. Thirdly, the article discusses the position of the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA), using the contents of the General Synods, spanning from Pietermaritzburg (2005) to Stellenbosch (2022). Fourthly, this study reflects on the challenges faced by denominations that accept LGBTQIA+ people regarding marriage and their ordination. The challenge seems to be about the fundamental reading of the Bible, confession, and Church Order articles, as discussed in this article. Fifthly, recommendations are made to address this inequality. This article is approached from an anthropological-missional viewpoint when addressing this inequality within communities of faith.

Storia Del Donne, University of Firenze, Italy, 2020

«Feminist Africa» («FA») was established in the rush of post- apartheid vision and energy with which Africa greeted the dawn of the 21 st century, during which even Africa’s flagship universities were struggling to regenerate intellectual life and higher education systems after the so-called “Lost Decade” of the 1980’s. During the 1980’s African research life had suffered with the imposition of so-called structural “adjustment” packages that compounded the long-term structural dependency and decapitated higher education institutions, undermining and suppressing independent knowledge production within a few years of political independence. African knowledge came to rely on independent scholarly networks and small research institutes established in multiple efforts to attend to the vast research needs that confront all developing nations