Abstract
The lived realities and experiences of members of the Mothers’ Union are explored in
this study. I engage, with their understanding, their story telling, reclaiming and giving
their testimonies of the past in an “indigenous” context. The telling of their stories
allows me to determine how these could constitute innovative theologies, and could
be formulated into a vibrant epistemology as a contributory corollary within the
current discourse of decolonisation/indigenisation. Hopefully this will serve both the
Mothers’ Union and/or the communities in which they live and ultimately, it will reflect
in some meaningful manner upon the broader structures of the Anglican Church of
Southern Africa.
From its inception in Southern Africa, African women witnessed the Mothers’ Union
become significantly more than their English counterparts ever would have perceived
across the length and the breadth of the British colonial empire. The Mothers’ Union
absorbed two thousand black women from the Women’s Help Society (WHS) in the
1930s and this was the emergence of an indigenised entity. The unuttered local view
is that women can be shapers of an African Christian destiny. I am of the opinion that
the Mothers’ Union has created the “language” that enables them to change the
narrative by sharing their lived realities and articulating and practising of their shared
experiences and potential. Through their struggle towards an independent mode of
thought and practice, they continue to give hope to the many women, mothers,
families and youth as we enter into a “new” and very uncertain time of the Covid-19
Pandemic and its aftermath, and the unsettling impacts of the pandemic.
Women and men have been victims of internalised oppressive theologies which have
perpetuated since European settlers first arrived. Africans have as a consequence of
their oppression developed contempt for their own blackness, as well as repudiate
their own culture. As a society, we need to relearn the embrace of our African beliefs,
our values, systems of knowledge and spiritual practices that celebrate, and dignify
our culture, and our languages. Inherent within the complexities of identifying and
negotiating the living theology of women, informing an emerging epistemology, we
need to ensure that it gains acceptance and is embraced by the Anglican Church.
The necessary and urgent need for decolonisation and indigenisation to overcome
the historically inserted divide of race, class and gender within secular society and
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Church, must of necessity rise from the Mothers’ Union program of social activism,
thus making it a rudimentary component of that background. In this research, I will
argue that within the MU an emerging, indigenous epistemology already exist and
can contribute to the decolonisation discourse, defining the position of African
Christian women within the Anglican Church in Southern Africa. I am of the belief,
that the spiritual needs of African women who are members of the Mothers’ Union
have been influenced and enhanced by their unique preaching, dancing, and singing.
Thus forming the foundational epistemology of their inspirational theology, which
could further negate the lethargic processes within the Anglican Church.
Keywords
ACSA, Anglican Church of Southern Africa, Christian, Coloniality, Colonisation,
Decolonise, GBV, Gender- Based Violence, Indigenisation, Manyano, Mothers’.