The United Church of Zambia (UCZ) has a relatively long history of women ordinations. What are some of the challenges that these clergywomen face? Reverend Kuzipa Nalwamba shares her own experiences as a woman pastor serving in a rural parish in Kasama. Her reflections challenge all of us.

I would like to state from the outset that I have many joys serving as a clergywoman, and if I were to count them they would surpass the challenges.  The reason I am in Church work is because I believe God has a place for women like myself and He affirms it and rewards faithful labour with many joys.

In a way my challenges as a woman serving as a minister in a rural area are not any different from that of a man -- on the face of it.  Partly because serving in the United Church in Zambia (UCZ) I am far from the first generation of clergywomen.  We have a relatively long history of ordination of women in the UCZ.  That is not to say marginalisation of women is a thing of the past.  It is more subtle and imbedded in varied cultural guises.

My discussion would not be complete without giving some attention to the struggle of rural women in general.  I believe as a woman  working  with  grassroots women and relating to their daily realities of life on the margins has been an eye opener.  That is the fifth challenge I will outline (I plan in the future to engage in intensive research of particular areas of this pertinent subject for us serving in rural Zambia).

WOMEN IN SOCIETY AND CHURCH IN ZAMBIA

 

We cannot address the issue of women in the Church without reference to the society in general.  Before a woman commits herself to the Church, it from society’s background that she springs.  Her self-perception and  how  society  views  her  are both conditioned by that background.  Generally, society discriminates against women.  The Church herself cannot help doing the same, though not as overtly as the rest of society.

Churches in Africa are committing themselves to the fight for justice and freedom. We have seen the three Church mother bodies in Zambia (Zambia Episcopal Conference, Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia and Council of Churches in Zambia) stand for the rights of the marginalised in recent years.  But the Church is not so outspoken on the question of women.  There has been no deliberate effort to find a way of making each woman and man be seen as equal in the sight of God. 

By this I do not mean that women should fight for the notion of women being the same as men.  Rather it is that women must be fully “woman” in society and in the Church. If that were recognized and taken seriously, it would lead to bold steps. In the words of the late Pope John Paul II:

“The moment is coming, the moment has come, when woman's vocation is fully realised; the moment when woman takes on in the world an influence, a radiance, a power until now unattained. That is a time when humanity is undergoing so many changes women filled with the spirit of the Gospel can do so much to help humanity not fail.” (Sur la femme, 1989)

The statement of the Pope is encouraging. It is a beautiful meditation which hopefully also serves as a call to radical action and change of mentality and a redefinition of the man-woman relations in the Church (Mbuy Beya in Njoroge & Dube 2001: 183).  Catholics and Protestants in    Zambia   share   a   common background socially.  I have chosen to quote the Pope's words because they arise out of a faith tradition that seems a long way towards ordination of women.

Women constitute the majority of membership of UCZ. And yet what the demography of the congregation looks like in a Sunday worship service contrasts with what one witnesses in a Synod meeting.  Women are in the majority in the former and in the minority in the latter.  Meaning that women are present in the Church, but equitable power sharing has yet to happen.  That being the case, a clergywoman is up against biased perception when she ascends to a decision-making position. 

This is overt and turns up in various guises. And so a woman has to have an eye for spotting covert opposition that arises from mindsets that have been conditioned by experience.  When I encounter those experiences I am reminded that as a woman I am yet to be fully admitted into the leadership sphere. What are some of the challenges I have faced?

AGEISM

I am forty plus and yet am still considered young.  If I were married and/or a mother there would be a difference.  That is another culturally conditioned bias to a woman in ministry.  This applies to men as well.  Except that there are not many men who are well into their forties who are clergy and have never been married before.  Celibacy in African tradition is not celebrated.  That  has  been uncritically carried over into the Church. Jesus himself was single and young (he completed his ministry on earth before he turned forty!).  I consider myself to be in good company here!

Culturally, when a woman is considered young, immaturity which characterises the uninitiated is implied in the term.  No one puts it across that crudely, of course.  And yet it is an ingrained mentality which will not just go away without deep theological reflection to come up with biblical underpinnings which will inform the new age of women clergy.  Even when direct reference is not made to the clergywoman, as long as we continue to regard maturity and age in this biased way, there is the inner feeling that being considered “young” undermines one's standing as a Christian leader.

SEXISM

The Church as we have seen is male dominated.  There is a certain destruction that happens just because of that bias.  God created the male and female so that they may share in the responsibility of “stewarding” the earth.  The Church is not exempt.  And yet much of what has shaped the Church's value system and aspirations can be attributed to that male dominance.  Even where dominance was not intentional, it has become a given that certain things are only done in the same way.  At the risk of being simplistic, I would cite the idea of power and leadership itself.  The stereotype of male leadership is dominance while the female tends to be nurturing.

Many women who are leaders in the Church only have male role models.  That leads to women being labelled “aggressive” when they express their leadership in “male styles.” Women therefore need to provide an alternative. 

And yet in the UCZ we have not yet come to a place where we have nurtured enough women to take up leadership at a high enough level to provide alternative models.  As a new minister, I find myself gropping for a role model to inspire my own leadership style.  In the absence of that I fear that I may be just going by the status quo.

The lack of female leadership makes it difficult for members in general to have confidence in women leaders.  That will take bold steps and affirmation of that alternative as a balancing act in our quest to reach for the goal that God himself set at creation.

THE CLERGYWOMAN AND MARRIAGE

The UCZ had for a long time ordained only men.  So Church people were used to having women playing a supportive role to their husbands.  The woman was an extra worker who was part of the Church labour force but was, unlike her husband, unpaid.  The role of the Minister's wife was to provide hospitality at home and to be the mother figure of the congregation.  A positive role in itself, if only it was not considered to be an adjunct to the man's role.

A woman clergy is expected to play a dual role - to be the minister and the minister's wife!  That applies to the single and married women ministers.  The challenge is to strike a healthy balance.  One does not want to consign hospitality to the non-clergy or to the married alone.  The struggle is when the expectation is raised without consideration of what else the woman minister has to do. 

As a single minister I struggle to find a healthy balance.  My work as a minister is not evaluated on my  hospitality  skills but on the things I do “out there” and yet being a true Zambian woman I am domestic through and through and I enjoy doing the other things as well.  Yet I also know I would resent them as soon as they become my expected role rather than something I choose to do.

The institution of marriage is considered a dignifying state.  The unmarried, young, woman minister has all the aforementioned adjectives working against her.  Marriage is a big one.  Regardless of all the affirming things the Bible has to say about singleness, marriage is exalted beyond proportion as the one qualifying estate to maturity and all the secrets of the initiated in society.  Even a young woman who just attains puberty in a rural area is considered more “mature” than her “older” unmarried counterpart.  There are many occasions in a minister's life when one is reminded of those social distinctions. 

We may overtly hold one view for clergywomen and another for the rest of the women but society's view of women still remains the same and indirectly all women are evaluated equally regardless of their position in the Church.

THE PLACE OF WOMEN IN RURAL AREAS

As a woman minister I find that I cannot be indifferent to the plight of women in society at large.  Being in a rural area has exposed me to the things that women struggle with daily in their lives.  Fear, hunger, oppression and marginalisation are the lot of many rural women -- they are poor and helpless.

In Africa we are generally not hung up about God's gender.  What women labour for is a decent life and room to be able to express their experiences of God in their communities.  Many times circumstance limit that for women who have to struggle to fend for their families. 

The question I ask myself is, “How can I as a woman leader in the Church make room for the theologies of these women?”  Theologies that do not only come from the head but from wisdom and feeling.  That is theology of the heart and lived experience.  How can that be mainstreamed so that we create a larger sphere for creative living of the faith that accommodates women's experience?

VOCATION IN CHRISTIAN MINISTRY

One has to believe that women are a gift from God (even if I say so as a woman myself!) in order to take into account the challenge of accommodating women's experiences into the larger religious milieu.  I pay tribute to my fellow women of all denominations who are living out their reality in faithfulness to God and moving on to embrace new spaces as they are provided for us to make our own unique contribution. 

A well-known Congolese theologian once asked women “Daughters of my people, are you good fortune or bad fortune for my people?” (Mbuy Beya, 2001)  Many women who have taken up a vocation in Christian ministry whether ordained or lay all seek to be true to the first call of honouring God and of being very good fortune.

Kuzipa Nalwamba
UCZ Church
Kasama