African Women need Love – Not Jesus

Feminists cannot be Christians, and here’s why.

A few odd weeks past, I sat a female acquaintance down to a copious serving of thick millet-mead, un-shelled peanuts and steaming plantain-foliage that is my Ugandan version of French Cognac, Swiss Chocolate and Swedish hors d’oeuvres; and attempted to engineer a conversation on how best to lubricate the rusty gears, worn axles, and creaking bolts between the polarized wheels of manhood and womanhood in African society, as matters stand today.

Not being the effusive talker – and because, like is the natural endowment of our womenfolk, my interlocutor was bubbling-over with an endless stream of chatter - I thought it only prudent to restrict my role in the discourse to posing questions, pondering on the responses – then asking a few more questions upon my ponderings.

As is often the case – the chat started off with a futile exploration of common ground; as I floundered in my efforts to underscore complementarity, shared burdens, and mutual responsibility of the sexes in life’s multifarious enterprises.

I attempted to explain that man needs woman as much as woman requires man – and each is an incomplete half in the other’s absence; man’s masculinity is inchoate in the absence of woman’s femininity, and woman’s femininity incipient in the absence of masculinity.

Sounds obvious?

I know – but try telling that to the young lady, as I did, and all you'll get for your efforts is a vehement shake of the head, a contemptuous snort, and an incredulous rolling of the eyes to seemingly imply–

 ‘Lad, if you think to persuade me with that paper tiger of idealism, think again!’

The more common ground I attempted to uncover, the deeper her skepticism at mutuality sank us in the quicksand of the world’s inherently unequal reality.

Soon enough - haunting, well-poisoning words like patriarchy and chauvinism began rearing their naughty little heads.

Eventually, my patience, which was thin enough to begin with, tapered to a jittery apprehension - and lest this degenerated into a ‘passionate’ brawl, complete with tearing of blouses and violent unzipping of flies, I decided to change the subject.(Don’t blame me for my self-control!)

I asked the young Missus why she was a Christian.

‘How is that relevant!’ she shot back, hotly.

I said, ‘Your name is Abigail – which is undoubtedly Christian; yet you claim to be a feminist …’

‘And so …!’ she brusquely interrupted.

To be fair, the point I was trying to make – which thitherto seemed lost on her - was that her Feminism was actually incompatible with her Christianity, or for that matter, any of the other Great (Abrahamic) Monotheisms of Islam and Judaism.

How so?

You see – when all the chattering, the collaring of boyfriends and beating of husbands, the stamping on ‘balls’, the castration, trumpeting of equality, the running about in circuitous paths and superfluous advocacy for ‘womanism’ is said and done – feminism, at its core, is really about unseating the male/man from his ‘traditional’ place of power at the helm of society; and rather than negotiating some power-sharing settlement, toppling the man and replacing him with a vindictive matriarch who'll only gladly pay men back in kind for the centuries of oppression meted onto women.

I am wrong? Try telling that to Sylvia Tamale …

Anyhow, the first thing I wanted to establish – was why an increasing number of (African) women are flocking to churches in a startling phenomenon of spiritual revival that has them becoming so devout in their idolization of shiny-suited, accent-faking, sharp-dressing pastors and the misogynistic, chauvinistic God they represent.

I’m sorry, but much as I’d love to – for depth of analysis if not for fairness - I can’t decently articulate the Muslim experience in Uganda because I’m not exposed to it at the level of speaking with meaningful authority.

As for my Christian comrades – sorry too, but my barrels are squarely trained on you – you overestimate the power of your God while he can’t even change a President in four elections, you (Evangelicals) make too much noise for people sleeping at night, your (Catholic) priests bugger little boys, and your pastors fleece the poor of their livelihoods; and worst of all – you don’t get taxed for all your ‘profiteering’!

As I was saying – the God of Christianity (and by the way – almost every other religion known to man) is a God that values women far, far below men.

In fact, the Christian Bible’s account of sexuality and understanding of the intricate nature of Earth’s organisms is as skewed as it is revealing of the fact that it wasn’t inspired by an Omniscient creator – but was written by a group of men, clever but still ignorant of lower life-forms at the time.

Cases in point are the scriptures at Genesis 1:20 -26, Genesis 6:19 and Genesis 7:2 -3 where the ‘inspired’ word mentions the entirety of the Earth’s animal species as being divided into male and female.

In the first-case, the creation narrative makes no mention of God making creatures with a male-female duality, and implies the creation of only kinds that had to have male and female existing independently.

But even if one thinks this isn’t mentioned explicitly;

In the second instance, the animals that flocked to Noah’s ark were strictly a pair of male and female of each kind; presumably to preserve the species. We should thus expect to find no species existing after the great flood, which didn’t have a male and female. Yet we do.

What of hermaphroditic species?

What about unicellular organisms that have neither male nor female, like bacteria, but reproduce through nuclear fission?

Apparently, either God ‘forgot’ to mention them; or they were created after the flood.

While the only sound explanation for such glaring holes in an allegedly ‘perfect’ book would be the ignorance of its human (and only human) writers who lacked a sound understanding of taxonomy – I can almost imagine what the Christian response to such Biblical ignorance and inadequacy would be – ‘God created them two in one, male and female in one body!’

Trust Christians to tinker with scientific evidence and try to fit it within the Bible’s inadequacy.

Back to the inferior position of women as per Christian scripture;

Yes indeed – Eve had to be the trouble maker to begin with, in Eden. Jezebel had to be Ahab’s major corrupter. David’s philandering was blamed on Bathsheba’s coquettishness. Solomon’s impiety was blamed on Sheba. God had to be a father, not a mother. God had to have a son, why not a daughter? Jesus’ twelve disciples were all male! Jesus was crucified between two male thieves (at least one thief could’ve been female) Etc. Etc .etc.

And yes – do you think there’ll ever come a day when the Catholic Pope is a woman? (Or would she be called a 'Mope', or better still, a 'Mome' ...)

Eventually - women are reduced, as per scriptural accounts, to playing very demeaning and puny roles.

Take the case of Mary (Mother of God) - who was impregnated without her permission - imagine that!
This male-god just sends along an envoy called Gabriel to inform (not to request or court, mind you) - but to 'inform' her that she will get pregnant with his son.
Tell me - isn't that what we call rape?

A few years on - this begotten Son goes on to, pompously, make a woman in some brothel spend her life's earnings of perfume on washing his 'holy' feet!

In a society where more young men daily hear God ''calling'' them to become pastors and start churches; isn't it curious that young African women are ever hardly called?
God seems content with continuing to call them to the traditionally second-fiddle roles of choristers and pastors' wives!

I'll venture to claim that for every two-thousand African pastors 'called' monthly, only one will happen to be female.

Even more dramatically - Allah never happens to want to call any females to mosque leadership!

Perhaps this is attributable to the misogyny inherent in the Quran.

While I'm yet to read the recitation in some detail - I gather that in its account, a teenage Prophet Muhammad was taken to husband by a sixty year old Aminah!
Was the unfortunate Aminah (Or was it Khadija?) forced into a 'late' marriage with a man young enough to be her grandson?

Only Allah can tell.

This is the same Quran, by the way, which countenances the marrying-off and taking to wife of girls as young as the age of nine (or is it twelve?).

I'm reliably informed that the Hindu Vedas, also have huge portions of explicitly misogynistic scripture - where for instance they speak in favor of widows self-immolating; by flinging themselves bodily onto their husbands' funeral pyres, in a final testament of love, and as the sublimest act of 'matrimonial devotion.'

Apparently, even Krishna, whose gender is as suspect as the rest of his nature, is as chauvinist as they come!

Anyway – my point here is that feminism and religion make for strange bedfellows - strange indeed.

That notwithstanding, the other irritating (as well as infuriating) thing I’ve heard young African (Christian) women say often, is –

 ‘I don’t need a man. I’m married to Jesus. He’s my husband, my love, my dragon-slayer, my booboo … ’

And other such nonsense.

Firstly, how can a God who threatens polygamous men with hell claim all the world’s women for himself – Mscheew!

That’s downright hypocrisy on his part.

At least young Muslim girls would say that about Allah – though he takes up to four wives, and that passage in the Quran may need revision to accommodate more in Allah's harem.

But on a more solemn note – I conjecture that the failure of African men to play their expected role is what drives their women to piety.

What is turning our women into zealots for the next fancy, salvation-whooping, gaudily dressed religious fanatic coming along is, essentially, a deficit in, and craving for emotional attention.

This is why African men seem to have abandoned the Church en mass, and the few that go there only 'escort' their families.
Casting a cursory glance into the odd African church would reveal the bulk of the congregation to be peopled with shawl-draped, bewildered women clutching small infants to their chests.

In the absence of a strong, masculine figure in the home – who should be a repository for strength, physical and emotional security and psychosomatic completeness – the African wife, mother and daughter turns to the nearest available substitute for masculinity she can find, however cheap, tyrannical and unfulfilling that substitute may be – and that often turns out to be some God.

I am wrong?

Go write your own blog …