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The Troubled Knot: Tying Church Discipline to ‘Christian Marriage’ in African Contexts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 July 2019
Abstract
This article examines the historic discourse on public discipline around sexuality in the African context and its ascendancy, through missionary emphasis on Christian marriage, across multiple denominations and cultural locations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Foreign missionaries and African leaders struggled with abuses of discipline and were aware of the inequity of discipline globally. Public discipline was extremely uncommon at this time in North Atlantic contexts, but became a foundational aspect of African Christian life.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019
Footnotes
This paper incorporates research sponsored by a 2017 Conant Grant as well as research presented at the 2009 American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting.
References
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26 Moshi, ‘Church discipline in the African churches’.
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28 Trobisch, Walter, ‘Ein Briefwechsel uber Berichte und Kirchenzucht’, Evangelisches Missions Magazin cviii/2 (1964), 69–80Google Scholar.
29 Idem, ‘Church discipline in Africa’, 2. The quotation here is from a draft version held at the ECLA archive, PA033b53f07; the published article appeared in Practical Anthropology in 1961.
30 Idem, ‘Church discipline in Africa’, 2.
31 Trobisch's correspondence was astoundingly diverse in its scope and demonstrates, in great detail, in the voices of Africans themselves, their many difficulties with ‘Christian marriage’ and ‘Christian’ expectations of sexual practice: idem, I loved a girl: young Africans speak; a private correspondence between two young Africans and their pastor, New York 1965; Anneke Helen Stasson, ‘Love, sex, and marriage in the global mission of Walter and Ingrid Trobisch’, unpubl. PhD diss. Boston 2013, <https://open.bu.edu/handle/2144/14087>. Trobisch's papers are held at the ELCA archives.
32 Hastings, Christian marriage in Africa, 58–9, 160, and Church and mission in modern Africa, 169–71. Hastings's conclusions on the widespread effects of discipline were largely supported by a follow-up study, focused on East Africa: Kisembo, Magesa and Shorter, African Christian marriage. The conclusions of Hastings and Kisembo, Magesa and Shorter are supported by the more recent scholarship of Urban-Mead, who also points out that exclusion from sacramental life could be heavily gendered: Gender of piety.
33 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America (ed.), Africa is here: report of the North American Assembly of African Affairs, held at Wittenberg College, Springfield, Ohio, June 16–25, 1952, New York 1952, 191Google Scholar.
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35 B. K. to Trobisch, Uganda, 1966, ELCA archives. When examined in 2009 these letters had not yet been catalogued and thus the archive numbers now in place could not be provided: listed initials and locations of correspondents are given instead.
36 Lutheran World Federation (ed.), All Africa Lutheran Consultation, Gaborone, Botswana, 7–16 February, 1977: Report, Geneva 1977, 41–4Google Scholar, reporting on the 1973 consultation in Arusha, Tanzania.
37 Okullu, Henry, Church and marriage in East Africa, Nairobi 1977, 33Google Scholar.
38 Ibid. 56. On Trobisch's critical and condemnatory response to women who had become pregnant out of wedlock see Trobisch to E. G., Senegal, 1968, and Trobisch to A. H., Ethiopia, 1969; on denying information on contraception to an unmarried woman see Trobisch to L. M., Zambia, 1968. Compare this with Trobisch's helpful guide to contraception for male, married M. F., Lesotho, 1965: ELCA archives.
39 Okullu, Church and marriage, 62–7.
40 Ibid. 69–70.
41 Mkumbo, Alex, ‘Church discipline that is inconsistent with the Gospel’, in Bloomquist, Karen (ed.), Theological practices that matter, Minneapolis, Mn 2009, 103–10Google Scholar. Faith Lugazia describes an almost identical process: ‘Church discipline and the Christian family: a Lutheran perspective’, in Kyomo, Andrew A. and Selvan, Sahaya G. (eds), Marriage and family in African Christianity, Nairobi 2004Google Scholar.
42 Stefano Moshi, cited by Trobisch, ‘Church discipline’, 1. That this continues to be an issue in the Lutheran Churches of Tanzania and Kenya is demonstrated by Peter Matano Mnene, ‘Use of sacraments in church discipline as a challenge to missional transformation in Kenya's mainstream Churches: a case study of Kenya Evangelical Lutheran Church’, unpubl. MA diss. Luther Seminary, Minneapolis, Mn 2013.
43 Ross, ‘Current ecclesiological trends in northern Malawi’. Anecdotal conversations with African Christians reinforce scholarly claims that discipline in East Africa, at least, is currently common across a wide swathe of denominational contexts: Pastor Rura Mwebo (Pentecostal), Kenya, personal communication, 14 September 2017, courtesy of Christine Mangale; Dr Peter Ajer (Catholic), Uganda, personal communication, 15 September 2017; Revd Appolinary Hakizamana (Anglican), Rwanda, classroom discussion, 15 March 2018.
44 Ward and Wild-Wood, East African Revival; Mkumbo, ‘Church discipline that is inconsistent with the Gospel’; John S. Mbiti, Love and marriage in Africa, n.p. 1973; Okullu, Church and marriage; Peterson, Ethnic patriotism; Amenga-Etego, Rose Mary, ‘Critiquing African traditional philosophy of chastity’, in Omengo, Cephas N. and Anum, Eric B. (eds), Trajectories of religion in Africa: essays in honour of John S. Pobee, Amsterdam–New York 2014, 251–70Google Scholar; Lugazia, ‘Church discipline and the Christian family’.