WOMENI N WORLDM I S S I O N :

C O N T R O V E R SAINEDS
CHALLENGES FROM A NORTH
A M E R I C APERSPECTIVE’
N
Dana L. Robert
Dana L.Robert LI Eunmn C o l l h Profaidor .f W o r D M k w n at the Bodton Univerdity School of
Theohyy, USA. 9

Since the times of Jesus, women have spread the gospel message of his life, death, and resur-
rection. Upon meeting Jesus at the well, the Samaritan woman ran and told her neighbours that
he was the Lord. The women at the tomb were the first to learn of the resurrection. Mary
Magdalene, one of Jesus’ supporters in life, became the “apostle to the apostles”, as she spread
the news of his victory over death. In the Book of Acts, we see that Priscilla gave theological
instruction to the convert Apollos, who subsequently became an important evangelist.
Consecrated virgins, widows, and female martyrs were some of the most important witnesses to
the gospel during the first few centuries of the church. Even in periods of history in which
women have been discouraged from engaging in mission and ministry, the memory of early
women’s mission work lingered in Christian legend. One legend told of Mary and Martha of
Bethany, who were sisters of Lazarus and close friends of Jesus. In the Bible, we read of how
Martha waited on her guest while her sister Mary sat listening to his words. The story spread
that, after Pentecost, the two sisters sailed across the Mediterranean Sea and became mission-
aries to the Gauls. Both sisters publicly preached the gospel. Then Martha settled into pastoral
ministry and even fought a duel with a man-eating dragon. Mary gave up public preaching and
became an anchoress, living a life of prayer and “meditation in a remote cave”.2Although the
story of the missionary travels of Mary and Martha was a legend and not “history”in the mod-

’ Sections of this paper were published earlier as, “Gospel Bearers, Gender Barriers: Issues for Women and
Mission Today”, CurmntJ in Tbeuhgy and Mb~bn294, August 2002. pp. 246-257. Dana Robert’s publications
include Aimrican Wumn in Mkrdwn: A Such[ Hbhry uf T?ugbt and Pnzctie. With M.L. Daneel, she edits African
Indhtiuw bz Cbrwthn Mbdbn, which is a series published by the University of South Africa Press.
Jo Ann Kay McNamara, Sbfer.i in A r m : Catbuh NUMTbruugb Zvu Millmnin, Cambridge, Harvard University
Press, 1996, p. 61.

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Dana L. R obe rt WOMENI N WORLDM I S S I O N

ern sense, it nevertheless points to the neglected reality that women have enacted missionary
vocations since the time of Jesus Christ.
In the history of North American Christianity, mission work was the major way in which 20th-
century women engaged in ministry. In the early 1900s, over three million lay women belonged
to over forty different denominational missionary societies, thus making missions the largest
grassroots movement of North American women. Around the time of world war I, the United
States overtook the United Kingdom as the largest provider of Protestant foreign missionaries
in the world. This expansion of the American mission force in the early 20th century coincided
with an increase in women missionaries, so that by 1916 women constituted 62% of American
mi~sionaries.~ Throughout the 20th century North Americans made up the largest body of
cross-cultural missionaries, and a substantial majority of these formally appointed mission per-
sonnel were female.
Yet, despite the’precedents in scripture, Christian tradition, and women’s roles in the expansion
of Christianity over the last century, insufficient attention is paid today to the mission theories
and contributions of women. Appalling ignorance of their own rich mission legacy characterizes
“mainline”churches. In theologically conservative denominations, on the other hand, the roles of
women in mission can be lightning rods for dissent over the larger role of women in church lead-
ership. In this paper I will speculate on why the topic of women and mission was neglected in
missiological circles in the late 20th century, and why global realities demand that issues of gen-
der be reintroduced into broader discussions on the meaning and future of Christian mission.

I. Where are women in missiological analysis?

Every January, the International Bdhtin of MbciionaryRedearch publishes the highly regarded
“Annual Statistical Table on Global Mission” by David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson. This
statistical tour Je force, based on information supplied by informants around the world, and
meticulously compiled by skilful researchers, has become the benchmark for analysing trends
in world mission. For example, the 30 June 2003 cover story in Time magazine, “Should
Christians Convert Muslims?”, relied on the database of Barrett and Johnson. Not only are
long and short term trends in mission updated regularly, but Barrett and Johnson analyse their
information in numerous ways: geographic regions, population by religion, categories of
Christians, “ecclesiastical megablocs”, national and alien Christian workers, finance, numbers
of computers in use, Christian literature, distribution of scriptures, urban mission, Christian
broadcasting, and rn01-e.~But unlike the missionary atlases of the late 19th and early 20th cen-

Dana L. Robert, “Introduction:Historical Themes and Current Issues”. Gmpe/ Bearpr~,Gender BarricrJ: M b h n a r y
Women bz the Tuvntkth Centiiry, Maryknoll, NY, Orbis Press, 2002, p. 5.
David B. Barrett and Todd M. Johnson, “Annual Statistical Table on Global Mission: 2003”.hternatwna/Buf/eth
ofMbC&ary ReJearcb, Vol. 27:l. January 2003, pp. 24-25.

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turies, the annual statistical survey does not analyse Christian world mission in terms of gender.
It is easier to find out how many Christians use computers, which mission societies operate in
which countries, and how many “unreached peoples” exist in every corner of the world, than it
is to find out how many women are serving as cross-cultural missionaries.
The lack of gender analysis in this major survey for charting Christian world mission is symp-
tomatic of the serious lack of awareness about the centrality of women in world mission from
the early church to the present. While social scientists are quick to note that the majority of
Christians in many parts of the world are women, and that women are the leading force in
bringing families into the church, the need for gender analysis in missiology was virtually
ignored, if not suppressed, in the late 20th century. Reasons for the neglect of gender analysis
in mission studies range from the political to the theological.

Resistance to women’s leadership in the church

The first and foremost reason for the neglect of gender analysis in missiology is resistance to
women’s leadership in the church. This reason is particularly pertinent in evangelical churches
that are providing the bulk of the cross-cultural mission force today. In theologically conserva-
tive denominations that send the largest numbers of North American missionaries, intuitive
awareness of the connection between women’s mission service and women’s empowerment for
ordination fuel active struggles to suppress missionary “women’s work”. Such struggles
emerged after the 1970s out of reaction to movements for the expansion of women’s ordination,
and the spread of purportedy “biblical”hierarchical notions of “male headship’’ through the
widely popular leadership seminars run by Bill Gothard. Redefinition of the meaning of the
Christian family has run in tandem with efforts to suppress the considerable power base accu-
mulated by the missionary leadership of women in some conservative churches.
Events in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) provide the most prominent example of how
the role of missionary women became the focus of opposition to women’s ministry6 The
Southern Baptists send the largest number of missionaries of any American mission sending
organization; around 5000 SBC missionaries are active at any one time. A major source of

Informants in several denominations attribute the spread of “male headship” ideas of authority to the influence
of Bill Gothard and his seminars during the 1970s and 1980s. In my research, I found that during the first two
thirds of the 20th century, invocation of the “Christian home” by missionaries referred to male-female partner-
ship under Christ as head of the home. See Robert, “The ’Christian Home’ as a Cornerstone of Anglo-American
Missionary Thought and Practice”, NAMP Position Paper #98, Cambridge, UK, North Atlantic Missiology
Project, 1998. Forthcoming in Dana Robert, ed.. Refracted Vbwm nnd Colonial Refhctwm in Mbdwn HGtory, 1706-
1938. Curzon-Eerdmans. 2004.
My comments on the Southern Baptists stem partly from my own research and partly from that conducted by
Catherine Allen, former Associate Executive Director of the Woman’s Missionary Union of the SBC, and
President for five years of the Women’s Department of the Baptist World Alliance. A similar pattern of recent
repression of women’s ministry can be described for the Christian and Missionary Alliance, another denomina-
tion with a strong history of women’s leadership in mission.

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financing for SBC missionaries is the annual Lottie Moon Christmas Offering, collected by the
women of the Woman’s Missionary Union (WMU) in the name of their pioneer female China
missionary, Lottie Moon, who died of malnutrition a century ago. The Woman’s Missionary
Union is an auxiliary to the SBC. Not only has the WMU provided much of the money for mis-
sions, but it also produced the Sunday School materials for mission study, and ran youth organ-
izations to encourage missionary commitment. With 1.5 million members in the mid 1960s, it
was the biggest women’s organization in the country. While the WMU has maintained a single-
minded focus on missions, it has nevertheless been the major route to leadership for women in
Southern Baptist life.7
In 1978, in response to the growing numbers of SBC women attending seminary, leaders of
eleven SBC agencies held the first and only church-wide consultation on the role of women in
church-related vocations. The missions leadership at that consultation provided the backbone
of support for women in ministry, including the possibility of ordination. But the next year, doc-
trinal conservatives in the SBC began to stack the boards of trustees of various SBC organiza-
tions. Catherine Allen believes that the concerted effort of fundamentalists to take over the
Southern Baptist Convention must have partly been related to the growing acceptance of
women in ministry by the missionary wing of the SBC. As the fundamentalists gradually took
over the Convention, they began passing legislation against the ministry of women. In 1984, the-
ologian Carl Henry introduced a resolution indicating that women were to be under the author-
ity of men, that women’s roles in public prayer and prophecy were different from men’s, and
that women should be excluded from pastoral leadership, “Because man was first in creation
and the woman was first in the Edenic fall.” Passage of Henry’s resolution quickly led to restric-
tions on the funding of women missionaries by the Home Mission Board. A crackdown against
ordained Southern Baptist women began, and the Home Mission Board withdrew its financial
support for any woman in a pastoral role, including chaplaincy positions.8
Also in 1984, moderate Southern Baptists began meeting to oppose the increased control sought
by the fundamentalists. Many of the moderate men had warm relations with the WMU. When
the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship was founded as an alternative to the SBC, one of its non-
negotiables was its support for the ministry of women. Stories began circulating about the fail-
ure of the SBC to reappoint women missionaries, especially to traditional “woman’swork” areas
like social work, women’s education, and nursing. As the WMU began providing mission Iiter-
ature to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, it was attacked as a traitor by the SBC. The chair
of the SBC trustees even called the WMU an “adulterer” who was taking other men into bed
with her. As rank and file Southern Baptists sent letters and petitions in support of the belea-
Lydia Huffman Hoyle, “Queens in the Kingdom: Southern Baptist Mission Education for Girls, 1953-1970”, in
Robert, Goqwl Beartw, Geider Bm-rkr<f,pp. 101- 1 12.
Catherine Allen, “Shifting Sands for Southern Baptist Women in Missions”, in Robert, C q d &(zrefif, Grizdcr
Bmrkr,t, pp. 113-126.

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guered WMU, the Foreign Mission Board of the SBC tried to secretly cop+ght the name
“Lottie Moon Christmas Offering” (foreign missions) and “Annie Armstrong Easter Offering
(home missions). When, in 1995, the WMU found out about this disgraceful move, the SBC
backed off on the condition that the women’s mission organization should license the name
exclusivelyto the SBC. In other words, any money for missions collected by the women had to
go to the official projects of the SBC. As the bickering between the WMU and the SBC con-
tinued, polls showed that Southern Baptists were losing some of their strong commitment to
Christian mission^.^
This painful story of the crippling of the Southern Baptist women’s mission organization has
many other pieces that cannot be discussed here for lack of space: the closing of the Carver
School of Social Work; the elimination of women from all teaching positions in Southern Baptist
seminaries; the redefinition of mission to evangelism in such a way that eliminated historic ecu-
menical relationships and women’s work; structural reorganization to take away the WMU’s
role as curriculum provider to the SBC; and so forth. Among the results of these struggles has
been a reduction in missions interest among women, and the loss of leadership roles for women
in the SBC, including as chaplains. In 1990, the Convention asserted that the primary role of
missionary wives was to be homemakers. In 1998, the Convention passed a revision of the
“Baptist Faith and Message”with a subordinate role for women, and required that all Southern
Baptist missionaries sign the revision as a condition of employment.
Around the world, non-Western branches of the WMU have lost their funding, even though
females make up two-thirds of Southern Baptist membership in most countries. In reaction,
WMU women in Nigeria chastised the SBC for its mistreatment of their American sisters. The
stance of the SBC toward women’s leadership in missions shows profound ignorance of both the
legacy of women’s mission work in the SBC, and the leadership of non-Western women in
Southern Baptist churches around the world. The fundamentalists in the SBC have failed to
notice that commitment to mission concerns declined in mainline denominations that stripped
their women’s organizations of power before world war 11. Women do not care to be nameless
collectors of funds for a cause in which they have no say. They will rather vote with their feet
and become involved in other activities.
As history shows us, when there are theological disagreements, or so-called “culture wars”
between conservatives and liberals, there is a tendency for women’s work to get caught in the

See Allen for details on this situation. I n response to the strangulation of the WMU, leading Baptist women,
including former WMU officers and young ordained women, launched Global Women on 13 December 2001,
as a woman’s mission-sending agency dedicated to women’s work in mission. This new venture for Southern
Baptist women has been opposed in the Baptist Press and by denominational officials. See the website:
www.globalwomengo.org.

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D~znaL. Robert WOMENI N WORLDM I S S I O N

crossfire.’” Such tendencies are not confined to conservative evangelical denominations. In the
ongoing struggle between conservatives and liberals in the United Methodist Church, for exam-
ple, the Institute on Religion and Democracy has targeted the work of the United Methodist
Women as too radical, and has condemned specific beneficiaries of women’s money as “contro-
versial political organizations”. The “controversial” mission beneficiaries include the National
Council of Churches, Church Women United, the Children’s Defense Fund, and the Women’s
International League for Peace and Freedom.” Structural issues also work against denomina-
tional support for lay-based women’s mission programmes. In the downsizing of the Board of
Global Ministries that took place in 2002 for financial reasons, a disproportionate number of
highly placed lay women personnel lost their jobs because they lacked the security of structures
designed to protect ordained pastors.
When I began doing research on the subject of women and mission fifteen years ago, I inter-
viewed women missionaries and leaders from a range of denominations and ecclesial traditions
including United Methodists, Assemblies of God, Southern Baptists, Christian and Missionary
Alliance, and Roman Catholics.’* I heard the common lament that it was harder now for a
woman to get an appointment as an unmarried missionary than it had been years ago. I started
hearing “horror stories”: an unmarried woman in a Protestant mission in Latin America denied
advancement because the North American males said there was no cultural model for unmar-
ried women in Latin American societies (conveniently forgetting the roles of sisters and the
model of Mary in Roman Catholicism); Catholic sisters ejected from their mission posts by bish-
ops who rejected their work with poor women as too radical; missionary women denied pen-
sions or study leaves routinely granted their male colleagues. And yet, these complaints were
shared in whispers because missionary women do not wish to damage the mission of the church.
All of the missionary women I interviewed believed in the church, wanted to be part of it, and
did not want to rock the boat.
Bias against “women’s work”
A second reason for the paucity of missiological analysis about women and gender is a bias
against the kind of holistic work typically performed by women in mission. With church plant-
ing and preaching seen as “male” tasks in many denominations, the kind of work usually per-
formed by women in hospitality, teaching, ministries of compassion, and children’s ministry was
seen as “auxiliary’hor secondary to the primary missionary task. The unintended consequence
of some renewed evangelistic programmes was that they marginalized women workers and

lo For an overview of how mainline churches suppressed their women’s missionary organizations in the mid-20th
century. see Dana L. Robert, Aineririzii Wuineiziiz i W i ~ ~ & A
m :Si,eitzl H h y of Their Thoiiyht ntzJ Priii?i‘e9 Macon, GA,
Mercer University Press, 1997, chapter 6.
“ Reiieii*/UMAct&)iz Bripfi,q, September 2002, p. 8.
l 2 See Robert, “Revisioning the Women’s Missionary Movement”, in Charles Van Engen, Dean Gilliland. Paul
Pierson. eds, The GmJ Neii’v qf the KiizqOoiiz:Miahii Tbeohqyfcir the Nuzetht, Maryknoll, NY, Orbis Books, 1993.

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ignored the needs of women in strategic planning. Renewed strategies of evangelism typically
lacked analysis of gender in the spread of Christianity. The hidden work of missionary women
is parallel to the refusal to count housework in measures of the Gross Domestic Product:
women’s work “behind.the scenes”is essential to the survival of humanity and to Christian mis-
sion, but it does not always Iicount”in the statistics.
Previous generations, however, considered well-defined mission strategies directed specifically
toward women to be an important part of evangelistic mission. In the 1850s, British missionary
wives in India made a missiological breakthrough comparable ‘inimportance to the discovery of
so-called “unreached peoples” in the 1970s. The wives realized that upper class women in
Hindu, Muslim and Confucian families were not allowed to leave women’s quarters. Unless
women could be mobilized and financed to devote themselves to household visitation, the
churches of India and China would remain entirely male and the gospel message would not
become part of the family structure. If mothers could be reached with the gospel, then
Christianity would become central to family life and thereby transform the larger society.
“Woman’sWork for Woman” meant that women should be educated both to found “Christian
homes” and also to raise the status of women in society by providing them education and med-
ical care.
By the early 1870s, women in the American Congregationalist, Methodist, Baptist and
Presbyterian churches had founded their own independent mission societies to send unmar-
ried women missionaries. Some male clerical authorities opposed the advent of what was
called the ‘iwoman’smissionary movement”.’Bythe end of the 19th century, however, the pio-
neer unmarried female missionaries in Asia had opened schools for women, trained non- .
Western women to become nurses and doctors, conducted social work and home visitation,
cared for the leprous and handicapped, and undertaken itinerant evangelism. The motto,
“Woman’s Work for Woman” provided the first widely embraced motivation for allowing
women in ministry, albeit as missionaries rather than pastors of congregations. Mission
work became the proving ground for women in ministry. It is no coincidence that when-
mainline denominations began ordaining women in the mid-20th century, some of the first
women ordained in the Methodist, Presbyterian and Episcopal churches were former mis-
sionaries.
At the 1938 meeting of the International Missionary Council (IMC) in Madras, India, the gen-
dered mission theory of “The Christian Home” was discussed and embraced by delegates from
all over the world. By “Christian Home” the delegates referred to the home as a democracy
characte-rizedby male and female partnership, under the headship of Christ. With the home the
building block of modern society, the education and nurture of women and children would be
built into social structures. During the 1940s and 1950s, missionary women continued to pro-
mote female equality through the means of the Christian home ideal. In 1949, the International

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WOMENI N WORLD

Missionary Council commissioned Dr Irma Highbaugh to work with national councils of

churches in Asia on the Christian home. The Christian Council in China appointed a permanent
officer to work on Christian home issues, including child nurture, gender equality, opposition to
polygamy, forced marriages and female slavery. By 1960, cross-cultural teams from the IMC
were conducting home life seminars in Africa. As recently as 1977, the theme of the General
Assembly of The Association of Evangelicals in Africa, held in a t e d’Ivoire, was “The
Christian Home”.
Despite the paternalism and cultural bias of many Western missionaries over the decades, the
historic support for the human rights of women and children has nevertheless been one of the
major achievements of Christian missions. The equality of women in the home, and the advance-
ment of women in society, have long been the centrepiece of Christian missionary work. It was,
therefore, not surprising that when, in the 199Os, the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban regime
came into power in Kabul, Afghanistan, they closed down the work of the International
Assistance Mission for the education and training of women.
By the late 20th century, most studies of missionary contextualization dealt with fitting into
existing social structures rather than challenging them in the name of justice for women and
children. With the notable exception of World Vision, which has focused on women’s needs as
a vital factor in successful development and mission programmes, most evangelical mission
agencies considered women’s issues as secondary to evangelism and church planting. Only as
the plight of women under Islamic fundamentalism has recently come to the fore have some mis-
sion. agencies awakened to the necessity of gender analysis in missiology, despite their bias
against it.13
On the “liberal” side, feminist theory has focused largely on attacking patriarchal structures in
church and society, rather than formulating constructive mission theories that include evangel-
ism.’4 In the West, the secular framework for understanding women’s issues often blinds
Christians to the deep issues of worldview that previous generations of missionaries took seri-
ously. Yet commitment to the gospel demands that we proclaim the good news as relevant to
women’s lives. The conviction that worldview and the treatment of women are linked has always
been intrinsic to the missionary work of women. It remains to be seen whether in the 21st cen-

l3 Promising books for the necessity of gendered mission theory that are aimed at evangelicals include Miriam
Adeney, Lhiighter.r of LrLzin: Buihiiy B r $ p with Miuliin Wiinen, Downers Grove, 111.. Intervarsity Press, 2002, and
the classic historical study by Ruth Tucker, Giiardizmi of the Great Ciiinmiui.n: The Story of Wmen in Modern
Hi&tz.i, Grand Rapids, Mich., Academie Books, 1988.
l4 The most important North American feminist theologian whose work shows engagement with missiological
issues is undoubtedly L t t y M. Russell, whose early experiences in cross-cultural urban mission shaped her per-
spectives. For deliberate engagement of North American feminism with missiology. see Margaret E. Guider,
Daii.qhter.i of Rahab: Prchititiitiin and the Cbiirch of Lderatiiii bi ! h i d Minneapolis Fortress Press, 1995; Frances S.
Adeney, Cbriitizn Wmeiz LI I d m . m i z : A Nizrriitiir Stii3y uf GwOw mid Reliqum, Syracuse, Syracuse University Press,
2003. For an historical study, see Ruth C Brouwer, AiOtrii W%iiieii, , ~ i , i ) ~ r i i ~ i i i ~ The
j , ~ eChanging
n: Mir.iwm of Tbm
Profe..siinnal Woiiien in Riiz and Afrhi, 1902-69, Vancouver, Canada, UBC Press, 2002.

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tury the gap between feminist deconstruction and missiological analysis can be bridged for the
sake of producing holistic mission theories that address the unique roles played by missionary
women, and that meet the spiritual and physical needs of ordinary women and children around
the world.

11. Role of women in the expanding world church

It is ironic that the neglect of gendered missiological analysis today, and the attack on women’s
missionary roles in Western denominations, comes at a time when women in the Southern hemi-
sphere are taking a leading part in what is probably the greatest expansion of Christianity since
the conversion of Europe. Today, 43% of the Christians in the world live in Africa and Latin
America; this represents the most dramatic change in the Christian population since the middle
of the last century. At least 70% of Christians in African Indigenous Churches are women; 70%
of house church members in China are probably women; and Latin American Pentecostalism is
growing fastest among women, who typically bring their men into the church rather than the
other way around. Even as Catholic religious congregationsare having trouble attracting North
American women, they are being filled with women from Latin America and Africa. The growth
of Christianity in the two-thirds world today should be analysed as a woman’s movement. In the
evangelistic leadership of non-Western women, especially in societies that have entrenched pat-
terns of gender separatism, we can see the continued relevance of a gender-based approach to
. .
mission.
Researchers are trying to understand the missionary role of women in the growing churches of
the Southern hemisphere. As part of a cooperative project on African initiatives in Christian
mission in southern Africa, I have been analysing data from interviews undertaken over the past
few years with church women in Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe. The women interviewed came
from two mainline denominations, viz. the Reformed Church of Zimbabwe, and Roman
Catholicism, as well as from several indigenous African denominations: Zionists, Apostles, and
others. Although the analysis is at a preliminary stage, it is fascinating to see how the goals of
the supposedly pass6 woman’s missionary movement have been contextualized by women in the
Reformed Church of Zimbabwe, which is the strongest historic Protestant church in the area.
Married women in the church organize themselves into the Mother’s Union, led by the pastor’s
wife. They hold mid-week preaching and prayer events, and also send their best preachers on
evangelistic crusades from Fridays until Sundays. At a time when AIDS is affecting more and
more people, Mothers’ Union members run income generating projects with which to support
widows and orphans in the larger community. The women also raise money to pay school fees
for their own children. The Mothers’ Union holds conferences for girls, and give them biblical-
ly based and culturally appropriate teaching about marriage and child-rearing.
Zimbabwean Reformed women draw upon the roles of the Marys in the Bible: the Virgin Mary,
to argue that a girls’ self-worth is not based on having a man; Mary the mother of Jesus, to

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underscore the importance of being patient with one’s children; and Mary Magdalene, who was
among the women at the tomb as the first witnesses to Jesus’ resurrection and a justification for
women to be preachers. One woman interviewed mentioned the biblical model of Dorcas, or
Tabitha, whose service was valued by other women. What has powerfully struck me is the sim-
ilarities between the work of the Mothers’ Union (MU) and the social outreach of widows in
the early church; many MU members are themselves widows because of AIDS. The Mothers’
Unions are the main group involved in outreach to the poor, the theological and moral educa-
tion of girls, and the care of the sick. Many also encourage women to preach. The activity of
church women in Zimbabwe demonstrates the continued relevance of the traditional aspects of
women’s missionary work, viz. women acting as pastors to women; concern for educating girls
in self-respect, Christian virtue, and academic subjects; evangelistic mission through the means
of preaching, house visitation, charity, and modelling the Christian home. One way in which the
Zimbabwean Reformed women show their continuity with mission Christianity is in their sup-
port for monogamous marriage. They not only oppose polygamy as unfair to women, but they
also oppose such traditional practices as public examinations of girls for virginity, in the belief
that such practices discriminate against women by supporting a double standard for male and
female conduct.
Not all African Indigenous Churches have Mothers’ Unions. The Apostles of Johane Maranke
are probably the most patriarchal of all the churches in Zimbabwe. They practice polygamy,
conduct virginity examinations of unmarried girls, and do not allow women to speak in church.
They do, however, have an office of female prophet, who is a healer. Although a female prophet
does not lay on hands as do the male prophets, she does pray with the women, injects them with
holy water, and counsels them. She also works with women on issues of barrenness and child
birth. The role of female healer is a missionary role. Many women Apostles indicated that they
joined the church because they were healed of barrenness or other problems. In a subsistence
economy, and among illiterate peasants who are struggling to survive, the healing ministry of
the church is a major reason why people join. Healing can occur because needy people are
embraced by the community and treated in a supportive manner for their ailments.I5 The
Zimbabwean Zionists, in fact, have healing colonies in which the needy are welcomed to live for
extended periods of time near the prophets, who act as both counsellors and physicians.
Influence of the Western missionary movement can be seen in that such healing communities
are often called “hospitals”.
The missionary role of women in the African churches is consistent with their role as wives and
mothers. When one asks women about their theology, they usually talk about their relationship

l5 The relationship between healing and missions in African Christianity is explored in M.L. Daneel. ed.. Afriaiz
Chriithii Outreach, Rd. I: Afrinzii Iizithted Cbiirche.i, Pretoria, South African Missiological Society, 2001, and Dana
L. Robert, ed., Africiztz Chriithtz Oiitrcach, Rd If: ML.i.tinli Cbiircbfii, Pretoria, South African Missiological Society,
2003.

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with their husbands and children, and the state of their homes. One woman after another justifies
her involvementin Christian outreach because it strengthens the home. They judge the church by
the kind of relationships they see modelled in the home of church members. Just as American
women have long used the ideal of the Christian home as a starting point for mission, similarly the
African women of Masvingo Province today use a Christian vision of the home as a source of their
evangelistic power, and their justification to go into the world to preach, teach, and heal.
Anthropological studies of church women in other parts of the world are also finding a gender-
specific approach to church recruitment and outreach. In her study of women, religion and
social change in Brazil, Carol Ann Drogus concludes that gender affects the way liberation the-
ology has been received by Catholic women.l6 To her great surprise, when she studied the
impact of liberation theology on women in Base Christian Communities (BCCs), Drogus found
that ordinary women worked for social change because of their common interests as mothers.
Despite all the talk about the class basis of the “people’schurch” in Latin America, Drogus
found that women’s self-identification as mothers was actually the glue that held together the
Base Christian Communities. While men used the BCCs as steppingstones to political activity,
the women used them as support groups for female nurturing activities. Even when engaged in
social movements for day care and better sanitation, women from Base Christian Communities
saw such involvement as an extension of their role as mothers, whilst outsiders saw it as evi-
dence of class consciousness or liberation movements.
In a study of gender and evangelical conversion in Colombia, Elizabeth Brusco found that
women who became Pentecostals did so not in order to have larger roles in society, but to ele-
vate domesticity so that men became more attached to their fa1ni1ies.l~In a urbanizing society
in which the traditional family was losing its role, conversion to evangelical Christianity helped
strengthen the household by encouraging the male to give up drinking, smoking and extramar-
ital affairs, all of which took valuable resources away from the children. Reforming gender roles
through conversion meant reforming male ethics to bring them in line with family needs. In
other words, conversion to evangelical Christianity weakened macbidmo, and strengthened the
power of women in relation to their husbands. Evangelical households eat together around a
family table, go to church together, and confer with each other over major decisions. Brusco
concludes that Colombian evangelicalism is a “strategic women’s movement”:it raises the status
of women by making the family the centre of the man’s life.
What can we conclude from the history of North American women in mission, and from recent
studies of gender in the world church? As we celebrate the growth of Christianity today, we see

’‘Carol Ann Drogus, Women,Re[gion,and Sock1 Change in Brazifi Popiihr C’hiirch. Notre Dame, University of Notre
Dame Press, 1997.
” Elizabeth E. Brusco, The Reformation ofrllaebbnw: Euan.qeI~ialConuefiiion and Gender in Cofombia, Austin, University
of Texas Press, 1995.

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Dana L. Rohrrl WOMENI N W O R LM
DI S S I O N

clearly how supposedly old-fashioned “women’s work” remains important to the spread of
Christianity around the world. Through ministries of healing, hospitality and economic empow-
erment, as well as direct evangelism and mothers’ organizations, the outreach of Christian
women is a major way in which women and their families are attracted to the church.
I would emphasize that, statistically speaking, world Christianity is a woman’s movement.
While cultural contexts differ, in each culture women have found ways of reaching out to other
women. When we ask the question of why the world church seems to be predominantly female,
we are not just making a sociological observation. We are actually raising the profoundly impor-
tant issue of gender-based approaches to mission.

111. Challenges for women in mission in the 21st century

Some of the major challenges that mission faces in the 21st century are to take seriously the cen-
trality of women in the mission of the church, to recognize their contributions, to develop mis-
siologies that put gender analysis back into mission theory, and to respond to the needs of
women for social justice, security, hea1ing;and hope. As churches reflect on theologies of mis-
sion for the 21st century, they should re-examine the relationship between theories of contex-
tualization and women’s issues. They should explore gender-based models of mission that cut
across cultures and across ecclesiastical affiliations, as well as sharpen their own particular tra-
dition’s reflection on women and mission. Ongoing struggles against structural evils must be
linked with evangelization so that the good news of Jesus Christ is truly good news for women
both in the world and in the church. The hostility between evangelism and feminism must end
for the sake of realizing the full liberating potential of the gospel. The existence of a female
majority in the world church must no longer be ignored, or seen as the problem of “missing”
males. Rather, it should be celebrated and become a source of inspiration for a more authentic
form of mission. As we move into the 21st century, we should affirm the kind of holistic women’s
vision for mission that anticipates the reign of God, in which all are “one in Christ Jesus” (Gal.
3:28).

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