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Footnotes
1 Isabel A. Phiri defines the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians as “a community of African women theologians who come together to reflect on what it means to them to be women of faith within their experiences of religion, culture, politics and social-economic structures in Africa” (
“Major Challenges for African Women Theologians in Theological Education [1989–2008],”
Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae
34
[2008
]: 67
). Various publications have appeared under the auspices of the Circle, including Mercy Amba Oduyoye, ed., The Will to Arise: Women, Tradition, and the Church in Africa
(Maryknoll, NY
: Orbis Books
, 1992
); Nyambura J. Njoroge and Musa W. Dube, eds., Talita Cumi! Theologies of African Women
(Pietermaritzburg
: Cluster
, 2001
); Isabel Phiri and Sarojini Nadar, eds., African Women, Religion, and Health: Essays in Honor of Mercy Amba Ewudiziwa Oduyoye
(Pietermaritzburg
; Cluster
, 2000
).2 Exodus 1–2 also has been important in my own writing, as evident in my chapter “God as Midwife,” in which I argue that memories of the midwives who courageously outwitted the pharaoh and fostered new life “serves as a powerful symbol of ordinary people's ability to resist violence” (L. Juliana Claassens,
Mourner, Mother, Midwife: Reimagining God's Liberating Presence
[Louisville
: Westminster John Knox
, 2012
], 69
).3 Kwok Pui Lan,
Hope Abundant: Third World and Indigenous Women's Theology
(Maryknoll, NY
: Orbis Books
, 2010
).4 Note the important role of Orbis Books, which has been deeply committed to advancing the writings of the Circle, publishing quite a few of the first publications such as
With Passion and Compassion: Third Word Women Doing Theology. Reflections from the Women's Commission of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians
, ed. Virginia Fabella and Mercy Amba Oduyoye (1988
) and The Will to Arise: Women, Tradition, and the Church in Africa
, ed. Mercy Amba Oduyoye and Musimbi R. A. Kanyoro (1992
), in the process serving in some sense as midwives themselves.5 Cited in Phiri,
“Major Challenges,”
67
; see also Musimbi R. A. Kanyoro, “Beads and Strands: Threading More Beads in the Story of the Circle,”
in Phiri and Nadar, African Women, Religion, and Health
, 23
.6 Mercy Amba Oduyoye,
Beads and Strands: Reflections of an African Woman on Christianity in Africa
(Maryknoll, NY
: Orbis Books
, 2002
), 6
; see also Therese Okure, “Women in the Bible,”
in Fabella and Oduyoye, With Passion and Compassion
, 53
.7 Carrie Pemberton,
Circle Thinking: African Women Theologians in Dialogue with the West
, Studies of Religion in Africa 25 (Leiden
: Brill
, 2003
), 15
. Pemberton writes about the complexity of the lives of many members of the Circle: “as an educated elite, they critique their cultures, church praxis, mission history and society whilst manacled by implication to them. They are, after all, beneficiaries of the western educational project undertaken in the main by the mission churches” (p. 4
).8 Jacqueline E. Lapsley,
Whispering the Word: Hearing Women's Stories in the Old Testament
(Louisville
: Westminster John Knox
, 2005
), 72
.9 Mercy Amba Oduyoye describes these values:
“The sense of community characterizes traditional life in Africa and in spite of modernization, moves people to care for children, the aged, strangers, the sick and the needy, widows, disabled and others deemed vulnerable”
(Introducing African Women's Theology
, IFT 6 (Sheffield
: Sheffield Academic
, 2001
), 34
; see also, in the same volume, Oduyoye's chapter “Hospitality and Spirituality,”
90
–109
.10 Kanyoro,
“Beads and Strands,”
23
.11 Pemberton,
Circle Thinking
, 20
.12 Oduyoye,
Beads and Strands
, 8
, 22
; Oduyoye, “Poverty and Motherhood,”
in Oduyoye, Beads and Strands
, 57
–66
. See also Kwok Pui-lan, “Mercy Amba Oduyoye and African Women's Theology,”
JFSR
20
(2004
): 9
–10
, 15
–16
.13 Musa W. Dube,
The HIV and AIDS Bible: Selected Essays
(Scranton, PA
: University of Scranton Press
, 2006
); Dube, ed., Methods of Integrating HIV/AIDS in Biblical Studies
(Geneva
: World Council of Churches
, 2003
); Dube et al., Grant me Justice!: HIV/AIDS & Gender Readings of the Bible
(Maryknoll, NY
: Orbis Books
, 2004
).14 See, e.g., the recent dissertation by Lisa le Roux,
“The Role of African Christian Churches in Dealing with Sexual Violence against Women: The Case of the DRC, Rwanda and Liberia”
(PhD diss.
, Stellenbosch University
, 2014
), which highlights some of the atrocities of rape that accompanied instances of armed conflict and genocide in these countries. See also Mercy Amba Oduyoye's article on this theme at the 1994 EATWOT (Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians) meeting on this theme: “Violence against Women: Window on Africa,”
VFTW
18
(1995
): 168
–76
.15 Pemberton,
Circle Thinking
, 5
.16 Cheryl Kirk-Duggan,
“How Liberating Is Exodus and for Whom? Deconstructing Exodus Motifs in Scripture, Literature and Life,”
in Exodus and Deuteronomy
, ed. Athalya Brenner and Gale A. Yee, Texts @ Contexts (Minneapolis
: Fortress
, 2012
), 27
.17 Kirk-Duggan,
“How Liberating Is Exodus and for Whom?”
27
. See also Laurel Dykstra, Set Them Free: The Other Side of Exodus
(Maryknoll, NY
: Orbis Books
, 2002
), xi
–xvi
, 38
–65
.18 Oduyoye,
Introducing African Women's Theology
, 37
.© 2015 Society of Biblical Literature
2015
