A history of the circle of concerned African women theologians, 1989-2007

199 Pages·2017·1.247 MB·English

by  Rachel Nyagondwe Fiedler

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Fiedler, NyaGondwe. A History of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians 1989-2007, MZUNI Press, 2017.
ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nottingham/detail.action?docID=5109641.
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A History of the Circle
of Concerned African Women Theologians

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Fiedler, Nya Gondwe. A History of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians 1989-2007, MZUNI Press, 2017.
ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nottingham/detail.action?docID=5109641.
Created from nottingham on 2021-03-10 17:55:16.
Copyright 2017 Rachel NyaGondwe Fiedler

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission
from the publishers.

Published by
Mzuni Press
P/Bag 201
Luwinga, Mzuzu 2. Malawi

ISBN 978-99960-45-22-6
eISBN 978-99960-45-23-3

Mzuni Press is represented outside Malawi by:
African Books Collective Oxford (also for e-books)
([email protected])

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Fiedler, Nya Gondwe. A History of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians 1989-2007, MZUNI Press, 2017.
ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nottingham/detail.action?docID=5109641.
Created from nottingham on 2021-03-10 17:55:16.
A History of the Circle of
Concerned
African Women Theologians
(1989-2007)

Rachel NyaGondwe Fiedler

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02 A Mzuni Monograph
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Fiedler, Nya Gondwe. A History of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians 1989-2007, MZUNI Press, 2017.
ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nottingham/detail.action?docID=5109641.
Created from nottingham on 2021-03-10 17:55:16.
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Fiedler, Nya Gondwe. A History of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians 1989-2007, MZUNI Press, 2017.
ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nottingham/detail.action?docID=5109641.
Created from nottingham on 2021-03-10 17:55:16.
Contents
Introduction 7
Chapter 1: Mercy Amba Oduyoye as Mother and Leader of the Circle
(1989 - 1996) 10
Chapter 2: Growth of the Circle under Consecutive Continental
Leaders (1989-2007) 41
Chapter 3: Local Chapters and the Growth of the Circle (1989 – 2017) 55
Chapter 4: Birth and Growth of the Circle in Malawi (1993 – 2017) 82
Chapter 5: The Role of Zones, Regions and Study Commissions in the
Growth of the Circle 116
Chapter 6: Contributions of the Circle to Theological Education 132
Chapter 7: The Circle, Women and Development 149
Chapter 8: Celebrating Maturity: 28 Years of the Circle of Concerned
African Women Theologians (1989 – 2017) 164
Bibliography 175

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Fiedler, Nya Gondwe. A History of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians 1989-2007, MZUNI Press, 2017.
ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nottingham/detail.action?docID=5109641.
Created from nottingham on 2021-03-10 17:55:16.
Abbreviations
AACC All Africa Council of Churches
BACOMA Baptist Convention of Malawi
CCAP Church of Central Africa Presbyterian
DRCM Dutch Reformed Church Mission
EATWOT Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians
EBCOM Evangelical Bible College of Malawi
EDICESA Educational Information and Documentation Centre for
Eastern and Southern Africa
IFES International Fellowship of Evangelical Students
IPC International Planning Committee
LWF Lutheran World Federation
NEGST Nairobi Evangelical Graduate School of Theology
NIST Nairobi International School of Theology
PACAnet Pan African Christian AIDS Interfaith Network
PCEA Presbyterian Church of East Africa
PROCMURA Programme for Christian – Muslim Relations in Africa
PTE Programme for Theological Education
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r sth TRS Department of Theology and Religious Studies
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rP IN WCC World Council of Churches
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M YWCA Young Women's Christian Association
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Fiedler, Nya Gondwe. A History of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians 1989-2007, MZUNI Press, 2017.
ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nottingham/detail.action?docID=5109641.
Created from nottingham on 2021-03-10 17:55:16.
Introduction
The first major work on the Circle had a systematic approach, and it was
written from a Western perspective.1 I write a history of the Circle bearing in
mind that I offer a Malawian woman’s perspective who has joined the Circle
only in 2001, twelve years after the genesis of the Circle. This means that I
was not there when the Circle was conceived and birthed into the world. But
certainly, I was there when the Circle became a teenager and saw how it has
developed even into a mature woman reaching this adult stage. I also feel
confident to write this story because I have met and interacted with many of
the key personalities that have woven the story of the Circle. I even have
visited the mother of the Circle, Mercy Amba Oduyoye in Accra, Ghana and I
am very much aware of her passion not only in building elitist theologians
but grassroots theologians who may not even speak our foreign languages.
This was clear when I visited her in Ghana and was even hosted by her at the
Institute of Religion and Culture.
When my visit came to an end, I even boarded the same plane with Mercy
Amba Oduyoye as she was going to America to visit Letty Russel. I dropped
off in Kenya to familiarize myself with the Circle in Kenya, the hub of the
Circle in the East African region. For Circle women in Southern Africa, I have
mingled with them at the Universities as a researcher especially with Circle
members in KwaZulu Natal (Pietermaritzburg), Cape Town, UNISA in Pretoria,
and the University of Stellenbosch where I met the likes of Sarojini Nadar,
Devakarsham Betty Govinden, Christina Landman. Thus, I have met many key
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ser sthg waprpiteea trheed hinis ttohrey d aisre acnt oinrys iodef rt hneo tC oirnclley ,b beucta tuhsaet o I fh tahvee f ianctte trhaactt emdy w niathm Cei rhcales
ir llA members. After all I am a disciple of Isabel Apawo Phiri, who has always been
.sse there as a mentor in my postgraduate studies before I joined the Circle. In
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1 Carrie Pemberton, Circle Thinking: African Women Theologians in Dialogue with the West,
Leiden: Brill, 2003.
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Fiedler, Nya Gondwe. A History of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians 1989-2007, MZUNI Press, 2017.
ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nottingham/detail.action?docID=5109641.
Created from nottingham on 2021-03-10 17:55:16.
one who organized a part scholarship for me from the World Council of
Churches to research and write on a history of the Circle. In the
bibliographical section, you will meet some of my contributions. So, I can
easily say that I write as an insider because I am one of the beads that are
woven into this story.
I have followed the standard approaches in writing church history in this
story of the Circle. A history of the Circle is a story of the Church. Histories of
the church often include elements of other religions, this is also part and
parcel of the Circle story. It includes African women theologians of other
faiths and after all the Circle is a movement that includes women of other
faiths. In the earlier centuries histories of the church were often about men
and their work. The presence of women in these stories was limited. Often
their names were not even recorded, and often women that had negative
contributions were made visible. The story of the Circle makes contributions
of women in church and society more visible. Thus, I prefer to call this book
Her-Stories of the Circle.
Characteristic of this her-story is that it uses a mixed approach, different from
histories that were written from the perspective of the leaders. This her story
applies both a top-bottom approach and a bottom-up approach. As such, it
is a story of the mother of the Circle, Mercy Amba Oduyoye and her
collaborators as well as a story of grassroot members of the Circle at
Regional, Zonal and Country level. Because of the language barrier, the story
has excluded much of French speaking and Portuguese speaking Africa.
This book traces the Circle history from 1989 to 2007, based on the cutoff
.de point of my PhD research on the Circle.2 Thus, some of the present tense
vrese verbs refer to the status of the Circle in 2007. However, I also include a sketch
r sth history of the Circle from 2007 to 2017, to highlight some of the
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.sse 2007 to 2017 is mainly based on email correspondences and internet
rP IN sources, thus it is less balanced compared to the story of the Circle between
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2 Rachel NyaGondwe Fiedler, "The Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians (1989-
2007): History and Theology," PhD, University of the Free State, 2011.
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Fiedler, Nya Gondwe. A History of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians 1989-2007, MZUNI Press, 2017.
ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nottingham/detail.action?docID=5109641.
Created from nottingham on 2021-03-10 17:55:16.
It is my hope that this monograph will energize upcoming historians to fill the
gaps and improve on biases in this story. More critical is that a compre-
hensive and fair treatment of the Portuguese and French speaking Circles is
weaved in academia. I have written this book as a historical theologian
belonging to the Evangelical tradition, and my hope is that it will highlight a
wide scope of African women theologians and their place in the promotion
of God's image for both men and women in the world.

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Fiedler, Nya Gondwe. A History of the Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians 1989-2007, MZUNI Press, 2017.
ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/nottingham/detail.action?docID=5109641.
Created from nottingham on 2021-03-10 17:55:16.