WENDY URBAN-MEAD. The Gender of Piety: Family, Faith, And Colonial Rule In Matabeleland, Zimbabwe. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2015. Pp. 324. $32.95
The Gender of Piety is a compelling biographical history of six carefully selected Ndebele personalities related to the Brethren in Christ Church (or BICC, as the church is known) in Zimbabwe, whose gendered interactions with teachings of the church, and with political realities in colonial and post colonial Zimbabwe, are aptly portrayed.
Urban-Mead’s book is very significant in the history of not only the BICC, but also of the nation as a whole. Out of the six people Urban-Mead researched, only Maria Tshuma and Stephen Ndlovu are well known to the church at large. Matshuba Ndlovu, Sinini Ngwenya (NakaSeyemephi), Sandey Vundhla and Sithembile Nkala (MaNsingo) are not, except for those who personally knew them. Matshuba and Vundhla were actively involved in their early years as pastors, evangelists, and leaders in the church. They later left the church for a variety of reasons, were considered to be backsliders, and disappeared into oblivion. Other men also left the church, while more women remained active in rural areas. The surface belief was that men loved their beer, a taboo in church. Urban-Mead has dug deeper to reveal the effects of gender piety and the social and economic impact of colonial policy (pp. 40-45) on men. Their refusal to march along with what compromised their beliefs under the colonial yoke was deemed sinful (p. 41). It is with gratitude and an enthusiastic round of applause that we receive this text that sets the records straight and shows the tremendous work of both men and women in the church.
The BICC in Zimbabwe has from inception in 1898 maintained an apolitical stance and focus on piety. It is interesting to note that men generally were the first to grasp the gospel in large numbers. But when the church and the mission, run at the time by white missionaries from the North America, began to show that their allegiance with white minority rule and its legal policies of land and education segregation over land, the more progressive indigenous men broke away from the church and stayed away. The women remained steadfast and continued to adhere to the teachings of the church. A noteworthy trend was that men gravitated back to the church in their twilight years.
Urban-Mead records some of the most painful periods historically, such as:
- The Land Apportionment Act of the 1950s that decreed forced removal of people from their homes in the Matopos and Filabusi areas (p. 118 ). People still rumble with resentment about that inhuman episode that separated them from their roots. A positive is that evangelism spread to the north.
- The Gukurahundi era of 1983-1987 is another very significant and painful period in the lives of the Ndebele people in particular. This chapter in Zimbabwe’s history was little known outside the circle of people who directly experienced it (p. 208), but the atrocities committed by the Zimbabwean national army were well-known all over Matabeleland North and South in particular. The many close relatives of victims of this outrage still suffer trauma that screams for healing. Undercurrents of simmering rage persist among those affected even as the church preaches forgiveness. This era also pushed many apolitical brothers take a stand empathizing with their kin in the Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (p. 209).
- The third outrage was Operation Murambatsvina (Clean Up) in 2005, where informal market properties, stands, and undesignated homes were destroyed with ruthlessness that left women and children exposed to the elements. Many churches became a refuge for the numerous displaced people, and also quietly became a voice for the voiceless.
Urban-Mead succeeds in showing how church influenced family life and gendered interactions as impacted by the politics of the day. The challenges are unending. The church generally is accused of closing their eyes, ears and mouths to the plight of their people even as the political scene continues to be oppressive. Urban-Mead does mention peacemaking efforts practiced by some concerned Christians. The government has just set up a long overdue Peace and Reconciliation Commission.
We applaud Urban-Mead for this effort. There are many strengths in her text, such as her extensive reading and drawing examples of women’s gender patterns and piety from other writers on African women. The bibliography is extensive and the notes and index are very detailed. She writes so that the reader is not perplexed. For example, see the explanation regarding the discrepancy in Vundhla’s (Vundla) first name, spelt Sandey, or Sandi, or Sandy (p. 270).
Whereas repetition is good in that it re-emphasizes issues, I thought there could have been less repetition of the fact that Stephen Ndlovu consistently credited his wife Otiliya for his turn-around decision to accept the daunting step into full-time church work (pp. 217, 218, 221, 228, 229, 231).
Minor weaknesses were not checking Doris Dube’s birth date (p. 27) . Lack of consistency in spelling Rev Stephen Ndlovu’s name is also evident (pp. 240, 241, 243).
In 2011, I read a rare and intriguing exposition, Lozikeyi Dlodlo: Queen of the Ndebele, by Marieke Faber Clarke with Pathisa Nyathi. Clarke is a white English woman who taught in Zimbabwe and did a great work for us Zimbabweans. Now I am engaged with another awesome historical book that deepens our understanding of the rich heritage of the Brethren In Christ Church. The Gender of Piety is even more fascinating because the author is a white North American woman who is not even a member of BICC, yet she carried out this very extensive research over a period of fifteen years. Awesome! What a privilege for the BICC! I am inspired and hope others will be too. There is so much to be done.