Abstract:
The marriage crisis in Kenya is so serious that its presence defies the
preaching and teaching of the evangelical church. While women’s empowerment and
the quest for gender equality have radically changed the cultural situation the people
live in; and that the teachings of the church do not adequately address themselves to
this situation. Basically, the church dismisses women’s empowerment as unbiblical
and as secular movements driven by Satan to destroy marriages, church and society –
a position that causes confusion in the church as empowered wives and their husbands
find it to be biblical and beneficial to their marriages.
Tracing this problem to its roots, this dissertation argues that the church’s
teachings are ineffective because they are disconnected from the changing situation
and that the church inculcates an outdated marital instruction of inequality informed
by a contextualized theology developed in the 1960s and 70s. This theology, it is
established, appropriates the women’s subordination reflected in biblical cultures – at
a time when gender inequality was at its peak in Kenya, but a situation that no longer
exists.
As a result, the marital teachings do not speak to the needs and challenges of
empowered women and their husbands calling for a more appropriate theology on
marriage. The dissertation further challenges the church to desist from a reading of
Scripture that does not take into account God’s active involvement in the world today;
and to consider that women’s empowerment could be God’s agenda in His mission of
restoring the world and humanity to express His justice and righteousness
