MARITAL DISHARMONY AMONG AKAMBA CHRISTIANS

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teachings are ineffective because they are disconnected from the changing situation and that the church inculcates an outdated marital instruction of inequality informed by a contextualized theology developed in the 1960s and 70s.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