The Troubled Knot: Tying Church Discipline to ‘Christian Marriage’ in African Contexts

This article examines the historic discourse on public discipline around sexuality in the African context and its ascendancy, through missionary emphasis on Christian marriage, across multiple denominations and cultural locations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Foreign missionaries and Af...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of Ecclesiastical History
Main Author: SNOW, JENNIFER C.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022046919000666
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0022046919000666
Description
Summary:This article examines the historic discourse on public discipline around sexuality in the African context and its ascendancy, through missionary emphasis on Christian marriage, across multiple denominations and cultural locations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Foreign missionaries and African leaders struggled with abuses of discipline and were aware of the inequity of discipline globally. Public discipline was extremely uncommon at this time in North Atlantic contexts, but became a foundational aspect of African Christian life.