When North and South Agree

The Economist
February 13, 2015

http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2015/02/gender-violence-and-religion


A COUPLE of days ago, a senior African cleric was holding forth on the need to combine religious instruction with, in the broadest sense, sex education. Both at home and at school, declared Archbishop Henri Isingoma, boys must be taught about the higher purpose of sex as "the way God wanted to make the human race continue". Another acute problem, he added, was "ignorance of the responsibilities of men towards women." He was speaking in a webinar organised by a department of the global Anglican church, drawing in clergy and church workers from their own and other Christian confessions.

So...was this one more depressing display of the giant cultural gap between the liberal north and the traditional south, especially over sexuality, which is tearing apart the 80m-strong Anglican Communion, and many other religious bodies?

No, it was nothing of the kind, and that's what made the discussion more worthwhile. The topic was "gender-based violence" which is a catchall term that describes both domestic cruelty and the still-greater horrors that take place on battlefields when soldiers run amok and commit rape. Victims of GBV are mainly female, but they also include men and boys. And the striking thing was that on this exceptionally grave subject, "conservatives" and "liberals" plainly find it useful to talk and cooperate, and the talk goes well beyond platitudes.

Mara Luz, an Anglican church worker from Brazil, said 40% of women in her country experienced some kind of violence; there were well-written laws, but implementation was very poor, especially in remote areas. The wrong sort of religious and cultural influences could reinforce the feeling that women must be submissive, even in the face of abuse; a better approach, she suggested, was "contextual Bible study" which offered models of women who remained independent in hard conditions, like the widow who helped Elijah the prophet.

Therese Mema Mapenzi, a Catholic church worker from Congo, described the need for "safe spaces" where rape victims could slowly recover and regain dignity after an experience which left them estranged from their husbands and families, and their children (especially those born of rape) ostracised. An Anglican church activist from Burundi gave a similar picture and stressed the vital role of senior clerics in changing the moral climate, and in fighting the stigma suffered by victims. "Religious leaders have the capital to influence social atittudes so that people change their behaviour," said Mathilde Nkirwikiye. Whether in Africa or Latin America, speakers implied, religion could not be neutral; it would either condone or even abet violence, or it would actively combat the scourge. A broader coalition of faith-based NGOs, We Will Speak Out, is trying to foster the more benign religious influences; it summoned 40 faith leaders to London this week.

Now it so happens that Archbishop Isingoma is a moderate conservative on the Anglican spectrum, who has backed a movement of traditionalist Anglican churches called GAFCON. Meanwhile for Brazil's small Anglican church, a vital partner in fighting violence against women is the Scottish Episcopal Church which has taken an open-minded stance on same-sex relations. This sort of difference has prompted Archbishop Justin Welby, leader of the global Anglican communion, to admit that it may never again be possible or useful to summon the world's Anglican bishops to England, as used to happen every decade.

But such differences seem to melt away when a group of people, mainly female as it happens, get together to talk about a phenomenon that is so manifestly dreadful that everybody agrees on the need to stop it; a problem, moreover, in which religion is bound to play some role for better or worse. If you want to convince yourself that global religious communities, despite much evidence to the contrary, still play a useful role, discussions like this are a good place to start looking