A postcolonial missiological understanding of the role of the church towards sex workers : a proposed liberative praxis for URCSA

Abstract

This study probes the issue of the marginalisation of women in sex work by the church with the aim of developing a liberative praxis for the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA) based on the research question: How can a postcolonial reading of the Bible shape the church’s missionary praxis towards the liberation of sex workers? Sex workers are judged morally while sex work is identified as sin by the church. Apart from a re-reading of the text of Luke 7:36-40, the researcher also critically analyses the current missional praxis of the URCSA, engaging texts such as the Bible, the Church Order and the Confessions, especially the Confession of Belhar. The aim is to uncover how the URCSA reads and interprets these texts especially in the context of the marginalised. As a missiologist coming from a certain ecclesiological, theological, and cultural backround, I unpacked the discussion by employing the missiological framework using the praxis matrix model to carry out a postcolonial reading of the Bible. The aim is to address the primary rationale of this thesis namely, to create a respectful, hopeful, liberative encounter between Black women in sex work and the church that is silent in the face of their marginalisation. In addressing the rationale and ultimately responding to the research question, an attempt is made to unmask the influence of the colonial reading of the Bible on the black church, because such a reading disempowered and oppressed the people. The employ of the Contextual Bible Study method enabled the creation of a platform for engagement between women in sex work and the Bible. The study is not only engaging the Bible, but it also, formed a creative dialogue between other scholarships such as womanist theologies, feminist theologies and bosadi/womanhood redefined biblical hermeutics and these women. This study thus proposes a Belharic missiological postcolonial reading of the Bible that aims at liberating, restoring, and transforming the lives of women in sex work. It presupposes that the Bible should be read and interpreted from the experiences of poverty, abuse, inequality – from the perspective of marginalised black women.