Religion, Gender, and Wellbeing in Africa argues that, in many African societies, ideas and practices of wellbeing and gender relations continue to be informed and shaped by religious epistemologies. The contributors affirm that for many Africans, it is through religio-spiritual frameworks that daily experiences, interactions, and gender relations are understood and interpreted. However, for many African women, religions have functioned as a double-edged-sword. Although they have contributed to the struggle against issues such as colonialism, gender justice, climate justice, and human rights, they have also endorsed and perpetuated sexism, heterosexism, homophobia, and the denial of human rights for a wide variety of people on the margins. The chapters within this collection demonstrate that most religions and religious formations in Africa have not yet positioned themselves as forces for wellbeing, gender justice, and security for African women and children. The contributors challenge simplistic and superficial readings and interpretations of religio-spirituality in Africa and call for deeper engagements of the interplay between Africa's religio-spiritual realities and the wellbeing of women, particularly around issues of gender justice, reproductive health, and human rights.

Virtually all African societies have developed transitional rites to assist the processes of growing up, by which girls and boys are taught what they need to become acceptable adults in their cultures. This book comprises the record and interpretation of one such set of initiation rites for women which was developed in matrilineal southern Malawi as a grassroots initiation, set alongside the teachings, songs and drama produced in traditional form in a Baptist Church. The book supposes that it is the first full written record of all the teaching songs and drama produced as part of the rites in the context in which they were presented. It has been published to document this tradition, and to safeguard and preserve a valuable tool for future societies. More widely, it invites readers to understand how such a rite, traditional and Christian at the same time, has taken up the challenge to strengthen women against the new threats of HIV/AIDS.