Christianity and Literature: The Need for Feminism in the Church

For centuries, women have been victims of social prejudices and discrimination. Literature reveals various ways women have worked to breakthrough from the point(s) where men have relegated them. Their movements are seen as feminist movement. Merging feminism with Christianity, Christian feminism would mean an aspect of feminist theology which seeks to advance and understand the equality of men and women morally, socially, spiritually, and in leadership from a Christian perspective. A few of the 21st century women in Nigeria are seen to be a bit open in terms of sexuality; we see nursing mothers going out to work; women engaged in new industries and professions, and the acceptance that women will work outside the home, have children outside marriage, as well as the right to control their own sexuality. Despite these accomplishments by women, they are still prone to more problems, basically in the Church. Most persons in the Christian religion do not feel that feminism should come in or be exercised by Christian women. From their view of the feminist’s approach to life, these Christians see feminism to preach a woman’s right to have abortion, practice lesbianism as well as marry, be free from traditional roles, and even reject God as the ultimate authority. This is absolutely untrue. Based on the above premise, this paper tried to justify the reason why Christianity as well as the Church desperately needs feminism. The descriptive and the comparative phenomenological methodology were utilised in this paper, with the advantage data so collected to speak for themselves.