30 June 2024, 15:00 - 30 June 2024, 16:15 Healey Room, Westminster College, and online

World Christianity Summer Institute 2024 "Poverty and the Church" Inaugural Address: Sunday 30 June 2024, 3-4.15 pm BST

Healey Room, Westminster College, and online

Title: ’GIVE HER OF THE FRUIT OF HER HANDS; AND LET HER OWN WORKS PRAISE HER IN THE GATE’:  FAITH AND FEMALE FACE OF POVERTY by PROF ESTHER MOMBO

Abstract

Statistics show that most families live only on the income of their womenfolk who are the bread winners. Women’s work in sustaining their families the invisible uncounted work of childbearing and rearing, feeding, cleaning arranging organizing maintaining the health and wealth of the family, serving and satisfying the needs of immediate and extended family. This labour is not recognized treated as cheap, unorganized, unrecognized labourers.

This presentation seeks to investigate how the church addresses the female face of poverty and the elevation of it, how does the church address the reality that women are providers, although their work is often not acknowledged nor valued. How is justice envisioned from the words of the proverb text “give her a share of the fruit of her hands; and let her own works praise her in the gate” (Proverbs 31.31).

 

Bio

PROF ESTHER MOMBO is Professor at St. Paul’s University in Limuru, Kenya, where she has served in senior management positions including as Deputy Vice-chancellor Academic affairs. Her research and teaching interests span the fields of Church History, with a focus on Mission History, interfaith Relations, and Theology & Gender Studies with a focus on African women’s Theologies. While connected to the University of St. Paul’s, the University of Dublin, and the University of Edinburgh, she has directed and examined postgraduate students. She has mentored students, especially women who now serve in churches and academic institutions in different parts of the world. In 2007 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Virginia Theological Seminary for her work in bringing to the fore issues of gender disparity and gender justice in Church and society. In 2023 she was awarded another honorary doctorate by her alma mater, University of Edinburgh. She has been a visiting professor at several universities including the Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology, Bright School of Divinity at Texas Christian University, Graduate Institute of Theology in Yonseo University Seoul, South Korea, Candler School of Theology, Emory University and Utrecht University. She has served in several ecumenical committees including as co-chair of the Commission of Education and Ecumenical Formation of the World Council of Churches.

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