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9 Eden after Eve Christian Fundamentalism and Women in Barbados JUDITH SOARES Too often, Caribbean feminists and women’s activists, while recognizing the power of women in popular movements, have ignored the role of religion and Christian theology in women’s lives and the spirituality of their quotidian existence . In a formal sense, therefore, women’s organizations and feminist groups have been mainly concerned with the socio-economic and political aspects of women’s lives. Their main concerns have centered on women’s participation in politics, women at the level of decision making, women and poverty, women and domestic violence, women’s role in the media, and women’s reproductive rights, to name a few well-aired areas of concern. While they hold patriarchy and patriarchal relations and expressions responsible for women’s social and political lot, little or no attention has been paid to understanding, in a fundamental way, women’s religious experience in both a Christian and a social context. In regions where religion and Christianity have historically played an important spiritual, ideological, social, and political role in the lives of the marginalized , the exploited, and the oppressed, it is foolhardy to ignore such a powerful social influence. Within the liberal churches, the relations of patriarchy have forced women theologians in Latin America, Africa, and Asia to move to the center of theological discourse, affirming their rootedness in a theology of liberation that challenges all sources that have denied and/or ignored the rights of women. Reconstructing “basic theological affirmations,”1 women are raising their voices worldwide for new visions of hope and liberation. In this respect, feminist and womanist theologians continue to challenge the rigid structures of the church in their research efforts in theological reflection, biblical hermeneutics, and “creative liturgical experiences” (Ortega 1995: ix). At the heart of this theological reflection and theological movement is the demand for social justice for all women and all people. However, while the words of these Christian women are being recorded in a well-developed recognized school of thought, feminist/womanist theology, there are those other Christian women, who form the majority of membership of the fundamentalist churches in the Caribbean and Latin America region, who are dismissed as embodying a “backward religion.” While one can argue that religion , as ideology, is at the same time an oppressive and a liberating force and that fundamentalism represents the conservative wing of Protestantism, we need to temper our understanding of women in Christian fundamentalism, because 105 Eden after Eve in the final analysis the mobilization of all women is necessary to confront the patriarchal structures of gender, class, and race domination. This chapter attempts to delineate emerging ideological strands in fundamentalism and their social expression in that religious community in Barbados. Based predominantly on primary research, it is to be seen as a preliminary piece requiring further research. This work, then, will examine fundamentalism both as an oppressive ideology, justifying or legitimating positions of the hegemony of men as they relate to the concept and practice of patriarchy, and as a potential liberating force for women. It will do so by discussing the unnoticed paradigm shift that has taken place in the 1990s in the context of a reinterpretation of biblical doctrine that challenges both traditional fundamentalism and its own interpretation of the Scriptures, and the structures of patriarchy in the Church and society. Up for discussion, therefore, are the non-denominational churches and their ideological location in the religious landscape of fundamentalism. The non-denominational churches that are in the tradition of Pentecostalism operate within the theological context of fundamentalism. The respective pastors found and build their own ministries, establishing themselves independently of all denominations and basing their ministries on organizations of elders and/or deacons and team ministries. While they have international linkages, there are no connectionswithheadquarters,whetherlocallyoroverseas.Inaloosesense,then, they can be termed “indigenous.” In this presentation, a distinction will be made between traditional fundamentalist thinking and that of non-denominationalism. THE CONCEPT OF FUNDAMENTALISM Fundamentalism and the corresponding fundamentalist movement are not native to the English-speaking Caribbean, although these religious experiences have become indigenized in the course of history. An offshoot of American fundamentalism , this religious movement began its exodus to the Caribbean from as early as the turn of the century, a period that coincided with the emergence of monopoly capitalism in the United States and the spread of imperialism in the Caribbean . While other denominations are in decline in the...

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