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ISSN: (Online) 2072-8050, (Print) 0259-9422
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Author:
Themba Shingange1
Aliaon:
1Department of Gender and
Sexuality Studies, College of
Human Sciences, University
of South Africa, Pretoria,
South Africa
Corresponding author:
Themba Shingange,
shingt@unisa.ac.za
Dates:
Received: 13 Apr. 2023
Accepted: 19 Dec. 2023
Published: 29 Mar. 2024
How to cite this arcle:
Shingange, T., 2024, ‘Biblical
discourses and the
construcon of genders and
sexualies in contemporary
South Africa: A decolonial
analysis’, HTS Teologiese
Studies/Theological Studies
80(2), a8898. hps://doi.
org/10.4102/hts.v80i2.8898
Copyright:
© 2024. The Authors.
Licensee: AOSIS. This work
is licensed under the
Creave Commons
Aribuon License.
Introducon
Biblical discourses are often influenced by imperial ideologies and play a critical role in the
constructions of genders and sexualities within global spaces (Jakobsen & Pellegrini 2003).
Although this phenomenon is common in different religious circles, this paper focusses on
Christianity by interrogating the use of biblical discourses in the constructions of African genders
and sexualities. Biblical discourses refer to formal and informal talks, discussions and messages
in the pulpit that use the Bible and sometimes references to God to define what are acceptable
genders and sexualities. This article examined how biblical discourses contributed to this
narrative. It further advanced a call for transforming this dominant narrative by engaging
theology, gender and sexuality studies and socio-political sciences from the premise of a
multidisciplinary epoch. The decolonial motif, with a focus on delinking African genders and
sexualities from the Western agenda of sexual repression, serves as the theoretical framework for
this research. On the other hand, the Bible, race, gender and sexuality serve as the hermeneutical
approach to better understand African genders and sexualities and to explore the use of biblical
discourses in this context. Thus, the article makes use of a secondary research approach to carry
out this task.
Methodology
The article employs a secondary research methodology to explore this phenomenon and to
develop a thorough knowledge of African genders and sexualities. This indicates that it used data
from already existing sources to generate and gather data. According to Ellis (2015), secondary
research is an analysis of the scholarly examination of the existing body of literature on a chosen
The constructions of genders and sexualities in different global spaces continue to be influenced
by Christian and imperial ideologies. In Africa, genders and sexualities were (mis)construed
by colonial and missionary enterprises, and they continue to be defined according to
Eurocentric terms and perceptions. This has produced ‘modern sexual repression’. The use of
Biblical discourses to construct African genders and sexualities is one way that this repression
is mirrored in South Africa. Because of this, African genders and sexualities are marginalised,
treated as taboo and depicted as backward and uncivilised, thus, promoting hegemonic
heteronormative and monogamous marriages. This article examined how Biblical discourses
contributed to this narrative. It further advanced a call for transforming this dominant
narrative by engaging theology, gender and sexuality studies and socio-political sciences from
the premise of a multidisciplinary epoch. The decolonial motif, with a focus on delinking
African genders and sexualities from the Western agenda of sexual repression, serves as the
theoretical framework for this research. On the other hand, race, gender and sexuality serve as
lenses used to better understand the phenomenon and to explore the use of biblical discourses
in this context. Thus, the article makes use of a secondary research approach to carry out this
task.
Contribution: This article seeks to add to the body of knowledge that endeavours to change
the way that biblical discourses are used in South Africa today to construct a narrative that
represses non-normative genders and sexualities.
Keywords: Biblical discourses; Christianity; African; genders; sexualities; decoloniality;
delink; transformation.
Biblical discourses and the construcon of genders and
sexualies in contemporary South Africa:
A decolonial analysis
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Note: Special Collecon: Recepon of Biblical Discourse, sub-edited by Itumeleng Mothoagae (University of South Africa, South Africa).
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subject. As a result, reliable academic databases such as
Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science were consulted
during the search and analysis of literature. A variety of
academic books, journal articles, essays, published papers
and academic theses were among the materials used in the
secondary research processes.
Data from university archives were accessed using
secondary research datasets. Generally, secondary data are
gathered and recorded for archival reasons and complies
with legal and ethical standards so that it can be shared
with other researchers (Heaton 2008:35). Furthermore, to
acknowledge the contribution made by other interlocutors,
their data were used while adhering to strict guidelines like
appropriate citation and referencing. Biblical discourses,
African genders and sexualities, Christianity in Africa, the
missionary-colonial agenda, decoloniality, delinking and
other related terms were included in the literature search.
According to Fawcett (2013), the goal of the literature review
is to pinpoint knowledge gaps and present a thorough
picture of the state of science in this field of interest.
Although there are numerous techniques for analysing
secondary data, this article used the Focused Mapping
Review and Synthesis (FMRS) strategy. According to
Bradbury-Jones et al. (2019:453), the FMRS involves
focussing on a particular field of expertise related to the
subject at hand rather than the body of available evidence.
As a result, the emphasis was primarily on the use of biblical
discourses in the constructions of genders and sexualities in
contemporary South Africa.
Theorecal framework
The decolonial theoretical paradigm has been applied in this
article from the contention that a decoloniality effort is
necessary given the persistence of the colonial narratives in
postcolonial and post-apartheid South Africa (Ndlovu-
Gatsheni 2013:10). The term ‘postcolonial’ is used here to
refer to the period during the 18th century when most
colonised countries began to gain their independence, while
post-apartheid era refers to the period after South Africa
gained democracy in 1994. Although democracy has been
attained in South Africa, biblical discourses still carry colonial
nuances that reflect the negative construction of genders and
sexualities as Shingange (2023:2) pointed out that some
pastors continue to use the pulpit to send discriminatory
messages against those who identify with non-normative
sexualities. Decoloniality, in this context, questions the
knowledge and power structures that support the creation
and maintenance of gender and sexuality hierarchies that
emerged or found new and more potent ways to manifest
themselves in the modern and colonial world (Maldonado
Torres 2007:243).
Objecves of the study
This study aims to critique the current narrative that upholds
the missionary-colonial goal of suppressing and subjugating
African genders and sexualities using biblical discourses.
It illustrates how decoloniality might be a helpful tool for
breaking the stereotypes that African genders and sexualities
are homogenous, static, primitive and backward. The study
questions the use of biblical discourses to support the
missionary-colonial gender and sexual repression agenda. It
further seeks to transform the prevalent norms regarding
genders and sexualities in South Africa.
African genders and sexualies
African genders and sexualities entail the diverse genders
and sexualities that were prevalent in Africa even during the
pre-colonial era. These genders and sexualities are socially
located in Africa and have their epistemic location founded
in African cultures, traditions and indigenous knowledge
systems as Tamale (2011) opined:
A great deal of rich information about African sexualities lies in
ancient histories that live through griots, ighyuwas, imbongies,
jelis, igawens, guewels, and other orators around the continent.
Historical accounts of African sexualities are alive in folklore,
traditional songs, dance, folk art, body markings, clothing,
jewellery, names, and naming systems. Yet these systems of
knowledge are denigrated in the theoretical and normative
domains of mainstream research. In fact, they have been
‘reclassified as oral traditions rather than histories’. (p. 21)
Against the backdrop of the citation above, it can be deduced
that precolonial African cultures in southern Africa were
open about sexuality. In the same vein, Delius and Glaser
(2005:29) maintain that sexual education and talks were
conducted freely until Christianity deemed them as shameful
and private matters. Henceforth, African genders and
sexualities were generalised and portrayed as homogenous
experiences and realities. Furthermore, starting in the early
2000s, discussions and acts taken by dogmatic religious
voices and organisations have had a major impact on
establishing the contours of sexual politics in South Africa.
Therefore, the critical conceptualisation of genders and
sexualities is crucial because concepts and lines of reasoning
impact sexual politics and what is perceived, how it is viewed
and what is not seen (Arnfred 2004a:82).
Sexual homogeneity
The concept of African sexual homogeneity has always been
presented as the truth; as a result, it has influenced what
society sees and has not seen from previous generations to
the present. The truth is that African genders and sexualities
are not uniform; rather, they have a variety of distinct
and varied subtleties, manifestations and histories. In fact,
Matebeni et al. (2018:2) cautioned that we should not try to
homogenise the continent narrowly and existentialistically
either. Instead of being a single geopolitical entity with a
multi-layered complexity of transnational settings, ‘Africa’
refers to a varied range of identities that its people hold. In
other words, the construction of gender and sexuality
varies widely across African nations, with postcolonial and
neo-colonial relations, local subjectivities, traditionalist
patriarchies and nationalist homophobias entwined with
activist interventions and human rights frameworks.
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While taking note of the cautionary statement made by
Matebeni et al., it is also important to stress that there are
some similarities in the use of biblical discourses to construct
genders and sexualities in different African contexts. These
contexts also have certain things in common in that they
were nevertheless affected by and conceptualised through
the lenses of colonial, missionary and imperialist ideas and
terms; thus, they still share these legacies (Tamale 2011:1).
These similarities are the basis for referring to Africa as a
single entity in this article. Focussing on these similarities
should not be construed as an attempt to present a unified
image of Africa (Murray & Roscoe 1998:xxxii). On the
contrary, it should be viewed as a discussion about similar
patterns and experiences of genders and sexualities
happening in the African continent. According to Tamale
(2013:35), heterosexuality was indeed a predominant form of
sexuality in precolonial Africa as it was everywhere else
in the globe. This is because most communities value
childbearing and reproduction. However, there is no question
that same-sex relations were also practised, and this reality
cannot simply be erased by heteronormativity in society
(Tamale 2013:40). Therefore, the ideologies of monogenous
and exclusive heterosexual Africa are a fallacy. Pre-colonial
Africa was marked with pluriverse and diverse forms of
genders and sexualities (Van Zyl 2015:149).
Secrecy and tabooing
The secrecy and tabooing prevalent in the subject of sex and
sexuality do not represent the historic African realities
(Asante 2020:114). This does not imply that sex and sexuality
were topics that were addressed carelessly and without
boundaries in Africa. Contrarily, Okechi (2018:1) observed
that although there was what an outside observer may
consider sexual recklessness among males and females in
African nations, especially the East African nations, all these
are regulated through certain consistent means but not
repressed.
The form of secrecy and tabooing that came with the
missionary-colonial and apartheid eras in South Africa came
with barriers to sex and sexuality that ensured that African
genders and sexualities were repressed, censored, demonised,
stigmatised and treated with shame (Pallotta-Chiarolli
2020:70; Posel 2003:4). In the same vein, Kungu and Chacha
(2022:17) posited that these barriers to sexual communication
were put in place for several reasons, including gender
power, the rules governing children’s sexual and gender
development, the control of how pleasure is developed, the
social control of adults’ morality and the prohibition of
sexual behaviour that deviates from norms in such
fundamental contexts as premarital and extramarital sex.
Contrary to many kinds of sexuality in the West, African
sexuality since the colonial-missionary era was frequently
incorporated into interpersonal relationships, and how it was
expressed was rigorously constrained by taboos, rituals and
customs.
The opposite is true when considering pre-colonial African
sexualities as Delius and Glaser (2005:30) observed that
children in Africa were exposed to the mechanics of sex at an
early age. Teenage boys and girls discussed the rules and
customs of sexuality appropriate for their age groups. Uncles,
aunts and grandparents could provide them with sexual
advice (though typically not parents). Teenage sexual
experimentation was viewed as normal and healthy if it
ended before full-on sexual contact (Delius & Glaser 2005).
Against this backdrop, it is apparent that the pre-colonial
African genders and sexualities were not repressed or
tabooed. However, it was the colonial-missionary era that
brought shame to African genders and sexualities (Delius &
Glaser 2005:30).
African genders, sexualies, religions and
spiritualies
It should be noted that under the African worldview,
genders, sexualities and spiritualities are intertwined.
According to Togarasei (2020:22), African sexuality and
spirituality have always been linked and intertwined from
the dawn of humanity. This concurs with Mbiti’s (1990)
assertion that religion permeates all facets of African life.
Therefore, Asamoah-Gyandu posited that it is vital to grasp
the relationship between the body and spirit to understand
African sexuality (Kaunda 2020:ix). Indeed, this view of
genders, sexualities and religions is expressed in African
lifestyles that revolve around the spiritual realm and the
physical. Against this backdrop, the missionary colonial
enterprise found room in African spirituality to enforce
biblical discourses in their constructions of gender and
sexuality.
Missionary-colonial historic
accounts
It is impossible to discuss colonialism in Africa without
involving the role played by the missionary enterprise.
Therefore, it is noteworthy that the colonial-missionary
age created gender and sexual categories that were alien
to Africans (Oyewumi 2004:7). They misrepresented and
misinterpreted African genders and sexualities. Kaoma
(2014) noted that pre-colonial African liberal ideas on
sexuality were modified by colonisation and Christianisation
efforts. According to Kungu and Chacha (2022:19), because of
the colonialists’ and missionaries’ inability to decipher secret
codes and the scarcity of knowledge, there are myths,
misunderstandings and misinterpretations regarding African
sexuality today. Once more, inaccurate portrayals of African
sexuality by Western imperialists were a component of a
larger plan to colonise and oppress the Black race (Tamale
2011:15). Indeed, Kisiang’ani (2004:15) made a similar
observation when positing that Christianity was used to
legitimise colonialism in Africa. It becomes evident that the
way African genders and sexualities are viewed has been
influenced by colonial, imperial and missionary endeavours.
Missionary-colonial and Western perspectives, for example,
portrayed African genders and sexualities as promiscuous,
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careless, infectious, libidinous and uncivilised characters that
need taming, improving, civilising, modernising and saving
(Nyanzi 2011:477)
It should, however, be borne in mind that most of what is
known as the history of ‘traditional’ African cultures, genders
and sexualities was written by individuals who were part of
a colonial system that disrupted those cultures (Murray &
Roscoe 1998:8). Therefore, Epprecht (2009:1261) asserts that
the scandalised accounts of African sexuality mark the
beginning of writing about sexuality in Africa, South of the
Sahara, in the 14th century. Following that, an increasing
number of non-Africans including slavers, explorers,
missionaries and colonial officials gave their accounts.
Through the middle of the 20th century, white male authors
who tended to represent Africans as essentially heterosexual
and promiscuous or as deeply disordered and dangerous
were predominant in this work (Epprecht 2009:1261). Against
this backdrop, Kungu and Chacha (2022:20) posited that
there are widespread misconceptions about a variety of
sexual practices, such as the myths surrounding polygamy,
virginity, same-sex relationships, sexual parts and others.
This is because much of the data that is currently available on
African sexuality has frequently been distorted by research
intended to support certain beliefs and stereotypes, as well as
racial agendas.
This historiography was based on three interrelated threads.
The first known fears caused by the invasive tactics of
colonialism divided between ‘normal’ sexuality (heterosexual,
monogamous) and ‘perverse’, ‘immoral’ and ‘dangerous’
sexuality, such as same-sex relationships, extramarital affairs
and prostitution (Musisi 2014). Again, Delius and Glaser
(2005:30) opined that it was Christianity that brought shame
to African sexual acts and sexual diversities as they were
treated as a sin by Christian missionaries. Again ‘Christianity
infused sexuality with silence and shame, which probably
has contributed to stigma’ (Delius & Glaser 2005:32).
Therefore, the sexual freedom and liberty that existed in the
pre-colonial African era were disrupted and frowned upon
by missionaries and colonisers. This freedom entailed the
acceptance of genders and sexualities without a desire to
categorise and shame them. For instance, this freedom was
exemplified by same-sex practice and discourse that occurred
within the traditional healing context that was purely
indigenous and was not influenced by Western paradigms
(Mkasi 2016:6). Undeniably, the modern sexual repression
occurred as Christianity employed biblical discourses to
define and construct African genders and sexualities (Tamale
2014:159). The next section looks at the use of biblical
discourses about sexuality in South Africa.
The use of biblical discourses in
South Africa
Corrêa et al. (2008:53) posited that ‘Discourses and actions
deployed by dogmatic religious voices and groups are a
major influence in determining the contours of sexual politics
from the early 2000s. In Africa, genders and sexualities
continue to be constructed and reconstructed using Christian
and Eurocentric terms and perspectives (Phiri 2016:61).
Christian terms entail the use of the Bible as a tool to define
acceptable genders and sexualities. On the other hand,
Eurocentric terms imply the view that Western gender and
sexual constructs are superior to the rest of the world, thus
universalising them. Therefore, using these terms, African
genders and sexualities continue to be (mis)construed by
colonial and missionary ventures (Epprecht 2021). As a
result, there is modern sexual repression (Foucault 1978).
Although, Foucault speaks of sexual repression from the
context of a French philosopher, similar sexual repressions
are also prevalent within contemporary African biblical
discourses as Murray and Roscoe (1998:173) posited that
European colonialists sought to repress genders and
sexualities in Southern Africa. Against this backdrop, sexual
repression is reflected in South Africa through the
construction of African genders and sexualities often defined
in biblical terms even in the post-1994 South African political
epoch.
The current gender and sexualies
narrave in South Africa
Although the post-1994 South African constitution has been
deemed progressive because it includes a clause that
prohibits discrimination against people based on their race,
gender or sexual orientation, the reality of unchanged
attitudes towards people engaging in same-sex practices is
evidence that transformation is not yet fully attained (Posel
2011:131; Sanger 2010:115; Schäfer & Range 2014:11). Biblical
discourses are still covertly and overtly used in South Africa
to force and reinforce rigid sexual moral codes. While there is
nothing wrong when biblical texts are used correctly, their
application to issues of gender and sexuality in the South
African context becomes problematic because of (mis)
interpretations and sometimes inadequate contextualisation.
It is as Kisiang’ani (2004:19) opined that these Western
conceptions of African genders and sexualities in their rigid
forms have been effectively reinforced by Christian religious
texts. Again, Corrêa et al. (2008:55) opined that Catholicism
is a ‘religion of the book’ that uses scriptures to mobilise
conservative public positions on a wide range of issues,
including gender and sexuality’. Indisputably, it is not only
Catholicism but Christianity in its entirety that has always
used scriptures to influence society about strict moral gender
and sexuality issues (Corrêa et al. 2008:61–62; Jakobsen &
Pellegrini 2003).
According to Nadar (2020), research on sexuality in Africa
demonstrates the indisputable influence of Christianity’s
holy book (the Bible) in denouncing forms of sexual
expressions and identities when they deviate from the hetero-
norm. Without a doubt, Black bodies in addition to African
genders and sexualities are also disparaged in biblical
discourses. Mothoagae and Mavhandu-Mudzusi (2021:2)
posited that the missionary enterprise employed the Bible as
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an imperial ‘tool’, and this was done to convert, civilise and
colonise Black bodies in South Africa. The myth that black
people are sexually deviant is the cornerstone of historical
and contemporary racial discrimination and inequality
(Johnson and Hunte 2012:52). Therefore, biblical discourses
have left Black bodies, Black genders and sexualities as
contested spaces, struggling and fighting for recognition as
valid and human in South Africa, Africa and other global
spaces.
Biblical discourses on gender and sexuality comprise
conversations and debates centred on human existence to
understand gender and sexuality in the context of their
complex interconnections with biblical texts, settings and
interpretive histories (Punt 2018:69). The hegemonic
heteronormative gender and sexuality narratives that are
founded on biblical scriptures to marginalise and exclude
non-normative genders and sexualities, such as lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer persons (LGBTIQ+),
characterise these discourses in South Africa.
Scriptures that are commonly used to condemn same-sex
practices include Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13, which
declare that it is an abomination for a man to lie with
another man as with a woman; Romans 1:26–27 which
speak of God giving them to their lust so that men have
sexual desires for other men and women for other women,
and 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, which list homosexuality as one
of the sins that can keep a person from entering the kingdom
of God. These passages of scriptures are often used as the
basis for demonising other genders and sexualities while
strengthening the hegemonic position of heterosexuality
and the Western constructions of African genders and
sexualities.
Therefore, biblical discourses that hegemonise heterosexuality
and marginalise non-normative genders and sexualities in
South Africa suggest that the desired non-discriminatory
transformation has not yet been accomplished. According to
Potgieter and Reygan (2011:60), homophobia in religious and
biblical discourse still permeates religious life despite
improvements in South Africa’s legal view of homosexuality.
Thus, decolonising this narrative is important because it
advances the move to liberate African genders and sexualities.
This task is a never-ending process because the legacies of
the missionary-colonial era regarding gender and sexuality
are still pervasive in South Africa. As a result, it is crucial to
problematise the present constructions of genders and
sexualities and to delink them from the missionary-colonial
agenda. This should happen not just for South Africa but also
for the entire African continent and other contexts with
comparable dynamics.
Delinking the narrave
The task of delinking the current narrative from the sources
of ongoing inequalities that were firmly established and have
their historical origins in Europe is imperative. The delinking
processes here entail posing an epistemic challenge to
colonialist thinking that has subjugated African genders and
sexualities (Noxolo 2017:342). This subjugation is reflected in
the way that African genders and sexualities are currently
constructed using biblical discourses as suppressive tools.
Therefore, delinking the ideology of suppressing and
subjugating African genders and sexualities is necessary for
decolonising the current status quo. According to Mignolo
(2007a) the following is one of the characteristics of the
decolonisation processes:
The definitive rejection of ‘being told’ from the epistemic
privileges of the zero point what ‘we’ are, what our ranking is
about the ideal gender and sexuality, and what we have to do to
be recognized as such. (p. 3)
This means that Africans will have to reach a point where
they refuse to be defined according to Western terms and
constructions. An example of such refusal was set by the
Basotho women who had intimacy with other women and
still did not identify as lesbians, rather used the term
mummies for older women and babies for younger women
to define their practice (Kendall 1998:221–238).
In the same vein, Arnfred (2004b:7) posited that ‘The time has
come for re-thinking sexualities in Africa’. This can happen if
the pluriverse nature of African genders and sexualities is
duly acknowledged and embraced by emphasising how God
created everyone in God’s image, thus embracing everyone
with love irrespective of gender and sexuality. Therefore, in
this context, delinking is a call to rethink and transform the
ways that African genders and sexualities have been
portrayed, understood and practiced. Ndlovu-Gatsheni’s
(2015:485) asserted that decoloniality is not only a long-
standing political and epistemological movement intended
to free (ex-) colonised peoples from global coloniality but also
a way of being, thinking and acting. Indisputably, colonial
thinking, understanding and practices are perpetuated by
biblical discourses as churches in Africa are sites for the
reproduction of coloniality (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2013). The use
of biblical discourses in the construction of African genders
and sexualities should be challenged and transformed
because it is based on what Mignolo (2007b:450) calls ‘the
crooked rhetoric that naturalizes “modernity” as a universal
global process and point of arrival hides its darker side, the
constant reproduction of ‘coloniality’.
This call to delink the current narrative is comparable to
creating a new kind of theology, which Mashau (2018:7)
referred to as ‘a theology of hope’. This theology seeks to
overcome social divisions including racism, tribalism,
xenophobia, homophobia and other forms of discrimination
based on gender and sexuality. Similar sentiments were
also echoed by Togarasei (2020:30), who regarded this
transformation as a transition from biblical to Christian
sexual theology. He further asserted that the premise that the
Bible lacks a coherent sexual theology necessitates the need
for Christian theology that considers both the teaching of the
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Bible and the existential circumstances of readers and users
of the Bible today (Togarasei 2020:30:34).
Investigating the power dynamics that played a role in both
the production and performance of biblical discourse requires
a focus on gender performativity to understand the Bible as a
discourse. The focus shifts to how relations of power have
established sexual hierarchies to serve as expressions of
naturalness and normality, how power through discursive
practices has created and upheld normative ideals of the
body and how power, as repeated acting, has constructed
sexual normativity. Investigating biblical discourses is more
interested in what the bible did and does than what biblical
writing says about gender, sexuality or the body (Vorster
2012). Therefore, delinking biblical discourses from the
Western colonial-missionary agenda is not concerned with
biblical references condemning other non-normative
sexualities; it is, however, concerned with the repercussions
of such writings and discourses on the lives of those who do
not identify with heterosexuality.
In the same vein, African theologies, womanist theologies
and other liberation theologies in Africa rarely speak of these
power relations regarding African genders and sexual
liberation. This is like other liberation theologies that Marcella
Althaus-Reid lamented about when she said that decades
ago, liberation theologies began to be wary of politically
dictated definitions of terms like ‘theology’ and ‘theologian’.
Liberationists described theologians at that time as factory or
mine workers who were attempting to detect the presence of
God in a socially and economically downtrodden community.
However,
It did not occur to them at that time that it was necessary to
dismantle the sexual ideology of theology, and for theologians to
come out from their closets and ground their theology in a praxis
of intellectual, living honesty. (Althaus-Reid 2003:2)
These theologians that need to come out of the closets should
dismantle the monogenous description of African genders
and sexualities. Indeed, Mignolo (2020:616) opined that
‘decolonial tasks must be pursued on many fronts, all of
them interrelated in their march towards universal modes of
existence’. This means that the monogamous view of African
genders and sexualities must be dismantled and their
pluriverse forms accepted and presented as valid. This action
will not only liberate biblical discourses from their subjugated
state but will also transform the current dominant narrative
by opening the doors of Christianity to everyone irrespective
of gender and sexual orientation.
Conclusion
This article made the case that colonial ideologies, religion
and Christianity still influence how genders and sexualities
are constructed and interpreted in international contexts.
Furthermore, it argued that starting in the early 2000s,
discussions and acts taken by dogmatic religious voices and
organisations have had a major impact on establishing the
contours of sexual politics. Thus, genders and sexualities are
still being constructed and redefined in Africa
using languages and viewpoints that are Christian and
Eurocentric. Therefore, colonial and missionary endeavours
continue to (mis)interpret African genders and sexualities.
There is consequently ‘contemporary sexual repression’
visible in South Africa because of the formation of African
genders and sexualities using Christian and biblical
discourses. This article called for the transformation of this
dominant narrative currently in place in South Africa. As a
result, the decolonial theory was used to dismantle African
genders and sexualities from the Western goal of sexual
repression. This aimed at transforming gender and sexual
norms in contemporary South Africa as well as other nations.
This calls for the destruction of the monogamous conception
of African genders and sexualities and the acceptance of
their plurality. Not only will this effort free biblical
discourses from their oppressive status but will also change
the prevalent narrative by making Christianity accessible to
everyone, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.
Acknowledgements
I would like to extend my thanks to Prof. K.J. Malesa for his
support.
Compeng interests
The author declares that they have no financial or personal
relationship(s) that may have inappropriately influenced
them in writing this article.
Author’s contribuons
T.S. declares that they are the sole author of this research
article.
Ethical consideraons
No human subjects were used as this research was secondary
research. Nevertheless, research ethical factors were
considered when choosing the study materials and sources
that were analysed and examined for this article. Additionally,
no animals, children or other vulnerable individuals
participated in the study.
Funding informaon
This research received no specific grant from any funding
agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Data availability
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data
were created or analysed in this study.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of
the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy
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hp://www.hts.org.za Open Access
or position of any affiliated agency of the author and the
publisher.
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