Durban — Religious scholar and former University of KwaZulu-Natal academic Professor Philippe Denis said he hoped his new book would help open a broader discussion within the church as an institution on power relations in terms of race and gender.
He was speaking in Pietermaritzburg at the launch of the book, The First Dominican Sisters of Natal: At The Crossroads of Race and Gender, which examines how even within the Christian community there was an element of racism at the Newcastle Monastery.
The book launch was organised by the KwaZulu-Natal Christian Council and featured a number of leaders, activists and academics.
The book explores how Christianity – which preaches justice and equality – battled with racial discrimination even before the implementation of apartheid in 1948.
Initially planned to be about 30 pages, Denis told the audience, the volume of incidents of racial discrimination at the beginning of the 20th century when Christianity was taking root in modern day KZN resulted in a book with many more pages.
He told how during the research he had come across records showing that African nuns were made to wear grey tunics rather than the white ones worn by their white counterparts in Newcastle. This form of discrimination was also found in other churches and this demonstrated the realities of the colonial era.
According to Denis, the black nuns suffered from two forms of discrimination: gender and racial discrimination.
“The records show that the sisters ate in a separate dining room and used separate bathrooms while serving in the same church,” he said.
He added that while they had done a fair amount of work in ensuring the spread of the gospel, they had not been recognised, and this was a painful reality that the church had to face up to.
Denis stressed that a conversation within the church and society on what should be done to address and correct some of the challenges facing the country, especially about race and gender, needed to take place.
He noted that church leaders had fallen short when dealing with the challenges facing society.
The book is published by the University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.
Independent on Saturday