Church Uniforms and the Mothers’ Union of South Africa: A Neo-indigenous and Post-colonial Expression of African Anglican Women’s Christianity

In this paper I will reiterate earlier work where I showed that African women members of the Mothers’ Union (MU) in South Africa forged a neo-indigenous expression of Christianity during the first half of the 20th century. This form of African Anglican Christianity is best expressed through the characteristics of the manyano movement (women’s prayer groups) that meet on Thursday afternoons, which include the wearing of a church uniform, as well as extempore prayer and preaching, and extensive fundraising. The paper will show that these women had to resist the restrictions placed on them by women missionaries and church leadership from England with respect to the church uniforms that had been adapted from manyano groups of other church denominations. Restrictions during the 1950s included a ban on the wearing of the church uniform. Their struggle will be highlighted as well as the spiritual significance of the uniform as identified through narrative based research with elderly women of Vulindlela, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa who lived through this era.

In the modern post-colonial post-apartheid church context, the church uniform carries with it certain ambiguities. It appears that for some members, particularly professional middle-class women who do not attend Thursday meetings, there is now an acceptable dress code for “low” Sundays that does not include the church uniform. Rather their dress code is expressed through the wearing of dresses and head scarves designed in an African design and made with fabric that has the MU emblem printed all over it. As part of the research for this paper, I will explore these ambiguities through interviews with African women clergy, professional middle-class lay women, and the leadership of the MU in the Diocese of Natal.

This case study will show that African Anglican women in South Africa have forged a particular expression of Anglican identity that, despite being shaped by post-colonial modernity and globalization, is unique.