Faith & Suffrage
Celebrating women's suffrage can be a great way to inspire our communities to get out and vote in this year's elections. Below you'll find great resources including:
-
Faith & Suffrage: A Bible Study that can be used in small groups or corps
-
Votes for Women: A Brief and Fascinating History
-
Votes for Women - A Play: Bring the story of suffrage to life with this play - you can simply read your parts and it takes very little rehearsal
-
Super Easy Tissue Paper Carnation: The white carnation is the symbol of Suffrage, and our 'how to' video shows how kids or adults can enjoy this easy craft.
-
Suffrage Colouring Pages
Did you know that the term ‘suffrage’ has two meanings? Intercessory prayer and the right to vote. But what do these two things have in common?
The root word is suffragium, which literally means a ‘voting tablet’. By the Fourth Century, the term suffrage was also being used to describe petitioning prayer, or ‘casting a ballot’ before God. In this way, the very concept of being able to vote - being able to have a voice - has deep spiritual connections. God has given each one of us the right to cast our petition before him. In the same way, we are called to give each person the right to petition for themselves and have a say over their own lives.
Many of us know the name of Kate Sheppard, who led arguably the greatest justice movement ever birthed in Aotearoa: fighting for the right of women to vote. On September 1893, New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world to grant women the vote. This landmark victory rippled out to every corner of the earth, as 'women took the matter up'.
Kate is one of our great national heroes - she is even on our $10 note! But what many of us don't know is that she was guided by her deep sense of faith and justice. Many of her most famous writings were inspired by words found in the Bible. So we have put together Faith & Suffrage: A Bible Study, to guide us through the spiritual connections between Suffrage and faith. We'll be inspired to reframe Suffrage as a godly movement towards justice, and to look within ourselves as we seek to join the tide of justice today.
We've also created 'Votes for Women: A brief & fascinating history' that can be shared throughout centres and corps - including how wāhine toa fought their own suffrage campaign, and how other nations in our Territory have been affected by Suffrage.
We are all equal in the eyes of God. May we suffrage, or petition, on behalf of women still fighting to be seen as equal in the eyes of the law.
"Women learn forever learn, forward, forever forward ... Women, take the matter up!" Kate Sheppard
The white camelia is the symbol of suffrage. These super easy tissue paper camelias are a great craft to do at kids' church (or for adults - don't put us in a box!)
