Women and the Exclusionary Practices of the Christ Apostolic Church Prayer Mountains in Selected Yoruba Cities of Southwestern Nigeria

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The reviewed article contains very interesting and valuable material on one of the independent African Churches. The text is well documented, based also on field observations.

While the article provides a great deal of information, it does not achieve the objective stated in the title, which is to present the exclusion of women from certain rituals within the celebrations of this church.

Given the focus on the exclusion of women, it would have been necessary, after presenting the ritual situations, mainly pilgrimages to prayer mountain, to move directly to the exclusion of women and then to discuss the reasons for this exclusion (doctrinal, related to tradition(s), structural, etc.) and to point out counter-arguments. This is because, as it stands, the crux of the article only appears in the last paragraph.

The first paragraph presenting the history of CAC misses the point and, although it contains valuable information, negatively affects the structure of the article.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Greetings

This is to inform you that we (the authors of the above paper) have responded to the issues you raised during your assessment of out paper. The point by point response has been attached

Thanks

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

This is a very interesting subject that fits so well with this issue's special topic!

The paper is very promising and I think it should be published! However, I see three major problems that must be addressed before publication. First, is the weakness of the argument based on the authors' claim, second, the medium-level facility of the English language and style, and third, lack of engagement with ethnographic sources.

The authors interviewed participants who were on the prayer mountain but they didn't include their experiences. Interviewee voices should be inserted more vigorously in the paper as they represent a powerful source material to understand the context of the issue at hand.

From Section 5 to the Conclusion of the paper, I especially noticed problems with the use of English language and style. The entire paper should be reviewed and revised to remove typographical errors, strengthen sentence structures, and grammatical errors.

The title and argument notes a ritual of exclusion in the making of the prayer mountain. ("Finally, we address the question of any antecedent in the Christ Apostolic Church’s doctrinal practice of ritual of exclusion of women on the prayer mountain.") The prayer mountains are a part of powerful ritual but I don't think excluding women from the prayer mountain is a ritual itself. Also, the application of the van Gennep (rites of passage) and Turner's (liminal space) theories of ritual are applied somewhat superficially in lines 244-253. A rite of passage is connected to a transformation, a change from one state to another. This definition is expressed in the authors' statement: "We analyze how ritual performance alters the status of participants on the prayer mountain." If the authors can clearly explain how the change of status in the participants) connects to the exclusion of women from certain practices related to the prayer mountain, then they might be able to deepen the prayer mountains' connection of these theories.

Overall, it seems to me that thoroughly integrating the oral interviews would enrich this paper.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Greetings

This is to inform you that based on your assessment of our paper, we have carried out the detailed corrections and also re-structured the paper to read well. We have also sent the paper to copy editor who helped in correcting our grammars, sentence structures and styles.

We have added more valuable sections to be able to achieve our objectives.

Please find attached the point by point response to the questions and issues you raised.

Thanks

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

In my opinion paper look much better. I suppose you have a huge material to develop this project. Good luck.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We appreciate you for suggesting our paper for acceptance.

Thanks very much

Reviewer 2 Report

1. This revision is an improvement from the first version!
2. The English language and style is improved but multiple, minor issues remain. For example, on page 1, the last sentence in the third paragraph begins with 'We therefore raise question about CAC practice....' 'Question' would flow better as 'questions' and 'CAC' as 'CAC's'. Please review the entire paper again and revise it to remove typographical errors, strengthen sentence structures, and correct grammatical errors.
3. The paper title is misleading, especially the first part 'Ritual of Exclusion.' The main focus of the paper is on the exclusionary practices that the CAC uses to hinder women from full and free participation on the prayer mountains. These exclusionary practices are not 'rituals' or 'ritual practices' or 'ritual restrictions' in and of themselves. They are exclusionary practices based on doctrines, ideologies, beliefs, and traditions from the founder, the Bible, male dominance, and Yoruba culture. The title might be better revised as something like 'Women and the Exclusionary Practices of the Christ Apostolic Church Prayer Mountains in Selected Yoruba Cities of Southwestern Nigeria.' I think you already have everything you need in this paper but your thesis needs to be reframed.
4. The excerpts from oral interviews are excellent! Instead of listing the comments, it might be useful to have the interviews incorporated throughout the article in strategic locations to provide evidence and support.
5. '8. A Silver Living' is disconnected from the rest of the paper. It should be deleted or the oral interviews in this section should be incorporated into other parts of the paper.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments and Suggestions for Authors

2^nd Stage

1. This revision is an improvement from the first version!

Response: We appreciate you very much for this comment

2. The English language and style is improved but multiple, minor issues remain. For example, on page 1, the last sentence in the third paragraph begins with 'We therefore raise question about CAC practice....' 'Question' would flow better as 'questions' and 'CAC' as 'CAC's'. Please review the entire paper again and revise it to remove typographical errors, strengthen sentence structures, and correct grammatical errors.

Response: We noticed that you have helped in editing our papers to improve understanding and enhance readability. We appreciate you for this too. As you have rightly suggested, we have changed “Question” to ‘questions’ and have also added apostrophe s in the front of ‘CAC’ to read “CAC’s”

3. The paper title is misleading, especially the first part 'Ritual of Exclusion.' The main focus of the paper is on the exclusionary practices that the CAC uses to hinder women from full and free participation on the prayer mountains. These exclusionary practices are not 'rituals' or 'ritual practices' or 'ritual restrictions' in and of themselves. They are exclusionary practices based on doctrines, ideologies, beliefs, and traditions from the founder, the Bible, male dominance, and Yoruba culture. The title might be better revised as something like 'Women and the Exclusionary Practices of the Christ Apostolic Church Prayer Mountains in Selected Yoruba Cities of Southwestern Nigeria.' I think you already have everything you need in this paper but your thesis needs to be reframed.

Response: We appreciate the suggestion.  We have adapted the new topic suggestion that will reflect the focus of our paper. Thanks very much.

4. The excerpts from oral interviews are excellent! Instead of listing the comments, it might be useful to have the interviews incorporated throughout the article in strategic locations to provide evidence and support.

Response: We appreciate this good suggestion. We have incorporated the interviews in all appropriate locations throughout the paper.

5. '8. A Silver Living' is disconnected from the rest of the paper. It should be deleted or the oral interviews in this section should be incorporated into other parts of the paper.

Response: We have removed the section and have also incorporated the interviews in this section into the appropriate locations in the paper.

We appreciate your painstaking and thorough review of our paper.

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

General Notes:
(1) The authors did an excellent job of incorporating the oral interviews throughout the text!

(2) See the attached recommended changes.

(3) Please make the following revisions in the attached document. In the document are pasted lines from the manuscript followed by its corresponding line number. Track Changes shows the current line and the recommended change. Please make the recommended changes.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

We want to appreciate you for the great work of review/editing you did. Thanks very much.

This is to inform you that we have incorporated all the suggestions you made. We indicated all that we did through tracking system, after effecting the changes in the body of the manuscript.

Please find the manuscript attached

Thanks very much once again

The authors

Author Response File: Author Response.docx