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Citation: Ambrose, Linda M.. “Such an Unusual Voice: Bernice Gerard and Twentieth Century Canadian 
Pentecostalism.” April 26, 2022, Toronto, Ontario: MPEG-4, 51.25 min.

***** Begin Content ******


Thanks for that great introduction, van. It's an honor to be here and to stand here in front of you. Today at the Sisters of the Spirit Conference. I have some 
presenter jitters about technology, so please bear with me. And I also want to acknowledge thank you for being here in the room. And I know that there are as many 
and more of you joining us by zoom today, so welcome to my Zoomer friends as well. I'm speaking today about the Reverend Bernice Gerard. When I grew up as a teenager 
in the 1970s and 80s, I remember why Bernice Gerard on TV with my dad. My dad. Who had long since abandoned any church involvement, but he called her the lady preacher. 
Turn it up, he would say. I like listening to her. Gerard was often told that she preached like a man. But did she? I would argue she preached like a woman. But like 
a woman with authority. And that was confusing. And intriguing for people. I think the curiosity and the intrigue came because in the 20th century, binary gender 
constructions in society and church cultures led people to expect that men were smart and logical and in charge, and women should be emotive and soft. And nurturing. 
And Gerard's voice defied all those cultural constructs. Because her authority was not borne out of her striving to be like a man. And. She also had no time for church 
cultures that told women that they should adopt some hyper feminine role dictated to them by, oh, I don't know, things that dominated the last quarter of the 20th century 
and evangelical and Pentecostal circles. Things like love and respect. I ever heard of that book wild at heart? Maybe some of the men have heard of that. For ease, 
Gerard rejected those kinds of gendered prescriptions that had seeped into church culture by the end of the 20th century. And in rejecting all that, her voice was so 
unusual. Bernice Gerard lived from 1923 to 2008 and she was a force. She was well known as a Vancouver Pentecostal pastor, but she was also a politician, a university 
chaplain and a media personality. And my current project which is just wrapping up. Is writing an academic biography of her life? I'm basing that book on her own life 
writing, including her autobiographies. She wrote it more than once, 2 versions. But also her sermon notes, her correspondence and her vast personal archives. I am a 
historian and I study gender. Gerard's life provides me with a very complex case of how one individual negotiated with the gendered prescriptions that she encountered. 
My book is based on an exploration of Gerard's interior world. I've often asked myself what was she thinking. Her interior world and her evolving faith because it did 
evolve. And that evolution of her faith often found her in conflict. Conflict with her own denominational authorities, conflict with fellow believers in the wider 
evangelical and ecumenical world. And also in conflict with her secular associates. At the same time, Gerrard was widely respected by her campus colleagues, her 
brothers and sisters in Christ. And her political peers. People respected her for her determination and her influence, even when they didn't always share her views. 
The Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada with which Bernice was associated. The POC holds up her memory as a model of ministry to be revered. But I will argue in this 
paper this afternoon that while Gerard shared some characteristics that were typical of other Pentecostal women in ministry, there are multiple ways in which she was 
not typical at all. And I suggest that Bernice Gerrard was a product of her times, whose model? Just might not be transferable across time. I also suggest that her 
ministry model was provocative. And if her voice could be heard in the current debates in church circles about gender, sexuality, gender and leadership. It's debatable 
whether her position on these questions would actually be welcomed by Canadian Pentecostals today. She was called the Lady baritone, and I hope to be able to demonstrate 
to you just why. I'm so happy. So the deepest voice that you hear in that recording, and if we can stop the recording, there is that oh good, not up to me, good. The 
deepest voice you heard there was Bernice Gerrard, the lady baritone. After she concluded her education to become a teacher, Bernice Gerard met the McCall Sisters in 
Rosslyn, BC, during World War Two, where she was placed as a teacher. And the three of them together formed a ministry trio. The girls were warned that there would be 
limits to their ministry reach, but Gerard was delighted to recount, after traveling for 15 years internationally with Gene and Velma McCall, that they're All Girl Act. 
Her words, not mine, was not actually a liability after all. On the contrary, they're unusual. Combination of musical and oratory skill opened a lot of doors for them. 
Across Europe, into the Holy Land, through South America and back to North America. Back and forth across that continent. Up and down across the border. Many, many 
times they sang, they entertained, and they preached the word. And as the right hand side of this slide shows, they also marketed, they sold their records. And they 
sold books, and they sold postcards they had a lot of hitch to sell. In part, it's how they financed their itinerant evangelism operation. So Reese Gerard she then a 
voiced for women in ministry. She is sometimes held up to be that. Preaching was a controversial practice for women in post War Canada. Pentecostals take pride in 
their heritage as egalitarians, pointing to the prophecies as the other traditions represented here today do as well. Prophecies in the book of Joel who predicted 
that in the last days your sons and daughters will prophecy Pentecostals were convinced that they were the fulfillment of that. Prophecy and the prophecy, of course, 
was reinforced in the book of Acts. The day the spirit fell. But as Canadian Pentecostal women today could tell you, debates about women's place in the pulpits are 
far from settled. Indeed, the historical record offers evidence of undeniable regression in that regard. Today, the POC admits that within their denomination, the 
number of women who serve as lead pastors hovers stubbornly around a very low number, like maybe 5, maybe 6% of all lead pastors are women. And as recently as the 
1990s, and then again just a few years ago, the national denomination firmly declared women are welcome, welcome in all levels of church leadership and governance. 
If you have to keep saying that, though, it makes me wonder. And as some of us in this room could testify, that principled women are welcome. Is belied by a very 
chilly climate. In many circles, and particularly in my experience in church boardrooms. Despite, or maybe because of those 21st century realities, women like Bernice 
Gerrard are sometimes held up as models to be emulated. But as I will demonstrate, she was not typical. And I'm convinced. That districts full of Bernice Gerards? Whoa. 
They would prove to be very difficult to manage, very difficult for male gatekeepers, and I think even pretty difficult for some of their sanctified traditional sisters 
to accept as well. It was typical for Pentecostal women to be dispatched. As it was for Wesleyans, as it was for Salvation Army women to be dispatched as travelling 
evangelists, and this photograph is a wonderful archival source that captures the scale and appeal of tent meetings, Pentecostal tent meetings. Meetings would be 
booked with a firm starting date, usually spanning over several days, however, if the meetings were particularly successful, if the spirit. Well. Well then it was 
very common for the dates to be expanded for a longer run. The meetings would include all kinds of components, musical performances, in this case by the McCall 
Gerard Trio, Congregational, singing, testimony, time and preaching. And of course, it was typical for a tent meeting of Pentecostals to include the practice of 
exuberant embodied worship. A central feature was time at the altar when people would come forward for prayer. Success was measured in reports of conversion, yes, 
but especially in the Pentecostal experience. After the laying on of hands that might result in speaking in tongues and reports of physical healing. Bernice Gerard 
herself experienced a physical healing at a camp meeting. Her eyesight improved so much that. For many years of her life, she didn't even need eyeglasses anymore. 
This photo is of a McCall Gerard Trio at a tent meeting in Scranton, PA in 1952. By this time, the women, the McCall Gerard women, were traveling under the auspices 
of the Assemblies of God, the largest classical Pentecostal denomination in the United States. The McCall Gerard Trio is just one example of many among Pentecostal 
women who traveled as evangelists, musicians, and preachers. Most commonly, women traveled in pairs, 2 by two, partly to. Feature their complementary gifts. One might 
be the musical feature, the other the more gifted preacher. But no doubt they travelled in pairs, partly for their own safety as well, and, of course, to economize. 
Examples of famous Canadian Pentecostal preaching pairs abound. The 4C sisters from Newfoundland, the Davis Sisters in New Brunswick, the argue sisters in Winnipeg, 
to name just a few Canadian examples. And of course, the best known of all the Canadian examples would be none other than sister Amy, Amy Semple McPherson, who 
famously drove her car herself, accompanied by her mother. So that's why I can count her as a pair. She drove that car across North America and is thought to be 
the first woman ever to complete that motor vehicle travel. She did it accompanied by her mum and her kids. Bruce Gerard travelled with the McCall Sisters from 
1945 to 1958. When Gene McCall accepted a marriage proposal, well, Bernice continued. With Velma as her partner and this photograph shows the very latest in 
Pentecostal tent meeting technology. That structure is called the cloud tent, and it was inflatable. Easier for the women to erect it. And also in the picture you 
see the recreational vehicle where Velma and Bernice live together and their car. I think it's a Chevy. What was not typical about Bernice and Velma? They weren't 
sisters biologically, and their partnership endured. For the whole, their whole lives, the rest of their lives, long after the travel had ended, they literally 
remained partners until death did them part. Bernice and Velma shared a church. Together, they Co pastored a Vancouver church called the Fraser View. And after V
elma's husband died, Bernice and she continued their shared ministry, remaining partners until the end. The end for Velma in 2007, for Bernice in 2008. They were 
partners before Velma got married, during the time that Velma was married, and after the time that Velma was had become a widow. And in my book, I go there, I 
speculate about the nature of their relationship. Please ask me about that later. When Pentecostal women like Gerard entered into formal ministry, they needed the 
endorsement of male gatekeepers. As the McCall Gerard Trio soon learned, they could not succeed as freelancers. Not without their orthodoxy being questioned. Now, it 
was typical, as I've said, for these women to need the endorsement of male gatekeepers. But in this particular case, here's why. The McCall Sisters were from Saskatchewan,
 and it was the 1940s, and Pentecostals among us know that in the 1940s. There was a big heresy. At least it was regarded as heresy by some Pentecostals called Oneness 
Pentecostalism, and that's the tradition that the McCall sisters hailed from in Saskatchewan. Sometimes it's called the Jesus only movement, so that big debate about 
Trinitarianism was a liability. But I have other explanations for why I think these women encountered resistance on the road. I think it's because they were too good 
at what they did. I think the success they enjoyed posed a threat of competition, tent meeting offerings. Directed to these women meant those same dollars. Were not. 
They were missing from the collection plates of local pastors. And rumors of heresy spread, and it drove the women to embrace an organizational culture and seek approval 
from authorities so they would have a kind of brand recognition. Of a well known denomination that could open doors and provide networks for their continued bookings 
and for that very reason. 1 Canadian Pentecostal Authority, very well known in Southern Ontario, the Reverend JH Blair. He vouched for the McCall Gerard Trio and he 
wrote them letters of introduction. Don't worry about them, he said. They are Orthodox, solid Bible teachers and great musicians. They're a delight. They will not 
challenge your authority. Faster. It's OK have them to your church or your community. Reverend JH Blair also mentored these women and he advised them you would be 
very wise, he said, to seek a formal ordination. You should do it through the Assemblies of God. In the US they're dating women, and pictured here is Bernice Gerard, 
certificate of ordination for the year 194849. That's not typical. Canadian POC did not ordain women before the 1980s. But perhaps more atypical than that. Is that? 
Gerard continued. To speak up at general conferences of the POC for the next 4 decades, she was speaking up saying she was not pleased. She was not pleased because 
of the delay. What is taking the POC so long to recognize God's gifts in women's lives? And when she spoke up, she faced resistance. She was heckled from the conference 
floor. She stood. Approached the microphone to speak her position about the ordination of women and hecklers, other delegates, other clergy, called out. Bernice, you 
need a man. No one made any move to silence those hecklers. Bernice faced all kinds of heckling. It was familiar to her. But maybe even more atypical is that when 
Bernice Gerard argued that women should be fully ordained and enter fully into the ministry, baptizing, marrying, burying, you know, offering the sacraments. When 
she said that when she argued for it, she actually used feminist rhetoric. To do so. That might surprise you, but Bernice was convinced Jesus was a feminist, too. 
Ask me about that later. Gerard used her unusual voice as a radio host to reach a very wide audience in British Columbia and up the Pacific Northwest and into the 
northwestern U.S. states. In 1973, an adoring listener wrote to her to explain why he felt so drawn to her programming quote. To be a radio open liner takes an 
ability that is rare, and knowledge far more than a professor needs very few men. Can do it well. For a lady to be so good at it is a far greater rarity, and in 
this sense. Bernice, you have double appeal. The listener continued his letter, saying, quote, you bring something desperately needed by mankind, the power of a 
fully developed female mind. And it's balance and it's invigoration and your personality, while you have courage and wisdom and experience as reflected in your voice. 
Your steadfastness and your dedication. But it is the power of your developed mind that seems to win. End Quote. By the 1970s, Gerard's broadcast had grown from a 
5 minute segment called ask the chaplain to more than four hours every Sunday of live radio and a rebranded broadcast called Sunday Line that featured invited guests. 
And what a variety of guests. She invited hippies. She invited recovered addicts. She invited politicians, guest preachers, ex convicts. It was a lively show. 
Gerard's demeanor with all those guests and listeners was respectful and compassionate, but firm. And unwavering in her convictions that every human need, no matter 
what, it was an addiction. Psychological problems. Every human need a fixation with sex. Lots of her listeners called to talk about sex. Bernice was convinced that 
every human need was evidence of a spiritual void that needed to be filled, and she knew how to fill it. There is joy in serving Jesus, she said. And the Holy Spirit 
will fill your longings. Unlike male radio preachers that we know quite a bit about from Canadian history, Gerard did not preach Hellfire, brimstone, or some new 
economic. Scheme like the Social Credit preachers, she established intimate pastoral relations with her listeners, who poured out their hearts and their secrets to her, 
sometimes live on air, but also in written correspondence. When listeners wrote to Gerard, they bared their souls. Several examples of those intimate exchanges are 
preserved in her personal archives, including those who told her that her voice on the radio had saved them from suicidal ideations. That she was the only constant 
friend they had during time served in prison. Others wrote to her when they were missing, hearing her on the radio because their work had taken them to remote resource 
camps in northern BC and they couldn't get the broadcast signal up there. One particularly heartbreaking letter discloses a secret. A big secret. A secret about a 
back alley abortion. The woman who wrote disclosed to Bernice that she had an abortion on her honeymoon. Because she and her fiance knew there was a baby coming, 
and it wasn't going to be OK for that baby to arrive too soon after the wedding. That was taboo. Taboo for their strict parents, taboo in their conservative church 
family culture as well. And Bernice was the first person she and her husband had ever told about that. Listeners wrote to challenge Bernice on what they said were 
overly simplistic positions she took as well. One was intrigued by Gerard's opposition to a new gay bar that was opening in Vancouver, and the writer wrote to say 
she agreed drinking and loose sexual morays were a very bad combination. Good job, Bernice, for speaking out. But the writer cautioned Gerard not to condemn the entire 
queer community. God loves everyone, the writer affirmed. And the writer knew it first hand because she was a Christian lesbian. A Christian lesbian, and she told 
Bernice that's not an oxymoron. And I'm content. And I'm confident because I know how God made me, so Bernice, back off a little bit on your black and white positions, 
the writer said. Another Christian who had found some had adopted some eastern religious practices, including Transcendental Meditation, told Gerard that she needed 
to be more open minded about other religions. You should try it, he said. It's really improved my devotional life and I recommend it to you. So when her listeners 
wrote to tell her that she was not typical because of her gender and her on air style, that fostered these intimate, pastoral relationships of trust. Well, she wasn't 
typical with her appeal to other listeners, either. Listeners from the campus campuses of public universities. Gerard was exposed to other faiths on campus, and she 
chose her own courses of study to learn more about other belief systems. In fact, it was her campus colleagues who first led her to an appreciation of ecumenism. 
Gerard returned to UBC as a mature student in 1958 after the trio broke up when First Gene and then a few years later, Velma had accepted marriage proposals. Bernie 
said cut her own education a bit short because in World War Two there was a teacher shortage. And it meant that Bernice was dispatched to become a teacher in Roslyn, BC, 
before she had actually finished all of her degree. So now she decided. Well, I guess I'll go back and finish my BA. At the UBC she finished that, and then she stayed 
and she did a Masters of Arts in English literature. Bernice approached the campus with some trepidation. As many evangelicals do, she was well aware that the influence 
of secular professors could challenge her faith, stealing herself. To face the ridicule of being labeled as an anti intellectual, Gerard came to embrace campus life 
in every regard. She loved it all. After several weeks of study, she mustered the courage to respectfully point out to a particularly popular and witty philosophy 
professor that his logic. Was faulty when he dismissed the existence of God as irrational. Now Pentecostals and somebody else already said this earlier today in a 
session where I was kind of costals often get associated with anti intellectualism. Well, not produce. She was not typical because she became a campus insider. And 
getting a graduate degree, not in theology, but in humanities in English literature. That was unusual, atypical. She enjoyed the classes. She entered fully into the 
delight and privilege that student life offered her, without slipping into a tone of arrogance or sarcastic disrespect for secular scholarship. That a more immature 
student might naively adopt her graduate thesis on Milton's Paradise Lost was on the question of whether or not. Milton was orthodox. And she concluded, despite what 
other Christian theologians had declared. Milton is Orthodox, she said. Well, OK, maybe not on every fine point, but but what she found in Milton was a model. A model 
for creatively communicating the good news of the gospel to any and all who would receive it by any means. Gerard was not a systematic theologian. She was a literature 
scholar, and she worked hard, really hard, and seriously to understand the intellectual culture in which she was immersed. She was convinced, after all, that God had 
called her to that campus. Both campuses, actually. Gerard embraced this campus life. She loved the classes. She loved her fellow students. And when she observed that 
other Christian churches all had chaplains on campus, she asked, why doesn't the POC have one? She was surprised and delighted when the POC said right back at you, 
Bernice, why don't you become a chaplain? And so she did. Bernice became a chaplain, the first Pentecostal chaplain at a public university in Canada. Now to the 
Newfoundlanders on this screen and in the room. I know you could debate that, right, because Munn has long had Pentecostal chaplains, but let's check the record. 
Certainly with the P AOC, there's no debating that Bernice was the first she served as campus Champus chaplain at UBC from 1963 to 1985. That's a really long run, 
and she also served at Simon Fraser University from its founding in 1965 for 20 years, Simon Fraser the most radical campus in the entire country. In her role as 
chaplain, she sat on university Senate committees, and in 1972, she was the first woman ever to preside over a UBC convocation ceremony. So here she is, as this 
photograph underlines a female chaplain. That's kind of rare, not really typical, and she took the role very seriously. She was. She became a student of student 
culture. She took the role seriously. She read widely about campus ministry strategy. She thought deeply about sociological studies of young adults. She conducted 
campus surveys to tap into the existential realities of her students, lives, her findings. It's all there in her archive, and these are of interest in the ongoing 
scholarship about faith and your religion, especially in the Pacific Northwest that is emerging. These were tumultuous decades of social change. Gerard worked 
closely with her own church, but she also began. So, OK, it's not typical for Pentecostal to have chaplains #1 #2. It's not typical for them to choose a woman, 
and her university chaplaincy coincided very directly with her very early embrace of the charismatic movement. She did work with the POC, but she also embraced 
ecumenical initiatives, and she learned to appreciate the historic churches and their traditions. But perhaps the biggest, biggest one of all is that she embraced 
the charismatic movement when the POC was not ready to do so. Bernice worked with Catholics. That was a big no no for the Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada and other 
evangelicals in this. Her association with Catholics took her to all kinds of places like this. Appreciating charismatic experiences was a process for Gerard. She was 
cautious and curious when she first learned the spirit might be moving among the historic denominations. But in short order, and after she attended one of the earliest 
gatherings of charismatics at Notre Dame University, she came to embrace the reported experiences as a genuine move of the spirit. Someone who was at one of these 
charismatic gatherings wrote to her national Superintendent of the POC and said congratulations on, you know, appointing such an intelligent and well spoken woman to 
represent you at these gatherings. And the national Superintendent, Roback said Bernice is an exceptional individual. That's true. We did not appoint her. We don't 
work with Catholics. That's in the record, too. Check out the POC archives. This appreciation that she gained for and for Roman Catholics and for cooperating with 
them meant she was sometimes at odds with her own denominational authorities. But she was convinced, no, God is moving and I'm there. Wherever the spirit's moving, 
that's where I'm going. So one cause that some Pentecostals, not all, some Pentecostals and many evangelicals could embrace and share with their Catholic siblings was 
activism around anti abortion. So here she is. Isn't that a lovely picture? And she's at an abortion protest. As secular feminists worked hard to push for greater 
access to abortion as a main pillar of the second wave women's movement, my body, my choice. That's where that phrase originally came from, by the way, not where 
you've heard it recently. But that was a main pillar of the second wave women's movement. And many conservative Christians doubled down in their opposition to all 
kinds of liberalization trends that were happening in Canadian society with Prime Minister Trudeau won. And while the so-called pro-life movement began by asserting 
that life begins at conception, the movement turned to focus on the rights of the unborn. That wasn't Gerard's focus. Her position on abortion was more complicated 
and more nuanced. And her position on abortion? Was based on a personal story. So yes, it was typical for some to come and begin to cooperate across ecumenical lines, 
but no, it was not typical for the POC to cooperate with Catholics, and it was not typical. Don't miss the second part of that last line. For Pentecostals to argue 
from personal stories, it's not that Bernie Gerard had ever had an abortion. But it was rather that her own disabled birth mother did not have one. George's birth 
mother, when she finally found her a little later in life. She learned was a long term patient in a mental health facility in British Columbia, and Gerard appreciated 
that abortion had not been forced upon her mother. Not just because, as she countered some of her critics, right, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't know the difference. 
No, that's not my argument. My argument is, she said I'm happy that abortion was not forced on a woman like my mother because abortion isn't always about women's rights. 
Sometimes it's about eugenics and I can't go for that. That was Gerard's position on abortion. Well, OK, protesting abortion is one thing. And not all Pentecostals 
even agreed on that. So ask me about that later. But actually becoming political, like, I mean, becoming a politician. That was a whole other level. And while 
evangelicals in this. Were organizing themselves to lobby governments, the POC was doing it through something they created called the Social Concerns Committee and 
the fledgling Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, the EFC that tindell's very own Brian Stiller was a leader of. By the way, when I interviewed Brian Stiller for my book, 
he said Bernice mentored me. She showed me how to do it. Do what I asked how to lead an organization, how to create the mailing list, how to be systematic for donors, 
how to organize events. Brian Stiller has huge regard for Bernice Gerard. But Bernice Gerard took the bold step to become a politician. Her supporters encouraged her 
to run for the Vancouver City Council because they recognized, Ohh, that voice. She would be such an effective voice of conservative views in a very progressive city. 
And so she ran. And she won. And she served as an Alderman in Vancouver from 1977 to 1981. Not a typical Pentecostal. Pentecostals don't usually do that well. Political 
cartoonists had a heyday, as you can see from the screen, they found her so easy to caricature, they mocked her opposition to all kinds of causes, including the time 
she famously walked on a nude beach in Vancouver. To protest that. And here she wasn't protesting public nudity. She was protesting that the nude community clothing 
optional community felt they had the right to every beach in Vancouver. And she said, no, this is your beach and these are the boundaries. Don't take license. 
Closer examination of the archival record in the Vancouver city of the City of Vancouver Archives, where I've been on this issue, reveals that. Bernice Gerard was 
actually quite moderate on a number of issues, but of course nuance is not what political cartoonists are looking for, and that gets lost in that visual record. 
Gerard Rachael for entering politics sounds an awful lot like Walter Bruggeman. And his classic book The Prophetic imagination. The thing is, though, Bergman wrote 
that book in 1978, right in this. But Bernice had arrived at her convictions about being in politics in 1973, five years before that book came out, Bernice Gerard 
preached a sermon series at her own church in Vancouver. And she actually says, I preached myself into politics. While she was preaching that series, the Holy Spirit 
convicted her that she was to become involved in public life. She was convicted. She said that this was her calling. To put concrete action to her prophetic gifting. 
What was the sermon series about, you might ask? Moses, the greatest prophet of them all, and just like Moses had stood up to Pharaoh. That's what Bernice Girard
intended to do. So, not typical. To explain public engagement as an extension of your prophetic calling you you start doing that in the City Council chambers, you're 
going to be misunderstood. Here she is protesting in 1981. Do we have audio on this one? OK, maybe we don't. Because it is the first ******** **** film to run in a 
commercial theater in Vancouver, it's our chance to ask the government why they don't keep the law. We are addressing the attorney general in particular. We are also 
getting to our political representatives at the provincial level as well as. Our Crown Council and those that have the involvement with the law, we're claiming that 
******** *********** dumped on us. By God. Bob Guccione, the fellow with the Penthouse magazine and his millions. It's something Vancouver doesn't need. We have 
community standards. So that's Bernice Gerard. In 1981 in downtown Vancouver, she's protesting against a film that was screening called Caligula. She was protesting 
publicly, as the clip says. And if you want to hear more of that's on YouTube, just Google for news. Gerard Caligula up it comes. She was protesting that public 
entertainment should violate community standards, and that is the actual language from the legislation. Community standards of decency. Her voice on that occasion 
was angry. She was outraged. This was the Prophet speaking out. Now, it was typical for some conservative Christians to object to the changing social and sexual 
mores in Canadian society during the Trudeau years. 1968 to 79 and then his big comeback 1980 to 84. But it was not typical. For Pentecostals. To speak about and act 
upon their own testimonies of abuse. This is Bernice Gerrard at the age of 13. Gerard realized that some of her fellow believers did not understand her outspoken ways. 
They told her she was making all conservatives look ridiculous, ridiculously out of step with the changing social morays of 1980s Vancouver. Calmed down, hush up Bernice. 
They were shocked when she revealed to them. Yeah, she said. I went to the film, I watched the whole thing. I did it so I could speak with authority about the disgusting 
content. Just like Moses, lots of her followers did not understand. So it's the angry Prophet, is it? After several years in her archives, I actually hear something 
else in that outraged voice. I do hear the prophet. When she turned 65 years of age, though, Gerard wrote her autobiography for the second time, and this time she spoke 
about the sexual abuse that she had endured as a child. She revealed that at the age of 65, she was still experiencing night terrors. About her adoptive father's assaults.
 So when Gerard spoke in anger about sexual violence against women. She spoke from experience, I'm sorry to say, childhood experience. And while the political 
cartoonist looked at her and saw comical hyper moralist from born in the wrong century, this biographer looks at these two faces. And what I see and what I hear, 
I hear the outrage of an abuse survivor. When she spoke on that sidewalk to protest pornographic entertainment, she spoke. With the voice she first found at the 
age of 13, when she didn't sound so prophetic or courageous or loud. But at the age of 13, she revealed her terrible secret to a school teacher and a preacher woman. 
Who acted swiftly to take her out of that adoptive home and into the care of the Child Protection Agency. Bernice grew up in foster care. And let me tell you, 
Bernice knew first hand all about hashtag. Me too. Among Canadian Pentecostals, Bernice Girard was an unusual voice. Yes, she was a lady baritone, and yes, she was a 
powerful preacher. But that's not all. In the year 2000, the Vancouver Sun named her as the most significant spiritual influencer of the 20th century in British 
Columbia. Now, to get a title like that, you can't be typical. She was atypical. She was ordained in the 1940s, and four decades later she was still speaking up to 
challenge the patriarchal culture of her denomination that denied women's ordination and governance roles. Oh, and by the way, she was the lifelong partner of 
another woman. In ministry and in life. That's not typical. She made her arguments about women's ordination using feminist rhetoric. Jesus was a feminist. That's 
what she said. That's not typical. She hosted a very popular radio open line show. She engaged with listeners with compassion and intelligence. She was a campus 
insider. She challenged faulty logic among professors. She earned a graduate degree defending Milton as Orthodox. And inspiring as a model of ministry, she served 
as a campus chaplain among her male peers from the historic denominations. And that led her to embrace a humanism. And to be a very early adopter of the charismatic 
movement. That's not typical. She joined Catholic colleagues. That's not typical. She prayed with them every week. She protested abortion with them. She spoke out on 
behalf of women. And she expressed it as opposition to women and sexual violence because she was an abuse survivor. Maybe that's more typical than I'd like to admit. 
So if Bernice Gerard is a good model for women in ministry, is she a good model for 21st century Pentecostal women? Well, I'll say to the women in the room and on 
zoom it should you decide to emulate her. Get ready. Brace yourself. There will be consequences. Consequences for invoking a Gerard Esque voice. Your nostalgic 
members longing for a return of the good old days of 10th meeting revivals might not understand you, your governance gatekeepers who remind you of how it's always 
been done around here. Might seek to put you in your place. And even leaders who think they are defenders of women in leadership might not recognize what it is you're 
proposing, exactly. But maybe she does have something to say. Maybe, maybe if we could put away some of the tired debates about gender and leadership, about 
theological puzzles and angels dancing on the heads of pins, and if we could set aside some invented moral panics, maybe voices like gerards could provide traction. 
And some new ministry models. She wasn't very typical, but she was very effective. She was not anti intellectual. And there was no man standing by her side. 
She wasn't in a heteronormative relationship. He had no time for liberalism, literalism, literalism weaponized to reinforce the patriarchy or even to support 
complementarianism. She didn't. She was deeply moved by abused women because she understood she had survived abuse too. So I will say in closing, post pandemic 
leaders who sincerely wish to hear Pentecostal women's voices from the past. Need to move on beyond nostalgia and make way for some complicated and difficult stories?
 Imagine. Claiming to welcome women into leadership, but then putting limits on their gifts. Claiming to welcome women in governance and then blocking them. 
Blocking their ministry careers. Or here's one for the pandemic times, claiming to want to hear women but never turning off the mute button. That's a recipe for 
cognitive dissonance, my friends, and it's a far more problematic situation than something as confusing as a lady baritone. Thank you.


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