Okay, thank you for staying and coming.
My topic is what compelled holiness women
in the 19th and early 20th century to preach?
Classical Reformation literature is dominated by male theologians.
I mean, female theologians in the classical you Reformation literature.
I mean, I don't know any, but maybe that's because I haven't read enough of it.
But they're basically almost unknown.
But as soon as the revivals in America began and the holiness movement took over,
we find all sorts of female preachers that started to preach.
There was opposition to their preaching on many fronts.
So the question is, why did they insist on preaching when there was so much
opposition, even more than we would find today?
This paper answers this question in regards to women preachers in the North
American Holiness movement of the 19th and early 20th century.
These women justified their call to preach
based on three things their understanding of sanctification,
their understanding of ordination, and their understanding of Scripture as well.
They pointed out their success in ministry being proof of their calling.
I'm going to be looking at these four elements in order.
First of all, let's be clear what we mean by holiness women in this paper.
It means women who believed in
sanctification, the defining doctrine of the Wesleyan Holiness movement.
Sanctification is sometimes referred to as
entire sanctification, the second blessing, or the experience of pentecost.
I'm going to use Phoebe Palmer's definition.
Since Phoebe Palmer was one of the most influential leaders in the holiness
movement, she popularized the doctrine of holiness and promoted it to a broad
audience through her prolific writing and preaching.
Her book, The Way of Holiness outlines her theology of holiness, and her
understanding of holiness became standard because of time restraints.
Restraints.
I'm going to skip over the roots of this teaching by Wesley and Fletcher.
There is some debate whether Phoebe Palmer
actually taught sanctification the way Wesley did.
But like Wesley, she taught that entire sanctification is a second, distinct work
of grace in which God cleanses the heart of sin and fills it holy with his love.
Palmer had three steps in teaching sanctification.
They consisted, first of all, in.
First, entirely surrendering yourself to
God and his will, as Romans twelve one and two teaches us to do.
Secondly, claiming sanctification by faith in believing that God will accept the
surrender of one's will to Him, and will then sanctify and finally
testifying and verbally sharing this experience with others.
So this complete surrender, faith and confession are necessary.
Surrender and faith will lead to sanctification, lead to being filled with
the spirit, and testimony is necessary for retaining it.
As more and more women experienced this,
they felt compelled to confess, to speak, and to share what they had experienced.
As has already been noted, the experience
of entire sanctification following one's consecration was understood to be the
equivalence of the experience the apostles had at Pentecost, which was the promise to
the Father given by jesus to his disciples.
So sanctification meant power.
We read in Acts two, verse four, they were
filled with the Holy Ghost, and they began to speak.
As the spirit gave utterance.
So this gift was for sons and daughters,
and it was the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel joel two, verse 28.
The prophecy says, It shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my Spirit
on all flesh your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.
And what does prophesy mean
in the Scriptures, prophesy means to preach, because the Scriptures say,
he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort.
One Corinthians 14 three, and that is nothing else than preaching.
So women that were sanctified often felt a
call to preach, share the Gospel in one way or another, they must.
And since they were daughters who had
received a Spirit, the fulfillment of this gift is that the daughters would preach.
Susan C.
Stanley says the experience of sanctification
emboldened these women to challenge the ideology of the women's fear.
Public ministries were not limited to pulpit preaching.
Some women preached in jails, on trains, in rescue homes, or at camp meetings.
But they rejected the construction of self that society sought to impose upon them.
Once these women had experienced
sanctification, they were willing to do anything that the Lord wanted them to do.
They were able to overcome their fears and do what the Lord willed.
For example, Amanda Smith,
a 19th century African American evangelist, was asked to go to England.
At first, she refused even to pray about it.
It was not until she did some soul searching and realized the reason she
didn't want to go was because she was afraid of the ocean.
Once she realized it was fear of the ocean
that prevented her from going, that was not a reason if the Lord willed it.
And so she ended up going to England
despite the fear, because she wanted to do what God wanted her to do.
She trusted God, who helped her through.
Amanda Smith also went into white
churches, and she was often accepted there.
And when making decisions, it was usual for her to pray in order to find God's
will rather than to do what others advised her to do.
She said, My people often call me white
folks nigger anyway, so I'm in for it, and I don't care.
All I care for is to keep in favor with God and man so much as lies in me.
Eva Grant was a very shy and a frail girl.
She felt a burden for other souls after she was sanctified, even though unlearned
and not knowing much theology, she would go and invite sinners to come to God.
Later, she was invited by a congregation in Kentucky to be their pastor.
But she was a single woman and didn't want
to go alone, so she took another sister with her as her assistant.
The question was no longer what others thought to be appropriate, but what the
Lord wished them to do because they were sanctified and they had experienced
Pentecost, it meant they, the daughters, would prophesy, as Joel predicted.
Maggie Newton VanCott, a revivalist preacher in the 18 hundreds,
contended that if the gift of prophecy was not bestowed on women, then the prophecy
of Joel could not have had its fulfillment because of the understanding of these
holiness women, that they were totally consecrated to God.
Having promised to do whatever he wished
them to do, they would do anything even if it was outside their comfort level.
The second reason is the understanding of ordination.
The second reason these women felt called
to preach was because of their view of ordination.
Many traditional churches ordain bishops or pastors based on priestly authority.
It is this ecclesiastical authority that allows leaders to baptize,
to administer the Lord's supper, and to perform other prescribed functions.
But sanctified women did not look to
priestly authority but to prophetic authority.
This includes ordination.
Julia Shellhammer, for example, was not eligible to be ordained in the Free
Methodist Church because she was already the wife of an ordained minister.
But she claimed that kneeling in the straw at a camp meeting, the Lord Himself came
to her and told her that he had come to ordain her.
The holiness churches make it clear
that although they also ordained pastors or elders, that is only the human
recognition of a person who was first called of God because Jesus said, you have
not chosen me, but I've chosen you and ordained you.
John 15, verse 16.
That preaching is a divine calling that does not rely on priestly authority but
rather on prophetic authority was also confirmed by John Wesley.
Wesley insisted that all of his lay
preachers, including women, had an extraordinary calling.
Even the apostle Paul himself declared that his calling was not of men, neither
by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead.
Galatians one, verse one.
So the bedrock of a set apart ministry for
the revivalists and for the women was simply having a call.
When someone questioned Maggie VanCott if her license allowed her to preach,
she replied she had not received her commission from man.
She had received her commission from God
about four or five years after Jerina Lee had been sanctified.
She describes how she thought that she distinctly heard a voice
and most distinctly understood that it told her to go and preach the Gospel.
When she approached her denomination about
it, she was informed that although some Methodist women preach, they don't have
that custom in the church that she belonged to.
So she was relieved and did not pursue it any further until eight years later.
She described it was renewed afresh in my mind.
It was a fire. Shut up in my bones.
After that, she had a successful preaching
career as the first female preacher of the first African Methodist Episcopal church.
Sadly, even after hearing Mrs.
Jarina Lee preach, and having been convinced that she was called to the
Spirit, bishop Richard Allen still refused to ordain her.
But since she had prophetic ordination, she could no longer be silenced.
Julia Foote had a number of visions in
which she was told to go preach the Gospel.
At first, she resisted.
When she finally gave in, she couldn't be stopped.
In her autobiography, she wrote man's opinion weighed nothing with me, for my
commission was from heaven, and my reward was from the Most High.
There was no holiness advocate that had a
greater influence on holiness women in the 19th century than Phoebe Palmer.
It was already noted that Palmer believed entire sanctification to be the experience
of pentecost, and therefore any woman that had received the second blessing was
filled with the Spirit, and consequently should speak as the Spirit gave utterance.
In her book Promise of the Father, phoebe Palmer, referring to tire sanctification,
writes, it is the ordination which Christ gave his disciples by the reception of
which they are empowered to go forth and bear much fruit.
The fruit she refers to here is not the fruit of the Spirit mentioned in Galatians
522, but rather the number of lost souls saved by converting them to Christ.
She also maintains that Jesus gave women
her commission on the morning of the resurrection, saying, Go tell my brethren,
and Jesus would not be pleased with any interference in this matter.
Elma White insists that all that is necessary to be in true
apostolic succession is to be wholly sanctified.
The third reason these women felt
compelled to preach is their understanding of Scripture.
Women preachers understood the Scripture
to be supporting their call to preach rather than silencing them.
And even if Paul told women to be silent, maria W.
Stewart believed under her circumstances, Paul would not object.
Stewart preached salvation to her African
American people as well as rallying them to oppose slavery.
Here is how.
Based on Scripture, she justifies her right to speak.
She says, what if I am a woman?
Is it not the God of ancient times, the God of these modern times?
And didn't he raise up Deborah to be a mother and judge in Israel?
And didn't Queen Esther save the lives of the Jews and Mary Magdalene?
Didn't she first declare the resurrection of Christ from the dead?
Come, said the woman of Samaria, and see a
man that has told me all things that I ever did.
Is not this to Christ?
Now, Paul declared it with a shame for a woman to speak in public.
Yet our High priest, Jesus himself, did
not condemn a woman for a much more notorious offense than this.
Neither will he condemn me this worthless worm, the bruised reed he will not break,
and the smoking flax he will not quench till he send forth judgment unto victory.
And if St.
Paul knew our wrongs in our privations, I presume he would have no objections to our
pleading in public for our rights, since entire sanctification of the second
blessing was understood to be identical to what happened on the day of Pentecost.
This narrative in Acts starts in Acts one,
verse 15, and ends in Acts two, verse four, where the Holy Spirit fell on the
group of about 120 gathered in the upper room, which included Mary and the woman.
And it says that they began to speak with other tongues as a spirit gave utterance.
And this fulfillment of the prophecy given
by Joel said, it shall come in the last days.
I'll pour out my spirit on all flesh.
And your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men and we will
see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.
And my maid servants and my men's servants.
I will pour out my spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy.
So here's a direct statement that women shall prophesy.
And we've already noted that in the New Testament, prophecy
is defined to be speaking edification and exhortation and comfort to all.
One corinthians 14. Three.
And that is exactly what preaching is.
Now, did women preach or prophesy in the New Testament?
Well, they certainly did.
Philip the Evangelists, according to Acts
21, verse nine, had four daughters virgins, which did prophesy.
In Romans 16 seven, Junia, a woman is listed among the apostles.
Another reason we know that women did prophesy is that Paul gave guidelines for
how a woman who is prophesying should present herself.
In one Corinthians eleven five,
Julia Foot said, when Paul said, help these women who labored with me in the
Gospel, he certainly didn't mean that they only poured out tea.
Holiness woman also understood Jesus himself to endorse their proclamation.
It was a woman at the well that went into the city, into Samaria, and told the
people, Come see a man who told me all things I ever did.
Could this be the christ?
Phoebe Palmer said that Christ was successfully preached to the Samaritans
through the instrumentality of a woman as manifest.
This woman was the first apostle of Christ in Samaria.
It was also women who were last at the
cross and were first witnesses to the resurrection.
It was not a woman that with traitorous kiss betrayed her Savior.
It was not she who denied him with an unholy tongue.
She, while the apostle shrank,
could danger brave, she was last at his cross and earliest at his grave.
These were the women to receive the first
commission ever given to mortals to proclaim the risen Christ.
Not only that, but Jesus himself first
appeared to women and gave them the command go tell my brethren.
Matthew 28, verse ten.
Behold, they were the first heralds of a risen Christ.
Jesus brought equality for women when he told his disciples that they were
to be the witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria.
And to the end of the earth.
It was not only to men, but also to women
that they were empowered by the Holy Spirit to be his witnesses.
Elma White contends that this divine commission is for both sexes.
Holiness women believe that participation in the Gospel is for all.
It does not discriminate.
The following summary is instructive
dual standards for male and female are not part of the Gospel.
Every person must meet the same requirements to be
saved, the same requirements to be baptized, the same requirements to be
sanctified, the same requirements to be healed.
Qualifications for service and leadership are not synonymous.
I'll start that one again.
Qualifications for service and leadership
are synonymous for all spiritual gifts does not come in two listings
one lists for men and one list for women, because it is written in Galatians three,
verse 28 there is neither male nor female for your all one in Christ Jesus and God
is an equal rights employer granting equal renumeration.
He is not a respecter of persons.
It's worthy of note that a soul in the
original language is neither feminine nor masculine.
Now, what about the problematic texts?
How did Holiness Woman react to the three problematic Pauline texts, two of which
seem to exclude women from preaching in churches?
Leanne Starr contends that Paul must
harmonize with Christ in the other prophets.
Therefore the incongruent passages must accord with the other Scriptures.
Also, Paul must himself be consistent
in those passages with his other writings and his own church practice.
BT. Roberts, who supported women preachers,
insisted all Bible passages must align with Galatians Three, verse 28 there is
neither Greek nor Jew, there is neither slave nor free, there's neither male nor
female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Roberts believe that all Scripture must be interpreted in such a manner as to align
with this text, since we hold that Scripture doesn't contradict itself.
How then are first Corinthians 14 Ephesians.
522 to 23 and one Timothy two to be understood.
For example, in One Corinthians 14 34 35,
it says let your women keep silent in the churches, for they aren't permitted to
speak, but they're to be submissive, as the law says, and if they want to learn
something, let them ask their own husbands at home.
This verse could not have meant that women
should not pray or prophesy publicly, because in the same letter three chapters
earlier, in One Corinthians Eleven five, paul gives advice on how they should be
praying and prophesying when they're doing it publicly.
And this verse also is obviously not meant for people that aren't married, because
unmarried women cannot ask their husbands at home.
Obviously, unmarried women are not included in this recommendation.
Now, there's various explanations that were given at the time for women, how they
interpreted this Scripture and all the other Scriptures.
Now, my paper is
quite a bit longer than the 14 pages I've reduced it to, so I can't go into all of
this now, but I can give you my email later on if you're interested.
I can give you the whole paper and you can read it over
the last point I want to make is they also gave reason for justifying their
call to preach through the success that they had.
Now, success in preaching
may not be a strong theological argument, but it was nonetheless very effectively
used as a reason to support the ministry of women.
Phoebe Palmer justifies this as valid by referring to John Wesley.
She says, the conversion of sinners by
preaching of any person, whether male or female, was a strong proof in Mr.
Wesley's judgment of a divine call to the great and important work.
Speaking of Mrs.
Mary Taft, Palmer writes, if the criterion
by which we might judge of a divine call to proclaim salvation
be by the proportion of fruit gathered, then to the commission of Mrs.
Taft is appended the divine signature to a degree preeminently unmistakable.
In reviewing her diary, we are constrained to believe that not one minister in 500
could produce so many seals to their ministry.
Maggie Newton VanCott defended her right to preach by pointing out that God had
blessed her work in the hundreds of souls that had been saved.
At a camp meeting in 1897,
the program committee decided not to have any women
preach in the evening service, but they allowed four male ministers to
speak for five minutes each during the evening service.
Well, Alma White's husband,
who was the last of the four minister, gave most of the five minutes to Alma
White, and instead of speaking for five minutes, she spoke for 50 minutes.
Some were appalled at her audacity, but Alma justified her conduct by the large
number of seekers at the altar after her sermon.
Now, there were also other motives
that we could have mentioned which gave holiness women the drive to preach.
In Whatever these women did, susie Stanley identifies their prime motive to be love.
Love was a central mode of fueling holiness outreach to others.
Holiness women, however, ministered solely because they understood holiness as love,
love for God as well as love for their neighbor.
So, in summary,
this essay examined the causes that laid behind the insistence of so many holiness
women in the late 19th and 20th century that they must preach.
Holiness women justified their call to preach because they understood their
sanctification to mean they should speak as the spirit directed.
They understood true ordination as
prophetic ordination, not priestly ordination.
To them, ordination was a mandate from God to share his word.
Holiness woman understood Scripture as empowering them to preach.
The few verses that seemed to imply otherwise were explained in rational ways
so that they did not conflict with the key Scripture in Galatians three, verse 28.
And finally, holiness women pointed to
their success as proof that they were called of God.
Behind all of these motivations, however, was love.
It was after all their love to God and
their love for humanity that convinced them to share the gospel.
Thank you.