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Gender and Pentecostal Revivalism
Making a Female Ministry in the Early Twentieth Century
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This innovative volume provides an interdisciplinary, theoretically innovative answer to an enduring question for Pentecostal/charismatic Christianities: how do women lead churches? This study fills this lacuna by examining the leadership and legacy of two architects of the Pentecostal movement - Maria Woodworth-Etter and Aimee Semple McPherson.
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Yes, you can access Gender and Pentecostal Revivalism by Leah Payne in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Sociology of Religion. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
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1
âTruly Manlyâ: The Ideal American Minister
This chapter explores the gendered nature of the ideal American minister in the 1890sâ1920s.1 Like all else at the turn of the twentieth century, ideals of Christian ministry were informed by regnant notions of what women and men ought to be. Chapter 1 argues that the institution of the ministry was gendered male during the 1890sâ1920s according to the eraâs standards of masculinity. Revivalists in particular expressed this masculinity through rhetoric and displays of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century manliness. Strategies that female revivalists employed to lead in an institution that was ideally masculine had limited success.
That the minister was gendered male in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century American life is hardly a surprise. It is an office that, from its inception, has been considered male.2 Female ministers throughout the formation of the Christian tradition were members of a very small, usually derided, and often persecuted group.3 But, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many advocates for female ministers saw in the eraâs progressive spirit an opportunity for change.4 In this age of first-wave feminism,5 late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century feminist activists Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and their colleagues encouraged women to enter institutions of higher learning at greater rates than ever before.6 Once they graduated, these women entered into professional life at unprecedented rates and began careers in traditionally male vocations such as the law, medicine, and the academy.7 They also created new so-called female professions such as social work and public health nursing.8 In addition, women of the era mobilized to effect change in many aspects of American public life: health care and welfare reform, the temperance movement, and suffrage.9
This shift in the place and presence of women in nonecclesial professions put pressure on the countryâs oldest institution to follow suit.10 Many denominations responded to progressive trends by changing their policies on female ministers. For example, between 1890 and 1930, the Methodist Episcopal Church, the African American Episcopal Zion Church, the Church of the Nazarene, the Mennonite Church, and many others opened ordination to women.11 Thus, the number of denominations giving women access to ordination in the 1890s and 1920s was unprecedented.
Proponents of female ministers expressed optimism in light of their accomplishments. âIn five or ten years,â said Methodist Rev. M. Madeline Southard, âall denominations will grant ecclesiastical equality to women.â12 Southardâs prediction proved to be optimistic. In spite of the influx of women into the profession, for Protestants from fundamentalism to the mainline, the ministry, in its most ideal form, remained male.13
The trend toward female ministers was followed by swift and intense backlash against female ministers and their supporters. The fundamentalists, a group born (in part) out of frustration with shifting gender roles in the nineteenth century, produced some of the best-documented and most virulent responses to female ministers.14 Fundamentalists were opposed to women in church leadership of any sort,15 and they peppered their rhetoric with accusations of female theological shallowness and moral feebleness.16 âWoman,â wrote fundamentalist H. B. Taylor, âis too easily beguiled to be a leader.â17 Whereas women ministers were depicted as too weak and gullible for the ministry, fundamentalists portrayed men as the natural defenders of orthodoxy and the hope for the future of American Christianity.18
Fundamentalists provided some of the more extreme instances of retaliation, but they were not alone in their disapproval of female ministers. Evangelical and mainline Protestants alike were uncomfortable with the idea of women entering the ministry.19 Protestants in denominations with both permissive and restrictive policies regarding female ministers strongly preferred male ministers.20 For example, well-known progressive ministers and theologians Walter Rauschenbush and Harry Fosdick promoted male ministers as the ideal form of the pastorate.21 Christian-themed novels such as Charles Monroe Sheldonâs In His Steps regularly gendered the nature of the ministry by reiterating the importance of a Christian homeâwherein men were the public figures who spread the manly good news to the world, and women took care of religious education for children in the domicile.22
Some revivalists in the 1890sâ1920s had a long history of empowering women to teach, preach, testify, and prophesy publicly, but that did not exempt them from preferring men in the office of the ministry.23 Even individuals and groups who heartily affirmed female access to the pulpit often expressed ambivalence toward women ministers.24 Famed turn-of-the-century revivalist A. B. Simpson, who allowed for female pastors, encouraged male ministers to lead followers âinto all the fullness of the mature manhood of Christ.â25 In 1915, Billy Sunday aggressively called for more men to lead the church in its mission. âWe need men,â he wrote, âmen that will fight.â26
Thus, even as women entered professional ministry in increasingly greater numbers, most American Protestants, and revivalists in particular, called for male ministers. Not just any male, however, would do. Americans had a specific kind of man in mind. They wanted a minister who was gendered according to 1890s and 1920s standards of manliness.
Making Manly Men
There were many qualities that made a manly late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century man. First and foremost, the manly man was gendered by what he did not possess: effeminacy.27 Effeminacy, âhaving the qualities of a woman; womanish; soft and delicate in an unmanly degree; destitute of manly qualities,â28 was the result of a man taking on womanly behaviors and sensibilities. As such, it was a condition that could only afflict men. âEffeminacy is not being female,â according to one observer, but âbeing less masculine.â29 Therefore, femininity, while a positive quality in a woman, became the undesirable quality of effeminacy when practiced by a man.30
Many worried that the âeffeminacy of American youthâ31 was at an all time high at the turn of the century, and pundits of the era placed the blame for the supposed effeminacy of their generation firmly upon their Victorian ancestors.32 The man that turn- of-the-century Americans inheritedâthe âarchetypal buttoned-down Victorian gentlemanâ whose manners, reserve, and manful purity of heart and body had once been celebrated as a cornerstone of American civilizationâwas no longer seen as the kind of man who could lead Americans into the modern era.33 The customs and mannerisms that had been considered manly, refined, and poised in the nineteenth century became âovercivilized,â âpussyfooted,â and âsissy,â in the 1890sâ1920s.34 According to early-twentieth-century Americans, the âweaklingâ Victorian man possessed none of the self-starting, independent powers that men needed to survive in the modern world; he was lazy, submissive, and had a fondness for luxury and leisure.35 Therefore, the ideal man of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was further defined as not Victorian.
Instead of being a pussyfooted Victorian, the ideal man was modern, which meant that he welcomed the scientific advancements, technological changes, and intellectual challenges that Americans faced at the turn of the twentieth century. The post-Victorian era was a time when Americans were at the latter stage of a âhump of transitionâ from eighteenth-century republic to âcomplex industrial and urban life.â36 Americans faced vast changes both in âphysical landscapeâ and in âpsychic circumstan...
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title
- Introduction
- 1Â Â âTruly Manlyâ: The Ideal American Minister
- 2Â Â âWalking Biblesâ: Narrating Female Pentecostal Ministry
- 3Â Â âPants Donât Make Preachersâ: The Image of a Female Pentecostal Minister
- 4Â Â âA Glorious Symbolâ: Building a Female Pentecostal Worship Space
- 5Â Â âThunderâ and âSweetnessâ: Authority and Gender in Pentecostal Performance
- 6Â Â âA Regular Jezebelâ: Female Ministry, Pentecostal Ministry on Trial
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index