Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pjpqr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-03T00:46:10.538Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

6 - Women preachers and the new Orders

from PART I - CHRISTIANITY AND MODERNITY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

Sheridan Gilley
Affiliation:
University of Durham
Brian Stanley
Affiliation:
Henry Martyn Centre, Cambridge
Get access

Summary

Women preachers in the Protestant churches

Next day, Sunday, July 31 [1763], I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. JOHNSON. ‘Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.’

Samuel Johnson’s remark on the Quaker custom of allowing women to preach has become one of the most famous comments on female ministry in English literature. Yet his is by no means an isolated opinion. Observers throughout the history of western Christianity have frequently commented on the ‘extraordinary’ or ‘unusual’ sight of a woman preaching to a public, mixed audience, especially since that activity was meant to be reserved for an ordained clergy, or at least laymen. However, women have always, if intermittently, held positions of leadership within the Christian tradition. As ‘fellow labourers’ in the early church, as medieval nuns and as prophetesses of the radical Reformation, women have occupied some measure of public religious space.

Women in nineteenth-century Protestantism were no exception. Throughout the transatlantic world, across denominations, regions and decades, women operated in the public religious sphere and exercised what were often perceived to be spiritual gifts deemed appropriate only for men. Defining what this female ministry involved in real terms is a complicated task. It depends on the observer’s theological perspective – how the Scriptures relating to female behaviour ought to be interpreted – and their ecclesiological assumptions: whether or not women have the right to exercise ‘authority’ (that is, to occupy teaching, sacramental and organisational positions) within the church.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, Olive, ‘Women preachers in mid-Victorian Britain: some reflexions on feminism, popular religion and social change’, Historical Journal 12 (1969).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Billington, Louis, ‘“Female labourers in the church”: women preachers in the northeastern United States, 1790–1840’, Journal of American Studies 19 (1985).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradshaw, Sue, ‘Religious women in China: an understanding of indigenization’, Catholic Historical Review 67 (1982).Google Scholar
Brekus, Catherine, Strangers and pilgrims: female preaching in America, 1740–1845 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998).Google Scholar
Brekus, Catherine A., Strangers and pilgrims: female preaching in America, 1740–1843 (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1998).Google Scholar
Cazden, Elizabeth.Antoinette Brown Blackwell: a biography (Old Westbury NY: Feminist Press, 1983).Google Scholar
Chilcote, PaulW.,John Wesley and the women preachers of early Methodism (Metuchen, NJ: American Theological Association Library and Scarecrow Press, 1991).Google Scholar
Coburn, Carol K. and Smith, Martha, Spirited lives: how nuns shaped Catholic culture and American life, 1936–1920 (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1999).Google Scholar
Danyleweycz, Marta, Taking the veil: an alternative to marriage, motherhood, and spinsterhood in Quebec, 1840–1920 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1987).Google Scholar
Dayton, Lucille Sider and Dayton, Donald W., ‘“Your daughters shall prophesy”: feminism in the holiness movement’, Methodist History 14 (1976).Google Scholar
De Maeyer, J., Leplae, S. and Schmieal, J. (eds.), Religious institutes in western Europe in the 19thand20thcenturies: historiography, researchandlegalposition, KADOC-International Studies on Religion, Culture and Society 1 (Louvain: University of Louvain, 2004).Google Scholar
Dodson, Jualynne, Engendering church: women, power and the AME Church (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001).Google Scholar
Dufourcq, Elisabeth, Une forme de l’expansion française: les congrégations religeuses féminines hors d’Europe de Richelieu à nos jours: histoire naturelle d’une diaspora, 4 vols. (Paris: Librairie de l’Inde sarl 1993).Google Scholar
Eijt, Jose, Religieuzen vrouwen: bruid, moeder, zuster. Geschiedenis van twee Nederlandse zuster-congregaties, 1820–1940 (Nijmegen and Hilversum: KatholiekStudiecentrum, 1995).Google Scholar
Gibson, Ralph, A social history of French Catholicism 1789–1914 (London and New York: Routledge, 1989).Google Scholar
Gill, Sean, Women and the Church of England: from the eighteenth century to the present (London: SPCK, 1994).Google Scholar
Gould, Virginia and Nolan, Charles, No cross, no crown: black nuns in nineteenth-century New Orleans (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001).Google Scholar
Graham, E. Dorothy, ‘Chosen by God: the female travelling preachers of early Primitive Methodism’, Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society 49 (1993).Google Scholar
Harline, Craig, ‘Actives and contemplatives: the female religious of the Low Countries before and after Trent’, Catholic Historical Review 81 (1995).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hassey, Janette, No time for silence: evangelical women in public ministry around the turn of the century (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academie, 1986).Google Scholar
Holmes, Janice, Religious revivals in Britain and Ireland, 1859–1905 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2000).Google Scholar
Hovet, Theodore, ‘Phoebe Palmer’s “altar phraseology” and the spiritual dimension of woman’s sphere’, Journal of Religion 63 (1983).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kienzle, B. Mayne and Walker, P.J. (eds.), Women preachers andprophets through two millennia of Christianity (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998).Google Scholar
Langlois, C., Le catholicisme aufeminin: les congrégations à supérieure générale au XIXe siecle (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1984).Google Scholar
Langlois, Claude, Le catholicisme au féminine: les congrégations françaises à supérieuregénérale au XIX siècle (Paris: Le Cerf, 1984).Google Scholar
Larson, Rebecca, Daughters of light: Quaker women preaching and prophesying in the colonies and abroad, 17oo–1775 (New York: Alfred A.Knopf, 1999).Google Scholar
Lenton, John, ‘“Labouring for the Lord”: women preachers in Wesleyan Methodism 1802–1932: a revisionist view’, in Sykes, Richard (ed.), Beyond the boundaries: preaching in the Wesleyan tradition (Oxford: Applied Theology Press, 1998).Google Scholar
MacGinley, Mary Rosa, A dynamic of hope: institutes of women religious in Australia (Sydney: Crossing Press, 1996).Google Scholar
Magray, Mary Peckham, The transforming power of the nuns: women, religion and cultural change in Ireland, 1750–1900 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).Google Scholar
McMillan, James F., France and women 1789–1914: gender, society and politics (London: Rout-ledge, 2000).Google Scholar
Meiwes, Relinde, Arbeiterinnen des Herrn’: Katholische Frauenkongregationen im 19.Jahrhun-dert, Geschichte und Geschlechter 30 (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2000).Google Scholar
Muir, Elizabeth Gillan, Petticoats in the pulpit: the story of early nineteenth-century Methodist women preachers in Upper Canada (Toronto: United Church Publishing House, 1991).Google Scholar
Mumm, Susan, Stolen daughters, virgin mothers: Anglican sisterhoods in Victorian Britain (London and New York: Leicester University Press, 1999).Google Scholar
O’Brien, Susan, ‘Religious life for women’, in McClelland, V. A. and Hodgetts, M. (eds.), From without the Flaminian gate: 150 years of Roman Catholicism in England and Wales 1850–2000 (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1999).Google Scholar
Plant, Helen, ‘‘“Subjective testimonies”: women Quaker ministers and spiritual authority in England: 1750–1825’, Gender and History 15 (2003).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rapley, Elizabeth, Les déôvotes: women and the church in seventeenth-century France (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990).Google Scholar
Robert, Dana L., American women in mission: a social history of their thought and practice (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1996).Google Scholar
Rocca, G., ‘La vita religiosa dal 1878 al 1922’, in Guerriero, Elio and Zambarbieri, Annibale (eds.), La chiesa e la società industriale (1878–1922), 2 vols. (Balsamo: Cinisello, 1990), vol. II.Google Scholar
Thompson, M. S., ‘Cultural conundrum: sisters, ethnicity, and the adaptation of American Catholicism’, Mid-America: An Historical Review 74 (1992).Google Scholar
Thompson, M. S., ‘Women, feminism and new religious history: Catholic sisters as a case study’, in Vandermeer, P. R. and Swierenga, R. P. (eds.), Belief and behaviour: essays in the new religious history (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1991).Google Scholar
Tihon, A., ‘Les religieuses en Belgique du XVIII au XX siWegrave;cle: approche statistique’, Revue Belge d’Histoire Contemporaine 7 (1976).Google Scholar
Tucker, Cynthia Grant, Prophetic sisterhood: liberal women ministers of the frontier, 1880–1930 (Boston: Beacon Press, 1990).Google Scholar
Tucker, Ruth A. and Liefeld, Walter, Daughters of the church: women and ministry from New Testament times to the present (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Academie, 1987).Google Scholar
Turin, Yvonne, Femmes et religieuses au XIX siècle: leféminisme en religion (Paris: Nouvelle Cité, 1989).Google Scholar
Valenze, Deborah, Prophetic sons and daughters: female preaching and popular religion in indus-trial England (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985).Google Scholar
Walker, Pamela J., Pulling the devil’s kingdom down: the Salvation Army in Victorian Britain (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walsh, Barbara, Roman Catholic nuns in England and Wales 1800–1937: a social history (Dublin and Portland, OR: Irish Academic Press, 2002).Google Scholar
Williams, Margaret, The Society of the Sacred Heart: history of a spirit 1800–1975 (London: The Catholic BookClub, 1978).Google Scholar
Wilson, Linda, ‘An investigation into the decline of female itinerant preachers in the Bible Christian sect up to 1850’ unpublished MA thesis, Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education (1992).
Wilson, Linda,‘“Constrained by zeal”: women in mid-nineteenth century Nonconformist churches’, Journal of Religious History 23 (1999).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wittberg, Patricia, The rise and decline of Catholic religious orders: a social movement perspective (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994).Google Scholar
Wynants, Paul, ‘Les religieuses de vie active en Belgique et aux Pays-Bas 19th–20th siècles’, in Deux mille ans d’histoire de l’église: bilan et perspectives historiographiques. Special issue of Revue d’Histoire Ecclesiastique 15 (Louvain, 2000).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×