NeverthelessShePreached

WOMEN’S PREACHING AND RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY

Dr. Ashley Dreff

Assistant Professor of Religion

If you’ve paid attention to social media over the past two years, you may have picked up on a newly prominent conversation regarding women’s religious authority — at least new, in terms of the “Twitter-sphere” as #ChurchToo, #NeverthelessShePreached and #NotGoingHome were top trending hashtags all seeking to support women preachers. As an American Religious Historian who focuses on the role of women, gender and sexuality within American constructs of Christianity, the question of women’s religious authority is not new to me. From Anne Hutchinson (1630s), to Jarena Lee (1810s), to Anna Howard Shaw (1910s) and to Beth Moore (2019), women’s authority to preach has been consistently and constantly questioned throughout American history. (It should be noted that this conversation extends beyond American Christianities to encompass all of Christian history and is not limited to the Christian faith.) Preaching for the purposes of this article (and my research at large) is defined as speaking with religious authority or interpreting theological texts aloud to groups of people; it is not limited to only those who are ordained or

licensed. I also use the term “women preachers,” as opposed to female preachers, to clarify that this question involves those whose gender identity is “woman.” From my research, I’ve come to the conclusion that when women’s authority to preach is questioned there tend to be three responses: the woman is banished or relocated from her community; the woman is allowed to preach but only in an informal sense, i.e. without formal ordination or license; or the woman is harassed, abused or assaulted for her preaching. These three responses are consistent throughout American history and within contemporary society as is evident from an analysis of historical women’s diaries and contemporary social media campaigns.

One of the first women in the American context to have her preaching questioned was Anne Hutchinson. In the 1630s, Anne Hutchinson hosted “unauthorized” religious gatherings where she offered her own theological interpretations of the week’s sermon. Seen as a religious dissenter within the strictly conformist Puritan society of Massachusetts Bay, Hutchinson was put on trial for daring to speak against traditional Puritan interpretations of theology and for doing so as a woman. For her actions, Hutchinson and her followers were banished from the colony.

Today women preachers are moved or removed from situations where their physical embodiment has caused theological tension within a congregation. In congregations across the U.S., women preachers report being victims of sexual misconduct (verbal or physical harassment, abuse or assault) by either fellow clergy or laymen. When misconduct is reported, one of the ways that it is addressed is by moving women preachers to a new congregation instead of addressing the underlying cause of misconduct. The United Methodist Church (The UMC) is an interesting case study for this because bishops and district superintendents assign clergy to congregations (as opposed to clergy finding their own employment). Furthermore, The UMC has a very specific process for making a complaint against another clergyperson or against a layperson when misconduct occurs. Victims are to report misconduct to their district superintendents who assess the matter and determine necessary action.

When it comes to the abuse of women preachers within The UMC, more often than not, the abuser is a lay person. According to a 2017 survey of sexual misconduct in The UMC, 52.5% of respondents reported that the perpetrator was a “local church member.” The reporting process gets rather complicated when it comes to filing an official complaint against a layperson because there is no way to hold a lay person accountable for their actions within The UMC. For example, lay persons cannot be excommunicated or forced out of a congregation. In the history of the Methodist tradition in America no layperson has been put on trial for any form of misconduct, sexual or otherwise. When misconduct occurs, most women preachers ignore the misconduct (47.5% of women respondents) or avoid the person (55.3% of respondents) out of fear that directly addressing or reporting the misconduct will lead to their own removal from the congregations, and thus negatively affect their professional growth within the denomination. If there is not accountability for laypersons, then many district superintendents seek to remedy the misconduct by removing the victim from the harm and placing women preachers in a new congregation. This is not a remedy; instead, repeatedly removing women ignores the underlying theological issues which lead people to conclude that women are not authorized to preach. They, like Anne Hutchinson, are banished.

However, not all women preachers are banished for preaching. Some are allowed to preach, but in less official means than their male counterparts, i.e. without ordination and/or license. In 1811, Jarena Lee, a free African American woman living

in the North, heard a voice saying, “GO preach SBC, a debate fueled by Pastor John MacArthur’s the Gospel!” She replied, “No one will believe comments in the fall of 2019. MacArthur is a me.” But the same voice said, “Preach the gospel! I preacher within the SBC who claimed that by will put words in your mouth, and will turn your letting Moore speak in public with a sense of enemies to become your friends.” Key to women religious authority the SBC had “given up biblical asserting the right to preach early on in American authority” by taking a “headlong plunge” towards history was their passiveness. They claimed that it the ordination of women. Asked what two words wasn’t them doing the speaking, it was something most quickly came to his mind when he heard the working through them, using their body to speak. name Beth Moore, MacArthur responded, “Go Lee here wasn’t claiming religious authority; she home.” was claiming to be a vessel for God or the Holy Spirit. In fact, the standard belief of Lee’s time was This disparagement of Moore immediately led that women were more passive than men, and to a Twitter and social media campaign largely thus Lee was able to argue that she was actually run by women pastors and their allies who a better avenue than a man for the Holy Spirit to used the hashtag #NotGoingHome to show that work through for how could she resist the power women’s proper place is in the pulpit and not in of the Holy Spirit? Her second call to preach came the home. Accompanied with the hashtag were while she was at church, sitting and listening to various representations of women following their a sermon being delivered by a male preacher. calls, videos of women preaching, testimonies Suddenly, she was standing. She interrupted of women’s contributions to local ministries and the minister, speaking over him to provide her scriptural references. A swarm of support for own interpretation of that morning’s scripture, women clergy overtook social media. Ordained believing her version to be a more apt one. Bishop or not, licensed or not, disparaged or not, women Allen happened to be sitting in the congregation, continue to preach. and he witnessed this exchange. He felt compelled Despite the unfair and sexist ramifications of to support her testimony. When asked what either being removed from your congregation or he was going to do about this woman who dared to “You do a good job but I think not given ordination/license for your call, many women preach, he simply responded, scripture is more meaningful preachers face physical or “nothing is impossible with when read with a male voice.” verbal harassment, assault God.” With Bishop Allen’s permission, Lee was or abuse for preaching while inhabiting a woman’s allowed to preach but never officially licensed body. Around 1914, Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, or ordained. one of the first women ordained in the Methodist In the fall of 2019, a similar situation arose within tradition (via the Methodist Protestant Church) the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). The recorded verbal harassment in her diary. While SBC does not officially ordain women to preach, giving a lecture in Chautauqua, a local male believing it to be anti-scriptural. However, Beth minister “deplored [her] fashion” for “wearing Moore has become a prominent speaker within the [her] hair short.” He asked her why she continued denomination whose words skirt the line between to wear her hair short as this went against what preaching and not preaching. Her speaking with most “respectable” women did. He went so far as religious authority has rekindled the debate to guess that she “had been ill and that [her] hair regarding women’s religious authority within the has fallen out.” Shaw responded in her delightfully witty manner, “I will admit frankly that it is a

birth mark. I was born with short hair.” Unafraid to counter the sexist remarks of a male minister, Shaw refuted his critique with charming wit. Shaw knew 150 years ago that women who wanted to be in the public eye were often expected to conform to certain standards (especially of beauty) while seeking to undo other hegemonic femininity standards which questioned her authority to preach.

More recently, within The UMC, a video produced by the North Carolina Annual Conference’s Commission on the Status and Role of Women exhibited similar comments that women preachers face daily. The video invited male clergy to read aloud never-before-seen quotes that had been said directly to women preachers by laymen. The video immediately went viral in the Methodist-virtual world accompanied by #ChurchToo, a hashtag developed in response to #MeToo that was meant to show that abuse happens in church settings as well. Some of

the comments made by laymen sexualized women’s bodies:

• I can’t concentrate on your sermon because you’re so pretty. • Well, you don’t pray as well as the former pastor, but you sure are prettier. • I keep picturing you naked under your robe. • When you’re serving communion, it’s hard for me to concentrate when you say “This is my body given for you.” I think about your body, not Jesus’s body. • I usually don’t say this to a minister but you’re really cute.

Others questioned their authority or ability to preach:

• You’re going to hell; you know? God doesn’t permit women to preach. It’s in the Bible. • When you walked in for the introductory visit, we thought you were the pastor’s wife, and we kept looking for the pastor. • If more men would step up and do what God was calling them to do, we wouldn’t need the weaker sex to preach. • I’ve never met one of you. Is this something you felt God calling you to do or something that you just wanted to do (wink)? • You do a good job but I think scripture is more meaningful when read with a male voice. • This is a big job for you.

The sexist assumption underlying these comments is that a womanly embodiment is somehow counter to religious authority or a distraction from the Word of God. This is the issue that churches across the globe, across denominations and across faiths need to address in order to prevent further harm of women who preach.

In fact, this is a consistent theme to questioning women’s religious authority in general: men (and some fellow women) have a hard time reconciling a womanly embodiment with authority. Scripture is often referenced as the basis for why women do not have the authority to preach (1 Cor. 14: 34-36, 1 Tim. 2: 11-15), but there are just as many stories of women preaching throughout scripture as well (Phoebe, Rom 16:1-2; Junia, Rom 16:7; Nympha, Col 4:15; Mary, John 20: 17-18). To reiterate that the defense of women preaching is not a new phenomenon either, we can turn to the words of Jarena Lee:

O how careful ought we to be, lest through our by-laws of church government and discipline, we bring into disrepute even the word of life. For as unseemly as it may appear now-a-days for a woman to preach, it should be remembered that nothing is impossible with God. And why should it be thought impossible, heterodox, or improper for a woman to preach? (sic) seeing the Saviour died for the woman as well as for the man.

If the man may preach, because the Saviour died for him, why not the woman? seeing he died for her also. Is he not a whole Saviour, instead of a half

one? as those who hold it wrong for a woman to preach, would seem to make it appear.

Did not Mary first preach the risen Saviour, and is not the doctrine of the resurrection the very climax of Christianity - hangs not all our hope on this, as argued by St Paul? Then did not Mary, a woman, preach the gospel? for she preached the resurrection of the crucified son of God.

How careful ought we be, indeed, when we allow the restrictions of an institution to prevent someone from following a call. How careful ought we be to allow societal constructions that prioritize hegemonic masculinity over the work of God in us. Within the Christian faith, women have always been called to preach; it’s the human-mandated structures which have prevented them from doing so.

Social media has transformed this conversation, making a dialogue that was once only written within the confines of women’s diaries visible to the public at large. Through hashtags such as #ChurchToo, #NeverthelessShePreached and #NotGoingHome, women preachers and their allies have found new ways to engage with each other, to share their own testimonies and to support one another.

#ChurchToo was one of the first hashtags to begin the conversation surrounding women’s authority to preach in recent years. In November 2017, a few days after Alyssa Milano’s first retweeted #MeToo, Emily Joy, a spoken word poet, yoga teacher and “embodied justice enthusiast” from Nashville, Tennessee, took to Twitter to share her story of abuse. Unlike other #MeToo testimonies that largely targeted Hollywood and Washington D.C., Emily’s testimony spoke of abuse within the church. When she shared her story of abuse at the hands of religious authorities, others joined in and shared theirs, and thus #ChurchToo was born. Within 24 hours, the hashtag was tweeted thousands of times. Emily stated, “Victims from all over the country and all over the world were coming forward, detailing harrowing stories of sexual harassment, assault and abuse in the church, some of them even naming names. By Wednesday, we were on Time, Bustle, Vox, Ebony and a dozen other sites.” Alongside #MeToo, #ChurchToo showcased women’s testimonies, calling out religious settings for perpetuating violence. My personal exposure to #ChurchToo as a viral sensation was through its association with The UMC video discussed above. Alongside this video, women preachers shared stories of their verbal or physical harassment, abuse and assault, all accompanied with #ChurchToo.

#NeverthelessShePreached might sound familiar to some as it was born from a political moment. In February 2017, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a United Methodist, spoke from the floor of the United States Senate against the nomination of, then, Senator Jeff Sessions (also United Methodist) to the position of Attorney General of the United States. During her speech against his nomination, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell invoked a rare and largely unused rule which said that one senator cannot disparage another from the floor of the Senate. Senator Warren at the time was reading a letter from Coretta Scott King which detailed Senator’s Sessions racist remarks, actions and rulings. Seeking to quiet her, Senator McConnell attempted to justify his ruling by stating, “Sen. Warren was giving a lengthy speech…. She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.” Nevertheless, she persisted. That final sentence prompted a new catchphrase for women everywhere. Women took to social media to post various photos and memes of famous women throughout history who, despite being told to sit down and shut up by men, persisted. Photos of suffragettes, of Rosa Parks, of Harriett Tubman, of Ruby Bridges and even of Star Wars icon Princess Leia were accompanied with the hashtag #NeverthelessShePersisted.

By the end of 2017, the hashtag was appropriated by women preachers as #NeverthelessShePreached. This iteration of the hashtag began largely with Baptist women in response to a lecture given by a religious leader who was opposed to women in ministry. It, too, morphed into a social media campaign and resulted in the creation of a twoday conference (now held every year in the fall) which highlights the work, ministry and sermons of women and queer preachers. I came across this version of the hashtag, again, in the United Methodist world after two amendments to The United Methodist Church’s constitution, which would have more overtly proclaimed women’s equality to men within the denomination, failed in the summer of 2018.

While the conversation is not new, the platform certainly is. The use of social media and its ability to tag people and to track conversations using hashtags has changed how historians examine social movements. Now, we have available at our fingertips mass testimonies to certain experiences, thus forever changing how we understand, articulate and analyze social change. Historians can now more readily gather and connect personal stories today with the diaries, testimonies and stories of the past. Through this new method of analysis, historians can better analyze how certain messages persist throughout history and throughout faiths. ❧