Christian History

The academic journal of CBE International

Priscilla Papers Vol 37, No 4 | Autumn 2023

Christian History 03 Georgina Gollock (1861– 1940) and World Christianity Ian Randall 8 The FundamentalistModernist Controversy and Women in Leadership Mimi Haddad 16 The Kandake: A Missing History Heather Preston 20 The Biblewomen of South India: A Professional Pathway to Dignity and Empowerment Philip Malayil 25 “Let us not spend our time in trifling”: Susanna Wesley, a Mother to her Sons Patrick Oden 30 Book Review Voices Long Silenced: Women Biblical Interpreters through the Centuries Reviewed by Kimberly Dickson

AMANDA BERRY SMITH ( 1 8 3 7– 1 9 1 5 )

Priscilla and Aquila instructed Apollos more perfectly in the way of the Lord. (Acts 18:26)

Editorial In my Sunday School days, missionary stories were a regular feature. That is how I “met” the Irish missionary Amy Carmichael (1867–1951). What I remember most vividly is that, as a girl, Amy wished she had blue eyes. Blue eyes, she thought, would be far prettier than her brown ones. Many years later, when she became a missionary in south India, it is said her brown eyes stood her in good stead. She made it her mission to rescue girls who had been dedicated to temples, which often included forced sexual service offered to the temple’s patrons. By dyeing her skin with a tea decoction and covering her face so that only her brown “Indian” eyes could be seen, Amy found access to temple precincts.

Within a dozen years (1901–1913), she had some 130 girls in a home set up for their rehabilitation. She worked 55 years in India, never allowing herself to return to England for a break despite her persistent ill health. Here is one of her many poems: Hast thou no scar?

No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand?

I hear thee sung as mighty in the land; I hear them hail thy bright, ascendant star.

Hast thou no scar?

Hast thou no wound?

Yet I was wounded by the archers; spent, Leaned Me against a tree to die; and rent By ravening beasts that compassed Me, I swooned.

Hast thou no wound?

No wound? No scar?

Yet, as the Master shall the servant be, And pierced are the feet that follow Me. But thine are whole; can he have followed far Who hast no wound or scar?

From the history of the church in north Africa, Heather Preston foregrounds the Kandake, queen of Ethiopia (Acts 8:27). This royal woman may well have played a significant part in the spread of the Christian faith into north Africa and so, deserves for her name to be remembered when we rehearse the story of the church’s early decades.

From the history of the church in Britain, Ian Randall writes on Georgina Gollock (1861–1940), a key figure in the development of what came to be called “World Christianity,” a term denoting the global impact of mission endeavor. Patrick Oden takes another look at Susanna Wesley (1669–1742): her theological formation and her influence in the formation of each of her three sons— Samuel, John, and Wesley—as revealed in her letters to each.

From the history of the church in South Asia, Philip Malayil describes the crucial role of the Biblewomen of colonial India (across the 19th century until independence in 1947). Their names are relegated to reports and correspondence, but because of them, the gospel brought by the western missionaries crossed the divide of language and culture, especially into the hearts of Indian womenfolk.

From the history of the church in the United States, Mimi Haddad tracks women at the forefront of Christian leadership across the 19th and 20th centuries—preaching, launching movements, church-planting, and leading Scripture translation. She lays out how the American fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the second half of the 20th century curtailed that leadership by retreating from an egalitarian reading of the Bible.

We pray that this issue of Priscilla Papers inspires us all towards service in the universal church of Christ.

Together, side by side, in God’s world.

This issue is dedicated to women who, like Amy Carmichael, left their footprints in the sands of Christian history.

Havilah Dharamraj Editor

Priscilla Papers is indexed in the ATLA Religion Database® (ATLA RDB®), http://www.atla.com, in the Christian Periodical Index (CPI), in New Testament Abstracts (NTA), and in Religious and Theological Abstracts (R&TA), as well as

by CBE itself. Priscilla Papers is licensed with EBSCO’s full-text informational library products. Full-text collections of Priscilla Papers are available through EBSCO Host’s Religion and Philosophy Collection, Galaxie Software’s Theological Journals collection, and Logos Bible Software. Priscilla Papers can also be found on Academia, Faithlife, and JSTOR. Priscilla Papers is a member publication of the American Association of Publishers.

Editor: Havilah Dharamraj Assistant to the Editor: Jeff Miller Graphic Designer: Margaret Lawrence President / Publisher: Mimi Haddad Peer Review Team: Andrew Bartlett, Joshua Barron, Stephanie Black, Lynn H. Cohick, Seblewengel (Seble) Daniel, Mary Evans, Laura J. Hunt, Chongpongmeren (Meren) Jamir, Jung-Sook Lee, Jill McGilvray, Ian Payne, Finny Philip, Charles Pitts, Terran Williams

Advertising in Priscilla Papers does not imply organizational endorsement. Please note that neither CBE International, nor the editor, nor the editorial team is responsible or legally liable for any content or any statements made by any author, but the legal responsibility is solely that author’s once an article appears in Priscilla Papers.

On the Cover: Amanda Berry Smith by T.B. Lachmore. Wikipeida Commons, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amanda_Berry_ Smith_by_T._B._Latchmore.jpg

CBE grants permission for any original article (not a reprint) to be photocopied for local use provided no more than 1,000 copies are made, they are distributed for free, the author is acknowledged, and CBE is recognized as the source.

Priscilla Papers is the academic voice of CBE International, providing peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary scholarship on topics related to a biblical view of women and men in the home, church, and world.

Priscilla Papers (issn 0898–753x) is published quarterly by CBE International, 122 W Franklin Avenue, Suite 218, Minneapolis, MN 55404–2451 | cbeinternational.org | 612–872–6898 © CBE International, 2023.

DISCLAIMER: Final selection of all material published by CBE International in Priscilla Papers is entirely up to the discretion of the publisher, editor, and peer reviewers. Please note that each author is solely legally responsible for the content and the accuracy of facts, citations, references, and quotations rendered and properly attributed in the article appearing under her or his name. Neither CBE, nor the editor, nor the editorial team is responsible or legally liable for any content or any statements made by any author, but the legal responsibility is solely that author’s once an article appears in print in Priscilla Papers.

2

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

cbeinternational.org

Georgina Gollock (1861–1940) and World Christianity Ian Randall

for the Gazette. This gave her unrivalled Georgina Gollock was a key figure opportunity to influence young women in the development of what came Although Georgina had vital who were in touch with the YWCA. to be termed “World Christianity,” a roles in leading mission bodies, The circulation reached 100,000.4 It was description that has come to denote the then that Georgina’s life changed in a global impact of mission endeavours. her contribution has been significant way: she and Minna moved Although Georgina had vital roles in neglected compared to that of from Ireland to England. leading mission bodies, her contribution has been neglected compared to that of male colleagues.

A number of new areas now emerged male colleagues such as John Mott, the for Georgina and Minna. Neither had international student, missionary, and been involved in much public speaking previously, but this became ecumenical leader. Dana Robert writes: “Georgina Gollock was one an increasing feature of their lives. They came to be known as of the most influential women in the formative period of twentiethimpressive speakers. Georgina was still giving considerable time century World Christianity . . . As the British and Irish missionary to writing. Over 1892–1893 she would publish three books, almost movement coalesced and expanded in the late 19th and early 20th certainly books on which she had been working at the end of the centuries, Georgina Gollock was the first and often only woman in 1880s. She was also speaking in connection with the YWCA, as was the room.”1 This essay explores her particular work in the Anglican Minna. Another new area was the encouragement of female school Church Missionary Society, where she became Lady Secretary; her teachers. In the summer of 1888, Georgina and Minna were staying contribution from 1912 as a writer and speaker and as an editor of in Eastbourne, in the south of England, and came into contact with the International Review of Missions; and her further international many teachers who were having a summer break at the YWCA leadership in the International Missionary Council.

Holiday Home there. Following conversations with Georgina and Minna, as well as informal meetings that were held, many of these Georgina lived until her mid-twenties in southern Ireland as part of teachers experienced evangelical conversions “and came back a land-owning Protestant family, becoming a committed member of to London with fresh inspiration.” The result was that a teachers’ the Church of Ireland and later, in London, of the Church of England. branch of the YWCA was founded.5 In a book Georgina wrote in 1930, Heroes of Health, she described her early life in the countryside near Cork, and then her move into the A major turning point in Georgina’s life came in 1890. The key environs of the city of Cork, where she found “a new world of books.”2 person involved in this was Eugene Stock, a layman who had Her favourite library room was “Natural Science.” She was intrigued joined the Anglican Church Missionary Society (CMS) in 1873 as she read about plants and creatures that were invisible to the and was the Society’s editorial secretary. He was responsible for its human eye but could be seen through a microscope, so she obtained a publications, including its highly regarded and widely read journal, microscope. She was especially impressed by scientists who dedicated The Intelligencer. Writing his Recollections (1909), he spoke of how their lives to discovering ways disease spreads and how that can be in 1890 he was “quite overwhelmed with incessant work, and was prevented. All of this helped to develop Georgina’s faith. The scientific looking about for some remedy.” He was visiting a friend who lived commitment to health inspired her, and she was led to the message of in Bryanston Square, in the fashionable Marylebone area of London, the NT about how Jesus brought health. Following Jesus was to be and met Georgina. He had already been told that she was “well central to her life and work. qualified to take up some of the literary work” at CMS. Her YWCA contributions were well known.6 A Voice and a Vocation Georgina’s mother, Mary, was deeply involved in developing an awareness in her daughters, Georgina and Minna, of the needs of others and opportunities to serve.3 Along with this, Georgina was developing what would be one of her major skills: writing. By the latter part of 1884, Georgina had found an outlet for her voice through the newly launched monthly magazine of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), Our Own Gazette. At age twenty-three, she became a recognised writer for the Gazette, and over the next three years her articles either had scientific subjects as their main focus or else were stories of individuals and families, typically highlighting the role of young women. In 1887, Georgina had reached a stage in her writing where she was the major writer cbeinternational.org

In his history of CMS, Stock described how the CMS Publications and Library sub-committee members in 1890 “were adamant that they would not employ a woman.”7 It was, they insisted, a “preposterous” idea. Stock, while recognising that for CMS it was “a grave innovation” (since there were no women employed at the CMS Head Office in Salisbury Square, London), went so far as to ask Georgina to come into the CMS building at a time when interviews were taking place. In the sub-committee, Stock raised the issue of interviewing her. After initially rejecting his proposal, they agreed to see her when Stock said she was waiting in another room. In a dramatic turn-around, after talking with her for ten minutes, the sub-committee, as Stock reported, “resolved unanimously Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

3

to recommend the appointment, which the General Committee confirmed.” This was an indication of Georgina’s ability, including her skill in dealing with difficult situations. In finding her vocation, Georgina was a pioneer.8 Salisbury Square was to be Georgina’s base for the next fifteen years. From there she promoted a vision of world Christianity, with particular reference to mission throughout the Anglican world.

She was allocated space in the top floor of the building. After her appointment, and with encouragement from Eugene Stock, she recruited two female colleagues, Marian Brophy and Edith BaringGould, who worked with her in the office and formed a friendship circle. They were volunteers but were to serve long-term with CMS. Georgina, Marian, and Edith were deliberately placed at the top of the building to make it a “women’s section,” and Edith later highlighted certain bizarre requirements. They were, for instance, only allowed downstairs if they were wearing hat and gloves!

Initially they were not allowed to attend prayers in the chapel, but later they could do so—as long as they came in pairs. This was rather difficult for three women.9

Gleaners’ Union, which had been founded in 1886 for “prayer and work”; to glean from Scriptures about mission; to glean knowledge of the world situation and, in particular, CMS involvement; to glean by raising money; and to seek blessing for missionaries. Associated with the Gleaners’ Union was the magazine the Church Missionary Gleaner (the Gleaner), which Georgina began to edit from 1890. It carried substantial articles and extensive news. Another aspect of her leadership was the launch of a new magazine, Awake. Georgina noted that five years after the foundation of the Gleaners’ Union, by far the majority of about 1,000 local secretaries of the Union (with its 70,000 members) were women, and at CMS prayer meetings there was a significant preponderance of women.11

Within CMS, Georgina was not only an editor but increasingly a strategist in the field of world Christianity. Her way of operating was characterised by imaginative initiatives, careful administration, personal warmth that enabled the forming of relationships, and effective communication. All of this helped her in communicating a vision: mobilisation for missionary service. In the 1890s Georgina was giving considerable time to speaking and writing alongside her editorial work. In 1892 the Intelligencer drew attention to Georgina’s book for young people, It was soon recognised by CMS that Georgina was someone who Light on our Lessons; or, “What is the Use?” (1892). It sold out could represent the Society very well at big events. The Croydon within a few weeks of publication but Advertiser, produced in south London, would be reprinted. It also recommended reported in April 1891 on large meetings Her way of operating Georgina’s forthcoming What’s O’Clock? held over a period of a week on the (meaning, What’s the time?).12 These were subjects of spiritual experience and world was characterised by communicative and well-illustrated. Her mission. The Croydon Town Hall was imaginative initiatives, careful talks were especially intended to inspire used for evening meetings, and there were young women. In 1893, as an example, overflow events because of the crowds. administration, personal she gave a message on Acts 2:18 (“on Several of the best-known speakers at the my servants, both men and women, I annual Keswick Convention were there. warmth which enabled the will pour out my Spirit”), arguing that One such was Evan Hopkins, known forming of relationships, and women were “endowed” with “the gifts for the way he spread Keswick teaching of the Holy Spirit for God’s service.” She on the deeper life among Anglicans in effective communication. outlined several women mentioned as particular, through speaking but also part of the NT church after Pentecost, through his influential books such as The including Phoebe, Priscilla, Phillip’s daughters, Persis, Dorcas, Law of Liberty in the Spiritual Life (1884). F. B. Meyer, a prominent Lydia, Lois, and Eunice.13 Baptist, and Robert Wilson, a Quaker, both of whom were greatly appreciated at Keswick, were among the speakers. Two women Each summer, at the Keswick Convention, Georgina and also well known at Keswick, Blanche Bannister and Grace Hatt Noble, Minna (who was working for the YWCA and CMS) became wellspoke at meetings for women. The speakers at events with world known figures, especially at the missionary meetings. In part mission as their focus were a Baptist missionary named J. Gelson through contacts made at Keswick, Georgina met those who had Gregson, Eugene Stock, and Georgina.10 Within a year of beginning a particular vision for women studying at colleges and universities her work with CMS, Georgina was becoming personally acquainted to be drawn into the area of world mission. The British Student with some of the leading figures in the evangelical world in England Volunteer Missionary Union (SVMU) was founded in 1892 with and was communicating what was now her vision: mobilisation for three hundred members. Georgina was keen to support this missionary service. development and also the growing movement among colleges— A Mission Leader the British College Christian Union, which became the Student Christian Movement (SCM).14 In 1894, May Hodges became Georgina’s leadership gifts were being increasingly utilised from travelling secretary for women’s colleges, largely due to Georgina. the 1890s onwards, with a focus being the inspiration she offered Georgina wrote to Louis Byrde, the first British secretary of SVMU, to other women and to young people. Writing in 1912 about “The about “a remarkable movement on foot just now among the contribution of Women to the Home Work of CMS,” Georgina women students of the various colleges—it is small as yet but of chronicled the launch in 1890 (at her initiative, which she did not vital importance. They wish, at a large meeting shortly to be held, mention) of the Sowers’ Band, which was to connect young people to develop the SVMU and have asked me to address them.” Among with CMS. It was accompanied by a magazine, The Children’s these women was Ruth Rouse, who became a significant student World. The (already existing) adult version of the Band was the leader. The meeting was held, and Byrde apologised to Georgina 4

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

cbeinternational.org

for landing so much work on her. She replied: “Yes, I am busy, but this work is very near to my heart and as long as you need such help as I can give, please claim it freely.” 15 Georgina became a mentor to many younger women.

In August 1895, the Intelligencer’s editorial spoke about a new CMS development: a Women’s Department had been created with Georgina Gollock appointed by the CMS General Committee as Lady Secretary and given the task of shaping and leading the Department. (It noted that within the CMS structure she was an Assistant Secretary.) The editorial paid tribute to the way in which, over her five years in the Editorial Department, Georgina had “contributed to greater understanding” among supporters of CMS of the Society’s “principles and methods.” The whole of CMS, including missionaries with the Society, had “learned to put confidence” in what Georgina said and did. She had not made her mark on her own, the editorial added, but had “gathered around her volunteer ladies who render important help in many ways.”16 It was leadership in this area of CMS to which Georgina now gave her energy, while continuing to connect with wider interdenominational life, especially with students, who became a growing constituency in this period.

If a missionary’s “spiritual life depends on external aids,” she argued, there would be failure. Her remedy was “the steady habit of daily and deep communion.” She said she knew something of life in women’s colleges and wanted to address women considering service, while men in the audience could “gather up some crumbs” from her message. “Unless Christ is your life, do not,” she stated, “become a Student Volunteer.” Nevertheless, she was convinced there were many ministries available, including work among the poor. Such service might be seen as throwing away academic talents, but Jesus served “outcasts.” Georgina concluded, “You cannot do better than to throw yourself away like that.” The Intelligencer spoke of the conference being “deeply moved” by Georgina’s address, and the next speaker, A. T. Pierson, an American who was an elder statesman of the student missionary movement, announced he would “throw aside the address he had prepared and just speak from his heart on the work of the Holy Spirit.”21 In the area of world mission, Georgina was now established as the most significant female thinker and speaker of her generation.

By 1905, after fifteen years at CMS, Georgina was exhausted. She resigned from her post and took time out of speaking to write.

Ultimately her books numbered over twenty. In 1908, a book she had been thinking about for some time, The Vocation of Women, was published. She saw vocation as primarily a call by God “into A Pioneering Female Missiologist fellowship with his purpose and correspondence with his will.” She examined examples from the Old and New A large International Students’ Missionary Testaments and from church history. She Conference was held in Liverpool from 1–5 highlighted full commitment to callings in January 1896, a year after the formation of All of this helped her teaching, business life, or being a wife and the World Student Christian Federation. in communicating a mother. In business, Georgina was delighted The conference theme was “Make Jesus that there were “women as saleswomen King.” 715 university and college students vision: mobilisation for and accountants,” and women who were attended, from twenty-three countries.17 missionary service. “supervising work as forewomen, heads of The Cambridge colleges provided the largest departments and inspectresses.” For her, group, with 111 students, indicative of the there was much “spiritual possibility” in considerable interest there was among the three “great professions”: medical, scholastic, and literary. No Cambridge students in world mission. Among these were female doubt with a sense of her own vocation, she wrote: “The woman students from the women’s colleges in Cambridge.18 Out of the total who writes and edits can move thousands whom she has never seen 715 attendees, 131 were women. The main speakers (over forty) were and counteract the strongest influence working against holiness and well known in Keswick and missionary circles, including C. T. Studd, truth.” In a deeply theological statement, she wrote: “Women are one of the famous “Cambridge Seven” who went to China with the invited to lay before God the treasures of their womanhood which China Inland Mission (CIM).19 Georgina was the only woman to Christ has liberated by His incarnation and His cross and to ask, address a main evening session of the conference. As she began, what would God want me to do?”22 she said she believed God had “some word of personal meaning for someone among the students, and especially the women students Georgina had fully regained her energy by the time of the World here tonight.” Her message was entitled “For me to live is Christ” Missionary Conference held in Edinburgh in 1910. This has been (Phil 1:21), which she called “the deepest consecration text in the recognised as a pivotal event in the history of world Christianity. whole of the Bible.” She spoke about Paul’s secret, expressed in these Through it, Georgina became part of a pioneering venture in words, as being available to everyone who could “in the presence missiology. This happened with the launch of the International of God, underline that text and write his or her name against it in Review of Missions (IRM) in 1912, with J. H. Oldham as editor solemn covenant.”20 and Georgina as assistant editor. It was the official organ of the Georgina was committed to thorough preparation for overseas Continuation Committee that came out of Edinburgh 1910. IRM service, a subject she often wrote and spoke about. For her Liverpool was the first mission journal of its kind in English, and as Brian student audience, she had a particular focus. Give priority, she urged, Stanley has argued, it was the “most significant and enduring “to the deepening of your inner life with your Lord.” Going back to means” through which missionary study flowed out from her text, she took “for me to live is Christ” not as a statement about Edinburgh. Through it, there were new opportunities “especially “success,” or even “missionary work” itself, but about Christ. The for women.”23 Georgina brought to the task at IRM her capacity spiritual relationship needed to be nurtured. The missionary, she for hard work, her intellectual power, and a generous personality.24 insisted, did not experience a “mantle of grace” in going overseas.

The work involved commissioning articles, looking out for books cbeinternational.org

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

5

to commission reviews on, and editing. Kenneth Scott Latourette, at Yale University, commented on “the able editorship of Oldham and his co-editor Georgina Gollock.” They had produced a journal “for the discussion on a high intellectual level of problems and issues which concerned the entire world mission of the Church.”25 There could hardly be a better summing up of Georgina’s role as a pioneering female missiologist.

sphere and practice of co-operation” in mission. Specific responses included affirming an obligation “to proclaim the Gospel of Christ in all the world” and a commitment to promoting religious freedom and self-determination for churches in traditional mission fields. There was support for African Americans and American-educated Africans serving as missionaries. Colonial authorities, fearing independence movements, often opposed this kind of internationalism.31

A Christian Internationalist

The Phelps-Stokes Commission, active from 1923 to 1925, was a major initiative in which Georgina took an active part. The Commission was cosponsored by the Foreign Missions Conference of North America and the IMC helped the Commission gain the cooperation of European missions.32 An African member, J. E. Kwegyir Aggrey, travelled to eight countries, becoming an ambassador for relevant education in Africa. He was appointed the first vice-principal of Achimota College, Accra. Georgina and Aggrey had a shared commitment, as Elizabeth Prevost put it, “to propagating a kind of Christian pan-Africanism,” and to “a bottomup grassroots approach rather than a top-down European one” in African education.33 Georgina, an advocate of the importance of education in the mission context, collaborated in editing the report of the Commission. She was concerned about the almost complete absence in the first draft of the report of any criticism of White settlers and colonial governments, and voiced her concerns. She urged “a new kind of fellowship” between Africa and the AngloAmerican world, one in which “the interests of the Africans” were fully taken into account.34 The international outlook was integral to Georgina’s vision of world Christianity.

Articles written by Georgina on international issues were a feature of IRM. After the First World War, which she described as a terrible experience for those in the world mission movement whose hearts “had room for all the nations,” she issued a challenge in the January 1919 IRM to look to the future. She spoke with appreciation of those who came from poor backgrounds and who became significant in mission through prayer and dedicated service. Her article then considered how workers of the future might take advantage of the greater opportunities she saw now being open as new "tides of life" (for instance through education) were sweeping across societies.26 A year later she wrote on “The Church in the Mission Field,” reporting primarily on national mission work rather than that undertaken by foreign missionaries. In China, for instance, over the period of the war the number of employed church workers had risen from 253,210 to 312,970. As an example of Christian leadership in Japan, Christians had led in nationwide social campaigns. India was stimulated to organise evangelistic work by what churches in Japan and China were doing. Georgina was clear that that “Christian communities in the mission field” were the ones to take responsibility for “the shaping of the church life of their country.”27

Conclusion

From 1921 to 1927, Georgina worked under the auspices of the International Missionary Council (IMC) formed in 1921, a body which can be understood as an expression of Christian internationalism.28 As has been seen, a broader vision had been present in Georgina’s thinking from her early involvement in the YWCA onwards. As an Irish person who had moved to England, she was an instinctive internationalist. Her experience at CMS and then at the World Missionary Conference strengthened this outlook.

Through the IMC, her links expanded further. The Church of Ireland Gazette was pleased to report in 1921 that Georgina was one of the secretaries of this new Council, which was going to seek to address a wide range of issues connected with Christian mission, including education, training, and the relationships of missionaries to the churches overseas.29 Georgina gave her creative energy to fulfilling the aims of the IMC.

This article has sketched the significance of Georgina Gollock at various stages of her life and work. Although there were different phases, a consistent theme throughout her life was the encouragement she gave to women. She offered leadership, spiritual counsel, and careful Christian thought. Her retirement, from 1927, was an active one. Several books followed. A reviewer, Garfield Williams, referred to Georgina’s “almost unique contribution in missionary journalism” over the years, and to her concept of World Christianity which, for Williams, was “so powerful that it changes your whole attitude to life.” He considered that “in an age where there is often so much to make the Christian despondent, it is a glorious thing to come across a book which strengthens faith . . . for the great task of the evangelization of the world.”35 The spirit which had marked Georgina’s address in Liverpool in 1895 was undiminished three decades later.

At the same time, Georgina continued her commitment to the Church of England. In 1922, she was a speaker at the Canterbury Diocese Missionary Festival and averred (to applause) that the power of Christian mission was “stronger than all the splendid work of the League of Nations.” Other Festival speakers included John Steward, Bishop of Melanesia, and Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, who saw the size of the audiences as “part of a general awakening to mission work.”30 In the following year, an IMC Consultation was held in Oxford. Fifteen countries were represented. Georgina contributed to discussions regarding changes in global mission and their bearing on missionary training. A major theme, against the background of theological tensions in the period, was the quest “to develop the

Georgina Gollock died on 30 November 1940. A wide circle of friends and colleagues, including women whom she had mentored, felt the loss deeply. There were fulsome tributes from CMS and IRM. Her many achievements and abilities were recalled.

She was “essentially a pioneer” with “great powers of mind and spirit” and “dynamic leadership.” Within CMS, IRM, and IMC she brought “breadth of vision.” Her literary output was described as “continuous and extraordinarily varied.” In summary, Georgina was someone “strong in faith, richly endowed with intellectual gifts, tireless in mental energy, utterly devoted to our Lord and the spread of His kingdom” and was “one of God’s great gifts” to the international missionary enterprise.36

6

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

cbeinternational.org

Notes 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

Robert, “Foreword,” in Ian Randall, Georgina Gollock: Pioneering Female Missiologist (Cambridge: CCCW, 2023) vi.

This book is my attempt to remedy the neglect of Georgina Gollock.

See Georgina A. Gollock, Heroes of Health (Longmans, Green, 1930) 4.

For the wider context, see Maria Luddy, Women and Philanthropy in Nineteenth-century Ireland (Cambridge University Press, 1995).

For a history of the YWCA, see Lucy M. Moor, Girls of Yesterday and Today (S.W. Partridge, 1911).

Moor, Girls of Yesterday and Today, 108–11.

Eugene Stock, My Recollections (James Nesbit & Co., 1909) 157.

Eugene Stock, The History of the Church Missionary Society, vol. 4 (CMS, 1916) 453–56.

Church Missionary Gleaner (July 1890) 115.

Edith Baring-Gould, 50 years in Salisbury Square (Privately printed, 1941); Stock, History, 453–56; Irene Barnes, In Salisbury Square (CMS, 1906), 136; Steven S. Maughan, Mighty England Do Good (Eerdmans, 2014) 340–41.

Croydon Advertiser (17 Apr 1891) 8.

Georgina Gollock, “The Contribution of Women to the Home Work of CMS,” Church Mission Review (Dec 1912) 714–23. In this respect Emily Manktelow covers important ground in her “Forging the Missionary Ideal: Gender and the Family in the Church Missionary Society Gleaner,” JRH 43/2 (2019) 195– 216, but—strangely—while she refers to Georgina’s role, she does not mention her by name.

“Editorial Notes,” Church Missionary Intelligencer (hereafter Intelligencer) (Dec 1892) 943. Georgina Gollock, Light on our Lessons; or, ‘What is the Use?’ (CMS, 1892).

Gleaner (June 1893) 89; Intelligencer (June 1893) 432.

For the history of SCM, see Robin Boyd, The Witness of the Student Christian Movement (SPCK, 2007).

G. A. Gollock to Louis Byrde, 21 Sept 1893, cited by Tissington Tatlow, The Story of the Student Christian Movement (SCM, 1933) 56–57.

Intelligencer (Aug 1895) 627.

For the wider background to the Conference, see Dana L. Robert, “‘Make Jesus King’ and the Evangelical Missionary Imagination, 1889–1896,” in Global Faith, Worldly Power: Evangelical Internationalism and U.S. Empire, ed. Melani McAlister, Axel R. Schäfer, and John Corrigan (University of North Carolina Press, 2022).

For more, see Ian Randall, Graham Kings, and Muthuraj Swamy, From Henry Martyn to World Christianity: Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide (CCCW, 2022).

See J. C. Pollock, The Cambridge Seven (Inter-Varsity Fellowship, 1955).

Make Jesus King: The Report of the International Students’ Missionary Conference, Liverpool, January 1–5 (Student Volunteer Missionary Union, 1896) 91–93.

Make Jesus King, 94–96; Intelligencer (Feb 1896) 137. See Dana L. Robert, Occupy Until I Come: A. T. Pierson and the Evangelization of the World (Eerdmans, 2003).

Georgina A. Gollock, The Vocation of Women (Longman, Green and Co., 1908).

cbeinternational.org

23. Brian Stanley, The World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh 1910 (Eerdmans, 2009) 316; also Brian Stanley, “Edinburgh 1910 and the Genesis of the IRM,” International Review of Mission (IRM) 100 (Nov 2011) 149–59.

24. Keith Clements, Faith on the Frontier: A Life of J. H. Oldham (T&T Clark, 1999) 107–8.

25. Kenneth Scott Latourette, “The World Missionary Conference, Edinburgh 1910,” A History of the Ecumenical Movement, 1517– 1948, ed. Ruth Rouse and S. C. Neill (Westminster, 1967) 363.

26. Georgina A. Gollock, “Missionary Service,” IRM 8 (Jan 1919) 88–94.

27. Georgina A. Gollock, “The Church in the Mission Field,” IRM 9 (Jan 1920) 19–36.

28. Dana L. Robert, “Cooperation, Christian Fellowship, and Transnational Networking: The Birth of the International Missionary Council,” in Together in the Mission of God: Jubilee Reflections on the International Missionary Council, ed. Risto Jukko (WCC, 2022) 29/87 (3–29); Dana L. Robert, “The First Globalization? The Internationalization of the Protestant Missionary Movement Between the World Wars,” in Interpreting Contemporary Christianity: Global Processes and Local Identities, ed. Ogbu U. Kalu (Eerdmans, 2009) 93–130.

29. The Church of Ireland Gazette (16 Dec 1921) 750.

30. “Missionary Festival,” Folkestone Herald (14 Oct 1922) 10.

31. Oxford Chronicle (13 July 1923) 12; Minutes of the International Missionary Council, Oxford, England, July 9–16, 1923 (Edinburgh House, 1923).

32. The funding came from the Phelps-Stokes Fund and the International Education Board, one of the Rockefeller Trusts.

J. H. Oldham was in ongoing conversation with British government officials about education in Africa. See Clements, Oldham, 220–28.

33. Elizabeth Prevost, “Anglican Mission in Twentieth-Century Africa,” in Oxford History of Anglicanism, vol. 5: Global Anglicanism, 1910–2000, ed. William Sachs (Oxford University Press, 2017) 240 (232–57).

34. Kenneth King, Education, Skills and International Cooperation: Comparative and Historical Perspectives (Springer International, 2019) 54, citing Georgina Gollock to Anson Phelps Stokes, 15 Jan 1925.

35. Garfield H. Williams, a review of Georgina A. Gollock, In the Year of the World Call (Church House, 1927), IRM 16 (Apr 1927) 302–3.

36. Minutes of the General Committee of CMS, 17 Dec 1940; William Paton, “Georgina Ann Gollock,” IRM 30 (Apr 1941) 242–46.

Ian Randall is a Baptist minister who has had local church pastorates, was a hospital chaplain, and for twenty years was a lecturer in church history and spirituality at Spurgeon’s College, London, and in Prague. He has written extensively in these areas. He is a Senior Research Associate of the Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide.

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

7

The Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy and Women in Leadership Mimi Haddad Oral history is crucial. Listening to several women working at CBE’s offices opened a universe of insight on why women’s preaching is often viewed as liberal. Here’s what happened.

Three elderly women were volunteering at CBE in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Seated at a table about fifteen feet away from my desk, I could not help but notice their laughter and animated conversation.

Leaning in, I learned that all were graduates of Wheaton College, a prominent evangelical college near Chicago, Illinois. Each shared memories from their youth of women preaching in their churches.

Laughing out loud, one woman—Alvera Mickelsen (1919–2016), a founder of CBE—said, “You know, it wasn’t until after 1950 that women preaching was considered liberal!” Mickelsen continued sharing her own story, which I had never heard before.

Alvera Mickelsen (1919–2016), a founder of CBE—said, “You know, it wasn’t until after 1950 that women preaching was considered liberal!”

She told these women, “not only did I study Greek with the famous Esther Sabel (1893–1993) at Bethel Bible Institute, but I was also part of the Bethel Trio—an evangelistic team of women representing our denomination, singing and preaching in Baptist General Conference (BGC) churches throughout the Midwest.” In fact, the trio ended their summer tour by singing and giving “a gospel message on Moody Bible Radio,” which she said, “would never happen today!” I decided more people needed to know this history. Here’s what I learned.

Sabel graduated with honors in Greek and English from the University of Chicago. Soon afterwards, she applied for missionary work in China but was turned down because they believed that, as a small woman, she was in poor health. She lived to be one hundred years old! Sabel became a Greek scholar and taught every course that Bethel Bible Institute—today’s Bethel University and Seminary—offered at the time. According to Mickelsen, no one ever complained about her teaching the Bible as a woman. In fact, the second president of Bethel Bible Institute, Dr. Henry C. Wingblade (1883–1977), was big a fan of women preachers.1 He said: When I hearken back to my growing years in Kansas, I remember how proud my brother and I were to be the only ones in our club that could boast a woman pastor. And when at conventions, the pastors were lined up on the platform, she was the bright spot among all the drab ministerial garb.2 8

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

Gospel-centred and missionary-minded, the BGC ordained its first woman in 1943—the Reverend Ethel Ruff (1910–1962).

Ruff was also a member of the Bethel Trio. She too preached at BGC churches throughout the Great Lakes region with the full support of her denomination and Institute. As part of the Bethel Trio, Ruff also preached on Moody Bible Radio. The three women in my office giggled as each also remembered hearing Stockton and Gould—a female evangelist duo from Northern Baptist Seminary—today’s Northern Seminary.

Stockton and Gould were a prominent example of evangelistic teams of women singing and preaching around the country.

Vocalist Rita Gould opened meetings with hymns and songs of praise, after which Amy Lee Stockton (1892–1988) preached the gospel. The power of their ministry led to many invitations and access to prominent evangelical platforms including Moody Bible Radio.3 In 1913, Stockton was the first woman to enroll in Northern Baptist Seminary (in Lombard, Illinois, near Chicago).

She graduated and went on to become one of the nation’s leading evangelists. While women do not preach at Moody Bible Institute today, consider the history of Moody Bible Institute, the most prominent Bible Institute of its day. It was initially the vision of a great female educator and evangelist, Emma Dryer (1835–1925).

In 1870, the evangelist D. L. Moody (1837–1899) was introduced to Dryer, a former university teacher and president of Chicago’s

Vocalist Rita Gould opened meetings with hymns and songs of praise, after which Amy Lee Stockton (1892–1988) preached the gospel.

YWCA. An inner-city evangelist, a Bible teacher, and a vocational trainer of young people at the margins of society, Dryer worked tirelessly among Chicago’s homeless women and children after fire devastated the city in 1871. Out of respect for her leadership, Moody invited Dryer to relocate her Bible-discipleship classes to his church in Northfield, a suburb of Chicago. Here she continued to train women gospel workers. Her students became inner-city evangelists of the highest order, serving the poor, caring for the ill, distributing Bibles, and establishing schools throughout the area.

For the next sixteen years, Dryer continued to train women (her “Bible Readers”) while praying Moody would open a Bible Institute in the city, closer to those in need. In 1883, she opened her own “May Institute” which eventually merged with Moody’s Evangelistic Society to form the Moody Bible Institute. In 1925, this Institute began offering pastors’ courses, and women enrolled. Three years cbeinternational.org

later, Moody graduates, male and female, filled pulpits around the world, reaching a quarter of a million people.4 D. L. Moody once said that “Emma Dryer was the best teacher of the Word of God in the United States.”5 To Mickelsen’s point: women preachers had the full support of evangelical leaders and institutes before the 1950s.

But in the aftermath of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy, women preachers were viewed as “liberal” or dismissive of biblical inspiration regarding texts such as 1 Tim 2:11–15 and 1 Cor 14:34–35.

As I shamelessly eavesdropped on our three lovely volunteers, I wondered how women like Dryer, Stockton and Gould, Ruff, and Sabel could be viewed as “liberal” given their ministries and demonstrable commitment to biblical authority. What is more, women among the early evangelicals, on whose shoulders these volunteers stood, championed Christ’s many miracles, especially his resurrection—historical events that modernist theologians like Charles A. Briggs (1841–1913) viewed as fantasy.

Trained in Berlin, Briggs was a prominent advocate of higher criticism, through which he viewed the assertions of historic Christianity as ghosts that frighten little “children.”6 For him, factual errors in Scripture abound, and trusting in the miracles cited in Scripture is a hopeless, inauthentic endeavor in light of historical and scientific achievements. A professor of biblical theology, he pointed to the failures of inerrancy with its ultimate implication: without factual historic accuracy, biblical absolutes do not affirm moral absolutes like human depravity and sin.7 His views, referred to as “progressive” or “liberal,” did not go unchallenged. Contra Briggs, theologians like B. B. Warfield (1851–1921) defended the Christian faith by asserting the five fundamentals of historic Christianity, including:8 • • • • •

The Holy Spirit’s inspiration of Scripture as God’s truth Christ’s virgin birth Christ’s atonement for sin Christ’s bodily resurrection Christ’s miracles in Scripture

As preeminent witnesses of the fundamentals of Christianity, women were a great company of advocates infusing the term “evangelical” with its essential meaning: a high view of Scripture and its miracles, especially the virgin birth and, supremely, Christ’s death and resurrection—historical facts that constitute our redemption from sin. Throughout Christian history we find not frightened children as Briggs suggests, but rather fearless evangelicals: women and slaves, spiritual leaders and living witnesses of Christ’s resurrection power.

Historian David Bebbington has identified four theological priorities of evangelicals that were targets of modernist attack:9 • • • •

Conversionism: All lives need Christ’s atonement for sin.

Crucicentrism: A cross-centric movement.10 Activism: Redeemed people advance the gospel in word and action.

The Bible: All spiritual truth is found on its pages.

These four qualities, “Bebbington’s Quadrilateral,” comprise theological distinctives that have characterized women leaders who have shaped and continue to shape an evangelical history and identity. What is more, men leading evangelical institutions and movements have championed women preachers because of cbeinternational.org

their theological orthodoxy and their social action. One prominent example is William Bell Riley (1861–1947).

Founder of Northwestern Bible and Missionary Training School (1902), Riley became the founder and president of the World’s Christian Fundamentalist Association in 1920. For forty years, he pastored the largest church in the Northern Baptist Convention, Minneapolis First Baptist Church. While attending a D. L. Moody campaign in Boston, he heard one of the greatest evangelists of the day—Frances Willard, president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Her commitment to support women and children abused by alcoholic fathers prompted Riley to advocate for women preaching the gospel and challenging domestic violence. He also decided to train women for public ministry.11 When Riley founded his Bible Institute in 1902 (eighteen years before the fundamentalist-modernist controversy), he opened the doors to women. After graduating, these women served not only abroad with organizations like the China Inland Mission, but they also planted churches throughout the Midwest in the United States. Local papers published accounts of their accomplishments as they pastored churches, resuscitated “dead churches, united divided ones, repaired church property, paid off old church debts, all while facing strenuous travel and many speaking engagements.”12 The gifting and calling of women graduates was undeniable, and Riley supported their education and ministries. Women preachers marked an evangelical identity and history especially during the great revivals.

Deeply influenced by the revivals of the 1800s, former slave Amanda Berry Smith (1837–1915; featured on the cover) received a call to preach. Faithfully, she became a prominent evangelist preaching throughout the United States, India, England, and Africa. Speaking to highly educated leaders in England in 1882, Smith said, “You may not know it, but I am a princess in disguise. I am a child of the King.”13 Smith’s calling and identity as an evangelist were inseparable from her own conversion, one that was not limited by her gender, race, or social status. God used Smith and lives were changed, even as she faced prejudice all her life. Advancing the case for women evangelists were the women themselves.

With a holy boldness, the African American Zilpha Elaw (1790– 1846?) believed that God alone called her to be a preacher. She “durst not confer with flesh and blood.”14 Jarena Lee (ca. 1783–1850) was an African American Methodist preacher who embraced her calling through the example of women preachers cited in Scripture.

She wrote, “Did not Mary first preach the risen Savior, and is not the

Throughout Christian history we find not frightened children as Briggs suggests, but rather fearless evangelicals: women and slaves, spiritual leaders and living witnesses of Christ’s resurrection power.

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

9

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?”15 Lee’s autobiography was the first by an African American, but others followed, like Julia A. J. Foote's (1823–1901), who argued that spiritual experiences give women a “very real sense of freedom from a prior ‘self’ and a growing awareness of unrealized, unexploited powers within.”16 Medical doctor and evangelist Dora Yu (1873–1931) is credited for the church’s existence in China. Preaching at revivals throughout her country, Dora introduced Watchman Nee, China’s great evangelist, to Christ.17 The long tradition of women preaching the risen Lord reflects not a modernist or liberal view of Scripture, but a historic and evangelical faith. In fact, women evangelists date back to Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the risen Lord at the empty tomb— God’s redemption of humanity promised throughout Scripture. For this reason, evangelicals, women and men alike, were cross-centrists of the highest order. Far from liberal, their passion for the cross and all Christ accomplished on Calvary was evident as they preached on Gal 2:20 more than any group in history:18 “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (NIV). As Bebbington notes, the “Evangelical movement . . . ‘aimed at bringing back, and by an aggressive movement, the Cross, and all that the Cross essentially implies.’”19 Among early evangelical women, the most prominent crosscentric leader was the Welsh Jessie Penn-Lewis (1861–1927). For her, only the sanctifying power of Calvary heals the divisions and hostilities that divide and demean humanity.20 While the cross does not eliminate embodied differences based on gender, race, or ethnicity, Calvary infuses new strength and capacity for empathy, forgiveness, and unity rather than hostility, division, and exploitation. Those who have crossed life’s greatest divide, from spiritual death to life in Christ, are called to make the world better—more just and holy.21 As agents of renewal, holiness, and justice, evangelicals insisted redeemed people must advance the gospel not only by preaching but also through social action. Women, so often close to children and other women, were expert gospel activists. Leaders like the famous preacher and inner-city missionary Catherine Booth (1829–1890) worked tirelessly among the poverty-stricken people of London’s East End. An indomitable gospel worker, Booth advanced temperance and anti-trafficking. She lobbied Parliament to raise the age of consent above thirteen.

The long tradition of women preaching the risen Lord reflects not a modernist or liberal view of Scripture, but a historic and evangelical faith.

Like Booth, Pandita Ramabai (1858–1922) achieved global recognition as a gospel activist. Caring for destitute women and children, Ramabai founded the Mukti (meaning “salvation”) Mission to provide housing for eight hundred abandoned babies, unwed mothers, and disabled people. Mukti was called the best example of Christianity in action. Her book, The High Caste Hindu Woman, exposed the horrific plight of women in India: child brides, wife burning, temple prostitutes, and more. At Mukti, women translated, printed, and distributed Scripture in a prominent dialect; this was solely the work of women, demonstrating Ramabai’s commitment to the gospel in word and deed.

Admired by world leaders, Sojourner Truth (ca. 1797–1887) and Harriet Tubman (1822–1913) set a gold standard for gospel action.

Truth was greatly esteemed, for example, by Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and William Lloyd Garrison. A brilliant theologian and speaker, she said that to deny women the privilege of voting or preaching because Christ was male ignored the fact that it was Christ’s humanity—not his gender—that made him the perfect sacrifice for all people, including women. A leading voice of abolition, women’s preaching, and suffrage, her influence was inseparable from her intimacy with the risen Lord.

Similarly, the extraordinary activism of Tubman was fueled by her mystical intimacy with Christ. The bravest and most innovative conductor of the Underground Railroad, she also led the Union’s espionage network. As the only woman to lead an armed expedition during the U. S. Civil War, she freed nearly one thousand slaves through her leadership. A devout Christian, abolitionist, and suffragist, it was said that as “God guided Tubman, Tubman guided the nation!”

Upending entrenched oppression and abuse guided the activism of the WCTU, the largest women’s organization, with activists serving worldwide. Its president, Frances Willard (1839–1898), led countless women in confronting the powers and principalities driving the sex industry, slavery, and patriarchy. It was to Scripture that they appealed when addressing crucial issues—especially the abuse of girls and women. Between the years of 1808 and 1930, evangelicals from different branches of the church published more than fortysix biblical treatises on the value and purpose of women and slaves.22 These documents reflect the emergence of the first wave of feminism—a deeply biblical movement.

Their belief that God speaks to each generation through Scripture led to a new assessment of human identity (ontos) and purpose (telos) as they asked: how does our rebirth in Christ as women or slaves expand or limit our service as Christians? Their biblical inquiry uncovered translation and interpretative errors that devalued women and slaves and drove patriarchy and slavery.

They also developed a Christian biblical worldview that gave dignity to women and slaves as human beings and accorded them positions of service and leadership aligned with an evangelical view of Calvary. The exegetical work of the early evangelicals became a prominent challenge to centuries of biblical teachings supporting demeaning assumptions regarding slaves and women that had given license to exploiters.

The most extensive, systematic, biblical assessment of women’s value and purpose was published by Katharine Bushnell, MD (1856–1946).

10

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

cbeinternational.org

The youngest woman to graduate from medical school at that time, she served briefly as a physician in China but returned to the States to lead the WCTU’s anti-trafficking initiative. After twenty years of exposing sex-traffickers, Katharine discerned that until Christians recognized women’s value in Scripture, perpetrators would take license to exploit them as supposed inferiors. A gifted linguist and historian, she identified and expounded on three hundred biblical texts on women.

She published her critique in 1919, titled, God’s Word to Women.

Starting in Genesis, Bushnell showed that woman and man are equally created in God’s image—an ontological identity that determines their teleological purpose as God’s representatives governing Eden side by side (Gen 1:26–31). She showed that Eve was not the source of sin23 and that God does not curse women because of Eve.24 Male rule is a consequence of sin (Gen 3:16), and God extends leadership to those who do what is right regardless of their gender, birth order, nationality, or class.25 Turning to Paul the apostle, Bushnell drew attention to the passages that support women’s authority and leadership, provided women were neither domineering nor abusive (1 Tim 2:12); that show women as advancing the gospel (1 Tim 2:11–12; Acts 18:26; Rom 16:1–5, 7, 12– 13, 15); and that locate women in public gatherings (1 Cor 11:5, 14:34).

She located women’s ontological value and identity not in the fall, but in Calvary. Calling for consistency, Christians must value women the same way we value men—through Christ’s atonement.26 She wrote, “[We] cannot, for women, put the ‘new wine’ of the Gospel into the old wineskins of ‘condemnation.’”27 Bushnell published her book just as William Bell Riley led 6,000 pastors, theologians, and evangelists in Philadelphia in calling the church back to the fundamentals of historic Christianity. Strikingly, whereas he once exuberantly welcomed women at his Bible and Missionary Training School, preparing them as evangelists and preachers, he now began to distance himself from practices that resembled the “liberal” high-brow intellectualism of modernists at Union Theological Seminary. As a result, his Missionary Training School no longer offered courses on Greek and Hebrew, preferring instead the plain reading of the English biblical text— the very methods used by proslavery Christians.28 To “disinfect” the germs of higher critical methods, he poured bleach on the vigorous biblical engagement evangelicals harnessed in upending slavery and women’s subjugation. As other institutes followed this logic, a scandalous and disastrous anti-intellectualism distanced fundamentalists not only from modernists, but also from an earlier generation of evangelical scholars and activists leading crucial gospel and humanitarian ministries worldwide.

In distancing themselves from liberal theology, fundamentalists like Riley retrenched from rigorous engagement with Greek and Hebrew that had once supported women leaders, while also pressing them into support roles at Bible institutes, mission organizations, and denominations. In the aftermath of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy, women no longer preached at schools like Moody Bible Institute. Students of Christian colleges and universities today are often surprised to learn the history of their institute’s founders and the women graduates who outnumbered men two to one as missionaries, shifting the density of Christianity from the West to regions throughout Asia, Africa, and the Americas!29 This history cbeinternational.org

Bushnell’s scholarship continues to inspire today’s egalitarians. She gives us insight on a long trail of translation errors that devalue women and provides strategies to better represent the teachings of Scripture, and to prevent abuse. demonstrates God's favor on women missionaries and activists who exposed abuse and flawed Bible translations. These were translations that demeaned and marginalized women as morally inferior, and they, in turn, furthered male authority and gender roles that researchers today link with higher rates of sexual abuse.30 Thankfully, Bushnell’s scholarship continues to inspire today’s egalitarians. She gives us insight into a long trail of translation errors that devalue women and provides strategies to better represent the teachings of Scripture and to prevent abuse. Given the rise of #MeToo and #ChurchToo, her work is needed more than ever.

Consider the following examples.

Bushnell demonstrated that Junia (Rom 16:7), Euodia, and Syntyche (Phil 4:2–3) were made into men in Chinese and English Bibles.31 She also showed how the words connoting strength for men, when used for women, were translated not as “strength” but as “chastity” or “purity,” as was the case for chayil in Hebrew32 and kosmios and hagnos in Greek.33 Stunningly, she showed how “authority” (exousia) in 1 Cor 11:10 was interpreted as “veil,” meaning man’s authority over woman, contra the Corinthian culture’s understanding of veiling. Further, the more than one hundred examples of exousia in the NT were most often translated as “power,” “authority,” “right,” “liberty,” “jurisdiction,” and “strength” in relation to men, “but in one single instance [1 Cor 11:10] when used exclusively of woman’s power . . . here at once its sense is called into question.”34 Had the passage been translated correctly to mean women have authority on their heads, Paul’s text would represent a reversal of male rule—a consequence of the fall (Gen 3:16). These errors may be just “straws,” Bushnell said, “yet they all point in the same direction.”35 As Riley leaned away from vigorous biblical interpretative disciplines, in contrast to Bushnell’s, he “cut off the nose” of biblical scholarship to spite a cohesive theological face. Other fundamentalist leaders followed this interpretative trajectory. One example is the ETS, which was established in 1949 as an academic society for scholars committed to the inspiration of Scripture.36 ETS has been led by presidents such as Roger Nicole (1956), Stan Gundry (1978), Alan F. Johnson (1982), Richard Pierard (1985), and others who were instrumental in founding CBE—an organization committed to Scripture’s support of women leaders.

But as concerns over a perceived secularism undergirding egalitarian theology grew, complementarians gained a majority Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

11

voice and vote within the ETS and the Southern Baptist Convention.

As a result, both organizations offered limited content on women leaders in church history.37 In doing so, ETS afforded two percent of its presentations and publications to women’s contributions in church history in thirty years of journals and papers presented (1988–2018).38 Further, like Riley, complementarians at ETS retrenched on the vigorous biblical scholarship that shaped ETS and an earlier evangelical tradition. Past ETS president (1999) and prominent complementarian Wayne Grudem critiques egalitarians as secular feminists clothed as biblical lambs in his books titled, Evangelical Feminism and Biblical Truth (Crossway, 2004, 2012) and Evangelical Feminism: A New Path to Liberalism? (Crossway, 2006). For Grudem, those committed to biblical inerrancy by definition oppose women preachers and leaders. But notice that, rather than aligning with the fundamentals of historic Christianity, complementarians take us in a different direction. Like Riley, they cut off their scholarly nose to spite a cohesive theological face.

Under the leadership of Grudem, the English Standard Version (ESV) translation of Scripture obscured the leadership of women like Phoebe and Junia. Phoebe, who carried Paul’s letter to Rome and explained its contents, is the only woman the NT names as holding a church office. As deacon (diakonos) in the church of Cenchreae (Rom 16:1), Phoebe is also called a leader (prostatis) in Rom 16:2.

The corresponding verb is used in 1 Thess 5:12, again signifying leadership.39 Even so, the ESV minimizes Phoebe, calling her “a servant” and offering the alternative “deaconess” in a footnote. At Phil 1:1, in contrast, the ESV translates this same word “deacons” and gives the alternatives “servants” and “ministers” in the footnote.

Similarly, while Junia is described in Rom 16:7 as an apostle and celebrated as such by Origen and Jerome,40 the ESV refers to Junia and her husband, Andronicus, as “kinsmen.” The ESV says they were “well known to the apostles” with a footnote citing the masculine for “Junia”—“Junias,” an invented male name that cannot be found in antiquity. An additional footnote refers to the couple as “messengers” instead of apostles. Cutting off our biblical nose leads us to spite a perceived liberal face, which in turn leads us away from historic Christianity with its support of the inspiration of Scripture.

But there is more. In support of male-only leadership, complementarians often assign moral superiority to men and, in doing so, come dangerously close to blurring the Creator-creature divide foundational to historic Christianity. By ascribing an innate moral superiority to men, complementarians also further men’s critique of and authority over women, which can lead to a sense of impunity and dominance that is characteristic of abusers.41 As Mary Daly noted, “If God is male, then the male is God.”42 What is even more tragic (dare I say, scandalous) is that some complementarian Christians blur the Creator-creature divide by insisting that maleness—and thus sex—is part of God’s being. According to John Piper, for example, Christianity “has a masculine feel.”43 Thankfully, the Cappadocian theologians of the fourth century made clear that while Jesus was male, it was Christ’s humanness, not his sex, which was integral to his salvific work. Jesus referred to himself as the “Son of Humanity.” “Humanity” here translates anthrōpōn (“humans, people, humankind”) not andrōn (“men, males”). He was Savior of both women and men alike (Rom 5:12–18). The early Christians 12

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

did not absolutize the maleness of Christ, for they recognized his sacrifice as universal.44 Though Jesus was male, God is Spirit (John 4:24), and Scripture forbids the worship of any earthly form (Exod 20:4; Deut 4:15b–18). Scripture uses metaphors for and to understand God, yet as Søren Kierkegaard wrote: “Language bursts and cracks under the weight of expressing God’s greatness.”45 Thus, all language for God is analogical.

While Jesus called twelve male disciples, more importantly the twelve were Jewish, demonstrating God’s faithfulness to Israel. Yet, the twelve male disciples consistently failed where Christ’s female disciples more often succeeded.46 In this way, Scripture memorialized the moral and spiritual leadership of both men and women who followed Christ.

The OT supports not a male gender essentialism but an imageof-God essentialism. This means that men and women share an ontos, that is, “identity,” with a corresponding telos, that is, “purpose”—as God’s representatives governing Eden, not each other (Gen 1:26–31). In the NT we find a remade-in-Christ essentialism as Christian women and men are both endowed with spiritual authority through the telos shared by those reborn in Christ, who is their ontos (Romans 8:29, John 20:16–23).

Furthermore, historic Christian teachings do not place God the Father in authority over God the Son. While Christ prayed to God as Father, it was fathers who bestowed inheritance, identity, and protection to children in Christ’s human culture.47 Advocates of a masculine Christianity have often supported an eternal functional subordination of Christ the Son to God the Father to legitimize women’s subordination, insisting this does not compromise an ontological devaluation in the Trinity or humanity48—though it certainly does. The eternal subordination of Christ is a gross distortion of historic Christianity. It robs humanity of our redeemer promised throughout Scripture, who represents the climax of human and sacred history. It’s an ontological distortion with teleological implications such that sinful humanity has no redeemer. For only Christ, “eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, of one Being (ontos) with the Father,” equal in authority with the Father, can atone for human sin.

Whether it is members of the Trinity, male or female, slave or free, Jew or Greek, how can someone be equal in function but eternally unequal in authority? To do so renders the word “equal” meaningless. If U. S. history teaches us anything, it shows that “separate but equal” rhetoric leads to separate and unequal realities. Perceiving God as mostly male elevates maleness.

Therefore, to select leaders based on gender overlooks qualities that parallel the fruit of the Spirit listed in Gal 5:22–23. These theological failures with their social consequences give insight into the vast numbers of women leaving churches today. It also explains why Christians have lost respect in the public square, as Charles Malik, in his 1980 address inaugurating the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, predicted would happen.49 A Lebanese ambassador to the United States, Malik drafted the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

A devout Christian who could not utter the word Jesus without tears, Malik challenged the anti-intellectualism of American cbeinternational.org

evangelicals, warning it would take many decades to recover the respect we once enjoyed. Malik’s admonition that day moved historian Mark Noll to write The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Eerdmans, 1994, 2022), which was followed by Ron Sider’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience (Baker, 2005). Like Noll, Sider also traced the link between failed theological and historical reflection and its impact on social justice and American politics—a failure further critiqued by historian Kristin Kobes Du Mez in her book, Jesus and John Wayne (Liveright, 2020).

6.

Consider the poor response of evangelicals to the #MeToo and #ChurchToo scandals, when an earlier generation led antitrafficking efforts, pressed for legal rights for girls and women, and exposed male dominance, impunity, and abuse. Rather than examine their theological failure around power and women, many recent and current evangelicals press for gender essentialism and hierarchy in the Trinity to secure male supremacy and female subordination. In contrast, evangelical egalitarians strive to hold the course on women’s rights and equality, exposing power imbalances, impunity, strict gender roles, and a lack of empathy—the four horse-riders of sexual harassment.50 While evangelicals aligned with male-only leadership rarely address abuse, it remains a key topic for evangelical egalitarians who consistently research, publish, and address abuse and related issues. In fact, it was evangelical egalitarians that led the Chicago Declaration of Evangelical Social Concern that inaugurated advocacy organizations—Evangelicals for Social Action and Christians for Biblical Equality.

11.

12.

Crucially, evangelical egalitarians recovered the history of women’s leadership throughout the history of the church, launching movements, planting churches, leading translations of Scripture, and upending exploitation and abuse. Created in God’s image and renewed by Christ, women on every continent preached the gospel in word and deed. Their legacy represents God’s power in history—one that must always be revered.

Notes This article was first presented at the 2022 Evangelical Theological Society in Denver, Colorado. Much of this content is also available in “History Matters: Evangelicals and Woman,” ch. 1 in Discovering Biblical Equality: Biblical, Theological, Cultural & Practical Perspectives, ed. Ronald W. Pierce, Cynthia Long Westfall, and Christa L. McKirland (IVP Academic, 2021) esp. 22–28.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Kenan Heise and Tribune Staff Writer, "Bethel College Professor Esther Sabel," Chicago Tribune, November 19, 1993, https:// chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1993-11-19-9311190265story.html.

Ethel Ruff, When Saints Go Marching (Exposition, 1957) 57. See https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89065273542&view =1up&seq=15&skin=2021.

"September 2017: Fifty Years Ago - The Memorial Service for Dr. V. Raymond Edman," The Archives Bulletin Board, Billy Graham Center, last modified September 1, 2017, https:// www2.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/bulletin/bu1709.htm Janette Hassey, No Time for Silence: Evangelical Women in Public Ministry Around the Turn of the Century (Christians for Biblical Equality, 2008) 38.

"Emma Dryer," Archives, Moody Bible Institute, https://library. moody.edu/archives/biographies/emma-dryer/.

cbeinternational.org

7.

8.

9.

10.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

Gary Dorrien, The Making of Liberal Theology: Imagining Progressive Religion 1805–1900 (Westminster John Knox, 2001) 358.

Dorrien, The Making of Liberal Theology, 358–60.

Marc Lloyd, "What the Bible Says, God Says: B. B. Warfield's Doctrine of Scripture," Ecclesia Reformanda 1.2 (2009), https://biblicalstudies. org.uk/pdf/ecclesia-reformanda/1.2_183.pdf.

Brian Harris, "Beyond Bebbington: The Quest for Evangelical Identity in a Postmodern Era," Churchman 122.3 (Autumn 2008): 201-219, https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/churchman/122-03_201.pdf.

Mark Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism: The Age of Edwards, Whitefield and the Wesleys (IVP Academic, 2003) 19.

William Bell Riley, as quoted by Hassey, No Time for Silence, 23–24.

William V. Trollinger Jr., God’s Empire: William B. Riley and Midwestern Fundamentalism (The University of Wisconsin Press, 1990) 105.

Walter B. Sloan, These Sixty Years: The Story of the Keswick Convention (Pickering & Inglis, 1935) 91.

Paul W. Chilcote, The Methodist Defense of Women in Ministry (Cascade, 2016) 86.

Jarena Lee, The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee, a Coloured Lady (self-published, 1849) 11.

William Andrews, Sisters of the Spirit: Three Black Women’s Autobiographies of the Nineteenth Century (Indiana University Press, 1986) 12.

Alexander Chow, “The Remarkable Story of China’s ‘Bible Women,’” Christianity Today, last modified March 16, 2018, https://christianitytoday.com/history/2018/march/christianchina-bible-women.html.

David Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s (Baker, 1989) 13.

Gifts that Reduce Taxes Stock, Real Estate, Life Insurance, IRA Funds, and Other Non-Cash Assets Increase your potential impact—and experience significant tax benefits—by giving non-cash assets.

Benefits Reduce your taxes! Receive a fair market value deduction at the time of your gift and avoid tax liability on the sale of appreciated assets.

Eliminate hassles! Give assets you no longer need or want to manage (such as rental properties or vacation homes).

Simplify your estate planning! Eliminate potential taxes or complications for your heirs by giving complex or burdensome assets.

For more information, call us at 612-872-6898 or email cbe@cbeinternatonal.org.

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

13

19. Gladstone as quoted by Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 14.

20. Jessie Penn-Lewis, Thy Hidden Ones: Union with Christ as Traced in the Song of Songs (Marshall Brothers, 1899) 30.

21. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 5.

22. Charles O. Knowles, Let Her Be: Right Relationships and the Southern Baptist Conundrum Over Women’s Role (KnoWell, 2002) 85.

23. Katharine Bushnell, God’s Word to Women: One Hundred Bible Studies on Women’s Place in the Divine Economy, 39ff., https:// godswordtowomen.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/gods_word_ to_women1.pdf.

24. Bushnell, God’s Word to Women, 39, 48.

25. Bushnell, God’s Word to Women, 68, 75.

26. Bushnell, God’s Word to Women, 169.

27. Bushnell, God’s Word to Women, 169.

28. John Henry Hopkins, "The Bible View of Slavery," The Confederate Reprint Company, https://confederatereprint.com/ bible_view_slavery.php. See also Willard M. Swartley, Slavery, Sabbath, War and Women: Case Issues in Biblical Interpretation (Herald, 1983) 31–64.

29. Dana L. Robert, American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice (Mercer University Press, 2005) ix.

As I teach or preach at Christian colleges and universities, few are familiar with their founders and female graduates.

30. See William Wan, “What Makes Some Men Sexual Harassers?,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (Dec 31, 2017). See also Mimi Haddad, "#MeToo and #ChurchToo: The Perfect Storm," Mutuality, CBE International, https://cbeinternational.org/resource/metoo-andchurchtoo-perfect-storm/.

31. John Chrysostom, "Epistolam ad Romanos, homilia 31, 2," in Patrologia Cursus Completus, Series Graeca, vol. 60, ed. J. P. Migne (Imprimerie Catholique, 1862) 669ff.

32. Bushnell, God’s Word to Women, 233ff.

33. Bushnell, God’s Word to Women, 229.

34. Bushnell, God’s Word to Women, 228.

35. Bushnell, God’s Word to Women, 229.

36. See "About the ETS," The Evangelical Theological Society, https://etsjets.org/about.

37. Mimi Haddad, "History Matters," in Discovering Biblical Equality: Complementarity without Hierarchy, ed. Ronald W. Pierce and Cynthia Long Westfall (IVP Academic, 2021) 12–13.

38. Chesna Hinkley provided research on the ETS as a 2018 CBE International intern. See Mimi Haddad, “History Matters,” in Discovering Biblical Equality, 12–13.

39. 1 Thess 5:12: “We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you (proïstamenous) in the Lord . . .” (ESV). Compared to Rom 16:2 “. . . she has been a patron (prostatis) of many . . .” (ESV).

40. Epistolam ad Romanos, Homilia 31, 2 (Migne, PG 60:669ff.).

41. See Wan, “What Makes Some Men Sexual Harassers?”

42. Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation (Beacon, 1973) 19.

43. John Piper said, “There is a masculine feel to Christianity. . . .

God has revealed himself to us in the Bible pervasively as King, not Queen, and as Father, not Mother. The second person of the Trinity is revealed as the eternal Son. The Father and the Son created man and woman in his image, and gave them together the name of the man, Adam (Genesis 5:2). God appoints all the priests in Israel to be men. The Son of God comes into the world as a man, not a woman. He chooses twelve men to be his apostles. The apostles tell the churches that all the overseers— the pastor/elders who teach and have authority (1 Timothy 2:12)—should be men; and that in the home, the head who bears special responsibility to lead, protect, and provide should 14

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

be the husband (Ephesians 5:22–33).” Piper, “‘The Frank and Manly Mr. Ryle’—The Value of a Masculine Ministry” (sermon, Desiring God 2012 Conference for Pastors, Jan 31, 2012), http://desiringgod.org/resource-library/biographies/ the-frank-and-manly-mr-ryle-the-value-of-a-masculineministry. On Aug 14, 2014, Owen Strachan tweeted, “Satan hates testosterone. You can’t blame him—after all, he’s seen it used to crush his head,” https://twitter.com/ostrachan/status/ 499933939767574529?lang=en.

Gregory Nazianzus (330–389) wrote in “Epistle 101,” To gar aproslepton atherapeuton (“what is not assumed is not redeemed”), in Patrologia Cursus Completus, Series Graeca, vol.

37, ed. J. P. Migne (Imprimerie Catholique, 1862) 181. See Edward R. Hardy, ed., Christology of the Later Fathers (Westminster John Knox, 1954) 218.

Søren Kierkegaard, Discourses on the Communion Fridays, trans. Sylvia Walsh (Indiana University Press, 2011) 125. See Mimi Haddad, “Christian and Islamic Feminists in Dialogue,” Priscilla Papers 34/3 (Summer 2020) 3–9.

The faith of the Syrophoenician woman eclipses the twelve male disciples who cannot perceive how Jesus will feed the 5,000. She tells Jesus that the crumbs under the table are enough (Mark 7:24–30). The “rich young ruler” cannot abandon his wealth (Mark 10:17–22), but the widow gives all she has (Mark 12:41–44). The Twelve grasp for power because they want to sit at Christ’s right and left hand (Mark 10:35–45); they forbid even children to approach Jesus (Mark 10:13); they are surprised when Christ speaks with women openly (John 4:27); and Judas betrays Christ. When Jesus is arrested and crucified, the Twelve disperse, one denies Christ openly, and the others hide behind locked doors. Not the women! They understand that Christ’s work is completed on a cross: a woman anoints Jesus as the priests anointed the kings of Israel (1 Sam 10:1, 16:12–13; Matt 26:6–13). Mary Magdalene is the first to meet the risen Lord. Christ sends her to the disciples with the good news.

She becomes the apostle to the apostles. Yet, the disciples do not believe her. Even as Jesus appears to them, Thomas asks to touch his wounds (John 20).

See Marianne Meye Thompson, The Promise of the Father: Jesus and God in the New Testament (Westminster John Knox, 2000). See also James Barr, "'Abba Isn't 'Daddy,'" in The Journal of Theological Studies, 39.1 (April 1988) 28–47, https://doi. org/10.1093/jts/39.1.28.

Bruce Ware, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationship, Roles, and Relevance (Crossway: 2005). See also Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Zondervan: 1994) Charles Malik, “Graham Center Dedication” (presentation, Wheaton College, Wheaton, Illinois, Sept 13, 1980), https://media. wheaton.edu/hapi/v1/contents/permalinks/a9W3NoSf/view.

See Wan, “What Makes Some Men Sexual Harassers?”

Mimi Haddad serves as president and CEO of CBE International. She has taught as an adjunct associate professor of historical theology at Fuller Theological Seminary, Olivet University and has taught for institutes and organizations worldwide. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (Summa Cum Laude). She holds a PhD in historical theology from the University of Durham, England. Mimi received an Honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Palmer Theological Seminary of Eastern University in 2013. She was a founding member of the Evangelicals and Women Study Section at the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) and Evangelicals for Justice. She continues to serve on the leadership of ETS’s Evangelicals and Women.

cbeinternational.org

Tell Her Story: Women in Scripture and History Explore women's stories in Scripture and history at CBE's 2024 International Conference!

July 26–28, 2024 | Denver, Colorado Hear from renowned scholars, authors, and theologians! Speakers include: Nijay K. Gupta, Philip B. Payne, Cynthia Long Westfall, Terran Williams, Taffi Dollar, and Mimi Haddad with more to come!

Registration opens in January!

Visit cbe.today/conference or scan the QR code for more information.

Support CBE to proclaim our

“daughters shall prophesy!”

You can break down barriers to women’s biblical equality. Help CBE proclaim, like the prophet Joel did, our “daughters shall prophesy!”

During the month of November, your gift to CBE’s Giving Tuesday campaign will be used to promote CBE’s biblical message worldwide: that God created women and men to serve side by side, using their gifts for God’s glory and purposes (Genesis 1:26-31).

Our goal is to raise $120,000 by the end of Giving Tuesday, November 28, 2023.

Your gift will be doubled!

Every dollar donated will be matched up to $60,000!

The Kandake: A Missing History Heather Preston

Without question, one casualty of Western biblical scholarship has been the Kandake (Queen of Ethiopia, pronounced Kan-dák-e, often spelled “Candace”) in Acts 8:27. As a result, the matriarchal history of Africa as it concerns the establishment of Christianity on that continent has also been neglected. She ruled as queen at a pivotal time in human history, and an examination of her “kingdom” as well as the ways her story has been mishandled, is instructive. It challenges us to consider our account of the spread of Christianity in the early centuries after Christ.

The “Kingdom” of Kush While Egypt boasts a celebrated history that continues to fascinate the world, most Westerners will draw a blank at the mention of Kush (often spelled “Cush”). Some may recall it as a land mentioned in the OT, but few would dream that the Kushites overran and ruled Egypt by the eleventh century BC.1 Home to the ancient city of Meroe, Kush was located in what is now southern Egypt and northern Sudan.

Kushite history was one of exceptional stability at a time when, elsewhere, rulers were almost continuously being overthrown. This region is often referred to as Nubia, its Roman name from the fourth century AD on.2 Its borders depended on its acquisition of tributepaying vassal states.3 The stability of this remarkable region, however, is without question and is not only confirmed by secular research, but also through an examination of Kush’s mentions throughout Scripture.4 Its wealth and strength as a nation are noted in Isaiah, Nahum, and Job,5 and other biblical books mention it as well, with these references spanning hundreds of years. This is a “kingdom” whose language, Meroitic, was completely independent from Egypt’s and has only recently begun to be understood.6 It recounts a history replete with queens, fascinating enough to have been recorded

by Greek historians and geographers alike.7 These queens either ruled equally with their husbands, or their husbands are entirely unknown to history. Yet, the contributions of the Kandakes are virtually unknown. What is worse, their historical role is either lost in the mire of political propaganda or neutralized through fiction.

The Queens of Kush The queen of Kush was called by the title “Kandake.” In the Middle Ages (AD 1250–1550), she began to apear in literary works in the trope of the dark seductress who lures the white knight. Albert Magnus villainized her famously in his De Natura Loci (On the Nature of Place). Among other sordid details, she was described as having extreme “sexual lust.” She was revisited in poetry by Heinrich von Neustadt’s Appolonius von Tyrland (a 1906 adaptation of the Greek romance about Apollonius of Tyre)8 in which she was depicted as a beautiful black queen who seduces the already-married knight by using her special abilities of sexual gratification. These works of fiction are only a couple of examples of many that continued to aggressively impugn African noblewomen, but it is important 16

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

Without question, one casualty of Western biblical scholarship has been the Kandake (Queen of Ethiopia, pronounced Kan-dák-e, often spelled “Candace”) in Acts 8:27. to note that they found easy success in the rich soil of widespread mistruths regarding those with dark skin. As Valentin Groebner states, “Medieval hagiography knew no saintly black women of virtuous behaviour.”9 These medieval examples are secular works of literature, but unfortunately even the early church fathers are not without a weight of responsibility. In their exegetical attempts in the second to the fourth centuries, authors such as Irenaeus and Origen, and Philo as well, drew inferences from race and skin colour.10 As David Goldenberg states, “Origen’s exegesis . . . played a key role in the development of anti-Black racism. . . .”11 The lie of perception, of black symbolizing sin or evil, meant that sensationalizing it required little effort on behalf of those such as Magnus and Neustadt.12 Thus, the African, dark-skinned Kandake became a literary trope—a stereotype.13 This villainization is hazardous to more than memory, for it confuses our understanding of a minor, yet significant, character in the NT. It is with this in mind that we consider the Kandake mentioned in Acts 8:27, introduced as “Queen of the Ethiopians.” Historians identify her as Amantitere of the realm of Kush described above.

She likely reigned from AD 25–41.14 Her reign is nested within a remarkably long stretch of history (between the eighth century BC and the fourth century AD) when the Kushite realm stands apart from other kingdoms as a continuously steadfast power.15 As Randi Haaland points out, it was so well established it draws the attention of virtually every other explorer or political ruler.

Emperor Nero and Pliny the Elder are said to have paid visits to Amantitere.16 She is praised for her prowess in battle. In Meroitic art, she is depicted as striking down enemies of the “kingdom.”17 Astonishingly, these enemies included as formidable an opponent as Rome. A previous Kandake, named Amanirenas, had even decapitated a statue of Augustus Caesar and buried its head at the foot of a local temple so that her people could physically trample their foe.18 Excavated in the early twentieth century, this bronze head, known as the Meroe Head, is now on display at the British Museum in London.19 At the point in history we are considering, the Roman Empire was dominant. It had demonstrated military prowess and controlled the majority of available trade routes. But the Roman Empire, we can argue, was hostile towards women, influenced by earlier Greek cbeinternational.org

philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, who taught that women were inherently inferior to men. In fact, male Roman citizens had the legal right to kill their wives, and their daughters were equally disposable.20 Such a worldview could not accommodate a “kingdom” ruled by powerful women. Given the Kandake Amantitere's success against the Roman army, a rivalry emerged— but this was more than a question of military capability. Rome’s identity as a superpower was at stake. It required that Kush be effectively erased. And so, this unique and powerful empire was redacted from scores of histories, an empire whose Kandakes were a threat to the patriarchy of Rome.

The Kandake of Acts 8:27 While, as explained above, historians identify the Kandake who appears in Acts 8:27 as Amantitere, the text only gives her the title basilissa, “queen.” With gender roles being what they were in ancient Greek culture, there would have been no room for gender discrepancy or error in recording the Kandake as a female with ruling authority, especially when the text also mentions that the Kandake’s subject, whom Philip encounters, is a eunuch. Luke has no qualms about strong women. What is more, at this point in Acts, Luke features characters at the periphery of Judaism: Samaritans (Acts 8, etc.), Cornelius the God-fearing centurion (Acts 10), this eunuch from the Judaism-influenced upper Nile region, and his queen. This queen possesses authority over the “Ethiopians,” which for the Greeks meant everything south of Egypt, not confined to the present-day boundaries of the country by the same name. And this is an affluent kingdom,21 for Luke indicates the eunuch’s importance, describing him as “in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake.”

It would appear that Luke’s information matches with the Kushite history that we know.22 So, we could postulate that at the time of Philip’s encounter, and continuing to the time of Luke writing Acts, her identity would have been well known. Indeed, Luke gives this queen the kind of introduction you might offer a minor celebrity. He anticipates that his audience will know to whom he is referring— the queen of a strong and wealthy land. This is wealth that Rome has great interest in, and although Rome had successfully conquered northern Africa and made Egypt a province of the Empire, Meroe remained intact. The Greek geographer and historian Strabo (64/63 BC–AD 24) memorably documented the mounting tension between Kush and Rome.23 What also comes through in Luke’s account is that the Kandake places a high value on learning. Indeed, her servant is capable of reading and studying in multiple languages. He has no trouble communicating with Philip in Greek even though his native tongue would have been the Meroitic language. In Luke’s careful record, the eunuch’s and Philip’s words are not only in Greek, but in Greek with a nod to the elite.24 The Kandake’s servant not only postulates on a deeply intellectual level but is also following the cultural practice of reading aloud. In the ancient world, few kingdoms could have devoted so much attention to education. Additionally, for a wealthy foreigner to undertake a journey of over 1,200 miles in a lavish caravan would have been especially precarious and would have required a high level of protection. All this again speaks to the status of the eunuch’s patron queen and a thriving empire. When we combine these cbeinternational.org

inferences with the archeological evidence of royal feminine presence in first-century Kush, the Kandake emerges as a striking figure.

Referring to sculptures of Kandakes that date back centuries before the book of Acts, Steffan Spencer comments: “These statues convey a royal air . . . rather than solely emphasizing their fertility.”25 This conclusion is reiterated when we consider Luke’s account.

Luke’s information is not directly about the queen herself, but rather, she is introduced matter-of-factly in an account of great significance to the newly emerging Christian faith.

Christianity in First-Century Kush/Ethiopia That the Ethiopian eunuch goes on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem “to worship” (Acts 8:27) indicates that he is a practitioner of Judaism.

The practice of Judaism is known from the first century in Aksum,26 a rising power adjacent to Meroe27 on its northern borders, occupying the present-day northern regions of Sudan, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and stretching as far east as Yemen. When Judaism was first introduced to Aksum is hard to say. There is a claim that it was brought back by the queen of Sheba during the reign of King Solomon (1 Kgs 10:1– 13; 2 Chron 9:1–12; cf. Isa 11:11–12).28 It is more likely to have been brought up the Nile by exiled Jews.29 Regardless of the source, the presence of Judaism in the region of Kush is worth noting, as it not only frames the eunuch’s narrative, but also gives us a picture of the ruling Kandake as sponsoring the eunuch’s interest in Judaism.

Though some have speculated that the eunuch found his faith while in Jerusalem, his desire to worship there and his understanding of the prophet Isaiah suggest a maturity of faith. He is earnestly seeking the Messiah through the words of the OT prophet. He came over a great distance “to worship.” This is no casual curiosity; this is an intentional quest.

With gender roles being what they were in ancient Greek culture, there would have been no room for gender discrepancy or error in recording the Kandake as a female with ruling authority, especially when the text also mentions that the Kandake’s subject, whom Philip encounters, is a eunuch.

According to Western scholarship, we have no documented proof the eunuch returned to his homeland, though Irenaeus speculated as much,30 and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the Ethiopian Church, and the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria hold this to be historical fact.31 The proliferation of the Christian faith among the elite suggests that someone with authority brought back word of Judaic prophecy fulfilled in Jesus Christ.32 Early converts to Christianity appear to have seized the opportunity for the spread of religion through the vast trade networks across the kingdoms of this region.33 With Judaism already established here, Christianity as the fulfillment of prophecy must have been accepted as a logical progression.

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

17

The Nubian Church

Conclusion

As mentioned earlier, in present-day historiography the name for the region we have referred to as Kush/Ethiopia changed during the fourth century AD to Nubia. Archeologists are now dating the presence of Christianity in Nubia to at least the fifth century AD based on the discovery of churches built of stone.34 However, churches are typically built after Christianity is well established in a region.35 The earliest Christian churches in Rome, during the time Luke would have been writing, did not have dedicated buildings at all, but rather met in homes. The idea of the church as an institution is a distinctly European one, and furthermore, the notion of the church as a ruling authority is not biblically evidenced, but rather a theological and sociopolitical construct only visible after the Council of Nicaea in AD 325.

Understanding the significance of the “Kandake moment” in Acts 8 is crucial to our understanding of early church history. The Kandake requires us to investigate our own misconceptions and assumptions.

She represents a significant propagation route for the Christian faith. Her lost history is deeply entwined with our own, as this black, African queen likely played a role in the early establishment of Christianity in Africa.

Thus, it is plausible that there was established Christianity in this region before the construction of churches. Additionally, archeologists have uncovered in Nubia frescoes36 as well as manufactured products such as silver reliquaries37 depicting Christian scenes from before the fifth century AD. Even more compelling are the inscriptions regarding such advanced doctrines as the Trinity and Christian eschatology that have been discovered on well-preserved artifacts dating back to the early centuries AD.38 Furthermore, as mentioned previously, Judaism was an acceptable practice in the Aksumite court in the first century AD, and based on the same methods of data analysis applied elsewhere when determining the origins of Christianity, we can safely deduce a progression from Judaism to Christianity.39 Tertullian (ca. 155–220) himself supported such conclusions.40 Further support for the early presence of Christianity in Nubia may come from the Meroitic language, in which certain words suggest a Christian influence. Considering that the language itself ceased to be used in the fourth century AD, Christian elements in Meroitic would contradict currently held fifth to sixth century dates for the reception of Christianity in Africa.41 It seems that the Eurocentric lens has skewed the historical record concerning the “spread of Christianity” by favoring the Western missionaries of the sixth century rather than attempting to salvage the Egyptian and Meroitic records. The loss here is twofold. It results in a gap in our understanding of the political powers that dominated the ancient world at the time of Luke. And it obscures the possibility that the Christian faith in Nubia may have its roots in the missional efforts of the eunuch of Acts, who was under the patronage of the Kandake.

Understanding the significance of the “Kandake moment” in Acts 8 is crucial to our understanding of early church history.

18

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

Notes 1.

Isma’il Kushkush, “In the Land of Kush: A Dazzling Civilization Flourished in Sudan Nearly 5,000 Years Ago. Why Was it Forgotten?,” Smithsonian Magazine 51/5 (Sept 2020), https:// smithsonianmag.com/travel/sudan-land-kush-meroe-ancientcivilization-overlooked-180975498/.

2. Robert B. Jackson, At Empire’s Edge: Exploring Rome`s Egyptian Frontier (Yale University Press, 2002).

3. George Hatke, Aksum and Nubia: Warfare, Commerce, and Political Fictions in Ancient Northeast Africa (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, 2013) 57.

4. Frank M. Snowden, “Images and Attitudes,” Expedition 35/2 (1993) 40–50. It is important to note that the region of Nubia is largely interchangeable with Kush and even at times Ethiopia.

It is roughly the territory of modern-day Sudan but can include portions of Egypt as well. Most translations of Acts 8 use the name “Ethiopia.”

5. Isa 45:14; Nah 3:9; Job 28:19.

6. Claude Rilly and Alex de Voogt, The Meroitic Language and Writing System (Cambridge University Press, 2012) 3.

7. Jean Leclant, “The Empire of Kush: An Original Civilization which Flourished for a Thousand Years in Ancient Nubia,” The UNESCO Courier 32/8 (1979) 56.

8. Christa A. Tuczay, “Motifs in ‘The Arabian Nights’ and in Ancient and Medieval European Literature: A Comparison,” Folklore 116/3 (2005) 272–91.

9. Valentin Groebner, “The Carnal Knowing of a Coloured Body: Sleeping with Arabs and Blacks in the European Imagination, 1300–1550,” in The Origins of Racism in the West, ed. Miriam Eliav-Feldon, Benjamin Isaac, and Joseph Ziegler (Cambridge University Press, 2009) 220.

10. Jillian Stinchcomb, “Race, Racism, and the Hebrew Bible: The Case of the Queen of Sheba,” Religions 12/795 (Sept 2021).

11. David Goldenberg, “Racism, Color Symbolism, and Color Prejudice,” in The Origins of Racism in the West, 97. Origen was particularly focused on Gen 9 and drew inferences from the “curse of Ham,” which led to an ideology of superior or inferior races (First Principles 2.9.5). This was also based on geographic philosophical thought—that those who live in particularly hot, dry climates such as southern Africa were driven there because they are particularly sinful. See further: Matthijs den Dulk, “Origen of Alexandria and the History of Racism as a Theological Problem,” JTS 71/1 (April 2020) 164–95.

12. Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 10th anniversary ed. (Routledge, 2000) 69–83. Collins examines how these ancient and medieval parodies of black women have continued to evolve and negatively impact women of color even in modern-day America. cbeinternational.org

13. Sophia Smith Galer, “How Black Women Were Whitewashed

by Art,” BBC (Jan 16, 2019), https://bbc.com/culture/ article/20190114-how-black-women-were-whitewashed-byart. Galer discusses the way the visual arts were complicit in this misrepresentation and at times even more harmful because even the illiterate population could internalize their message.

14. Kushkush, “In the Land of Kush.”

15. Ahmed M. Ali Hakem, “The Matriarchs of Meroe: A Powerful Line of Queens Who Ruled the Kushite Empire,” The UNESCO Courier 32/8 (1979) 58.

16. Randi Haaland, “The Meroitic Empire: Trade and Cultural Influences in an Indian Ocean Context,” African Archaeological Review 31/4 (2014) 654.

17. Hakem. “The Matriarchs of Meroe,” 59.

18. Kai Mora, “The Nubian Queen Who Fought Back Caesar’s Army,” History, last modified March 23, 2022, https://history. com/news/nubian-queen-amanirenas-roman-army.

19. The Meroe Head, The Head of Augustus, The British Museum, 1911,0901.1, 2019, Room 35, “I Object: A History of Dissent,” https://britishmuseum.org/collection/object/G_1911–0901–1.

20. Loren Cunningham and David Joel Hamilton, with Janice Rogers, Why Not Women? A Fresh Look at Scripture on Women in Missions, Ministry, and Leadership (YWAM, 2000) 89–90.

21. O. G. S. Crawford, “Christian Nubia: A Review,” Antiquity 21 (1947) 10.

22. Walter A. Elwell and Robert W. Yarbrough, Encountering the New Testament: A Historical and Theological Survey, 3rd ed.

(Baker Academic, 2013) 195.

23. Nuria Castellano, “Rival to Egypt, the Nubian Kingdom of Kush Exuded Power and Gold,” National Geographic (Nov 15, 2016), https://nationalgeographic.com/history/historymagazine/article/ancient-egypt-nubian-kingdom-pyramidssudan. The same documentation exists in the Meroitic language, but because of the lack of scholarship regarding the Meroitic language we are unable to ascertain their account, thus relying on Greco-Roman history. The sandstone stela with the African account is on display at the British Museum, https://britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA1650.

24. Gifford Charles Alphaeus Rhamie, “Whiteness, Conviviality and Agency: The Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:26–40) and Conceptuality in the Imperial Imagination of Biblical Studies” (PhD diss., Canterbury Christ University, 2019) 295–96: “For example, in 8:31, Luke has the Ethiopian commanding an eloquent utility of the lingua franca Greek by employing the unusual optative mood . . . when he asks . . . How might I be able to, unless someone guides me? . . . This sophistication does not merely highlight the eunuch’s education, and Luke’s accomplished penmanship but a notable slant to an appreciative literary patron and audience.”

25. Steffan A. Spencer, “Matrifocal Retentions in Ethiopian Orthodox Traditions: The Madonna as Ark & Queen Makeda as Prefiguration of Mary; with Egyptian Queen Tiye & Pharaoh Hatshepsut as Reference,” African Identities (Nov 2021) 12. The author provides many notable examples of sculptures depicting dignified female rulers, now featured in museums worldwide, including the National Museum of Ethiopia and The Neues Museum in Berlin, Germany. The statues themselves date as far back as 1470 BC. 26. Rugare Rukuni, “Early Ethiopian Christianity: Retrospective Enquiry from the Perspective of Indian Thomine Tradition,”

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

HvTSt 76/3 (Nov 2020). Additional supporting evidence Rukuni does not mention are the Elephantine papyri and, likely, a Jewish temple. Both these confirm the presence of a Jewish community from the 7th–5th centuries BC. Stanley M. Burstein, “Axum and the Fall of Meroe,” Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt 18 (1981) 47–50.

In addition to the region being referred to by different names (Kush, Nubia, Ethiopia), the main power changes from the city of Meroe (where we find the majority of records pertaining to the Kandake) to Aksum. It is after this power shift that Kush becomes predominantly known as the Nubian Empire.

David B. Miller, “Law and Grace: The Seamless Faith of Ethiopian Orthodoxy,” Russian History 44/4 (2017) 505–14.

Joel Marcus, “‘The Twelve Tribes in the Diaspora’ (James 1.1),” NTS 60/4 (Sept 10, 2014) 433–47; Dierk Lange, “Origin of the Yoruba and ‘The Lost Tribes of Israel,’” Anthropos 106/2 (2011) 579–95. Both Marcus and Lange argue for an organic assimilation of exiled Jews into African tribes. They argue that Jews fleeing oppression came to Africa and either assimilated or maintained their tribal identity, but over the years it has become entangled with African mythology. This becomes all the more compelling when combined with Tudor Parfitt’s DNA studies of the Lemba people.

Irenaeus of Lyons, Adversus Haereses 3.12.8.

Britannica, T. Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church." Encyclopedia Britannica, October 3, 2023. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Ethiopian-OrthodoxTewahedo-Church.

Mark Shaw and Wanjiru M. Gitau, The Kingdom of God in Africa: A History of African Christianity (Langham, 2020) 71.

Haaland, “The Meroitic Empire,” 670.

Livia Gershon, “Ruins of Monumental Church Linked to Medieval Nubian Kingdom Found in Sudan,” Smithsonian Magazine (July 9, 2021).

Salim Farjai, “King Silko and the Roots of Nubian Christianity,” in The Kushite World: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference for Meroitic Studies (Vienna: Sept 1–4, 2008) 334.

J. W. Crowfoot, “Christian Nubia,” JEA 13/1 (1927) 145.

Farjai, “King Silko and the Roots of Nubian Christianity,” 331.

Jacques van der Vliet, The Christian Epigraphy of Egypt and Nubia (Taylor and Francis, 2018) 185–91.

Rukuni, “Early Ethiopian Christianity.”

ANF 35.

Richard Andrew Lobban, Historical Dictionary of Ancient and Medieval Nubia (Scarecrow, 2004) 104–6.

Heather Preston is a professional writer with a Master of Arts in Theological Studies. As a consultant, she works with churches and pastors and has a passion for academic collaborations. Heather hosts a podcast called Scripts on Scripture where she discusses all things Bible with pastors and fellow writers. Her most recent book is entitled Between the Lines: Discover What You’re Missing in the Story of Biblical Women of Faith (River Birch, 2023).

The Biblewomen of South India: A Professional Pathway to Dignity and Empowerment Philip Malayil Among the many motifs that decorate the tapestry of colonial India (1858–1947), the “Biblewomen” movement in Northern Circars1 was a direct outcome of the missionary influence in the sub-continent.

The origins of the movement can be traced to the establishment of the London Missionary Society (LMS) in this region2 in 1822.

The faith brought by British missionaries found favour among the natives, not because it was imposed on them, but because of the upward mobility it offered from an oppressive and rigid caste system.

Dalits, or outcastes, are outliers beyond the lowest of the castes.

They are considered untouchable and, therefore, disenfranchised from public spaces like schools and temples. Even their shadows were once considered capable of polluting. Dalits eagerly responded to the perceived egalitarianism that the missionaries offered, resulting in mass conversions in the year 1851.

several more below are post-conversion names). While Mary and Martha are believed to be from the Dalit community, Bathsheba was from a higher caste. They became the pioneering Biblewomen among the Telugu-speaking language group. Martha Porter received monthly reports and was responsible for raising funds for salaries, which amounted to twelve pounds per woman per year.6 By 1880, Hariamma, Papamma, and Pantagani Annamma were working with Canadian Baptist missionaries in the coastal districts, while Kaveramma, Ratnamma, and Charlotte were employed by the Canadian Missionary Society (CMS) missionaries.7 As the ministerial office of Biblewoman was transplanted to various milieus, an array of local needs and cultural factors contributed to the process of its appropriation.

Meanwhile in distant London, Ellen Ranyard set up the Bible and Domestic Female Mission (BDFM) to cater to the spiritual needs of women in the slums of urban England. Set up as a woman’s mission to women, the aim was to help women help themselves. In this ministry, in 1857, Ranyard initiated the idea of the Biblewoman, an epithet drawn from her identity as the female equivalent of Bible colporteurs or Biblemen popularized by the British and Foreign Bible Society (BFBS).3 A Biblewoman served as a missionary and social worker who belonged to the same social class as those whom she sought to reach. She was the “missing link” between the poorest families and their social superiors.4 In this context, Ranyard published Missing Link, a magazine which served to report on her outreach. It doubled as a community forum for her constituency and was a means to reinforce the gospel message.

Indian society then, and to a good extent today, was rigidly divided into castes. Women played a crucial role in perpetuating the caste legacy by transmitting its cultural norms and customs within families.

Since caste was inherited, it was possible for women to sabotage the system through association with men of lower castes. Therefore, the higher the caste was in the hierarchy, the more stringent the restrictions on its women through vigilant moral policing, at the expense of women’s freedom of choice. Even today, a man from an oppressed caste would risk his life by venturing into a relationship with a woman from a forward (that is, higher) caste.8

Sociocultural Context

Women at the bottom of the social ladder, on the other hand, had greater freedom, as their interactions seldom altered their status within the caste system. The Hindu document Manusmriti sets the tone in favour of the upper castes, “A woman is not liable for punishment if she has physical relations with a man from the ‘higher castes.’ But she is due for harsh punishment for having sex with a man from a ‘lower caste.’”9 This sets the backdrop against which Biblewomen came into their own.

Back in India, Edward and Martha Porter, a married couple, were appointed as missionaries in Cudappah in the year 1844. Martha Porter was a regular reader of the Missing Link, and from this resource she adapted Ranyard’s model of “Mother Meetings” into her local Indian context.5 These meetings were a major part of Ranyard’s programme A Leadership Role for Christian Women that catered to underprivileged married women. Ranyard’s view was that if the condition of the poor was to be improved, the reform of A Telugu proverb says: “If coconuts are available at hand, monkeys mothers was crucial. Tips on housekeeping, including cooking and use even them as weapons.”10 An application of this proverb is cleaning, formed a key component of these meetings. After her that despite being subjugated for centuries, the socially weak retirement in 1868, back in England, Porter floated the idea to Ranyard can skilfully use available resources to neutralize the powers of about appointing Biblewomen in the region of Rayalseema. Porter the dominant. This was the case with the Telugu Biblewomen, offered to liaise between the two countries women who typically belonged to outcaste and collate reports. She also promoted communities. They appropriated the the need through a series of articles in the evangelical Christianity that Protestant The “Biblewomen” movement Missing Link and appealed for funds from missionaries introduced, deftly melding in Northern Circars was readers in England. it with their local customs and concepts.

The Protestant emphasis on Scripture (in a direct outcome of the Martha Porter’s efforts bore fruit. Mary contrast to the Roman Catholic emphasis missionary influence in the Wesley and Martha Reuben were appointed on liturgy and the sacraments) allowed as Biblewomen in 1871, followed by a woman these women to exercise their authority as sub-continent. informal agents of the Bible’s transmission. named Bathsheba in 1872 (these names and 20

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

cbeinternational.org

Their basic commission was to sell Bibles, as their male counterparts did. But they went beyond, employing various strategies to make Scripture available. According to the demands of each cultural context, they would vend Bibles, do public readings of the Bible, and preach. Some of them became professional preachers, often leading their families and communities to conversion. Other Biblewomen led and served their communities as schoolteachers and nurses.

All this was possible because of the training they received.

Training The initial Biblewomen recruits from the 1870s were not formally educated. The best the missionaries in the Northern Circars could do was to gather potential Biblewomen for informal training sessions, after which they were assigned to different locations. Their lack of literacy could be compensated by other skills, such as an ability to commit material to memory or a gift for public speaking. Addepalle Mariamma from Bodaguntla, for example, was previously a Dalit priestess, a role which helped her gain the necessary confidence to engage in rhetoric with higher caste men.11

later shifted to Tuni and renamed the Eva Rose York Bible Training School, in honour of the Toronto donor. Similarly, in 1926, Augustana Lutheran missionaries from the United States founded the Charlotte Swanson Memorial Bible Training School in Rajahmundry. The usual enrolment criterium was an elementary school pass certificate. Those without any reading skills took a preparatory year before entering the programme.

Thus, many a Dalit woman became literate. The programme spanned two years. If a student decided to drop out at the end of the junior level, she was awarded a Lower Elementary School certificate. Those who went on to complete the final level received a Higher Elementary School certificate. Either of these certificates ensured placement. At times, "faithfulness" could be used as a substitute for a failure to earn a certificate and became the basis for placement. This lack of academic rigor could have been due to the special nature of the job, or because of the need for staff numbers to justify the contributions by sponsors, or because of a belief that “gifting overruled qualifications.”

Academic formalization brought with it a reduced emphasis on field exposure. What was earlier almost completely on-the-job-training became a mix of classroom and field work, with practical work relegated to twice Unlike many women of their a week. Missionaries and their native colleagues offered classroom instruction social status . . . Biblewomen four days a week—Monday through had considerable freedom Thursday. Practical training exercises, such as village camping, Sunday school teaching, of choice within the mission. and house visiting, took up the other three Encouraged by their days of the week. As part of their field education, trainees offered literacy and supervising matron, they found Bible classes to children every Thursday evening. They conducted itinerant work in spouses from among pastors nearby villages Friday and Saturday, and and schoolteachers within the then returned to the seminary on Sunday to attend worship service. mission infrastructure.

Later Biblewomen recruits were literate.

One reason for this was that, following the mass conversion of Dalits recorded in 1851, LMS missionaries introduced schools.

There is a possibility that some of the later Biblewomen recruits may have received education through these mission schools.

Some Biblewomen who were widows of pastors had acquired reading skills while their husbands attended classes in seminaries. An example is Jeevamrutha Patasala, a seminary founded by Canadian Baptist missionaries at Samarlakota.12 While the men undertook theological studies, their wives had special classes on biblical literacy and home management.

This added to their experience in church work and qualified them to be Biblewomen. One such is G. Shanthamma of Srikakulam, the widow of an Indian pastor, who briefly served as a Biblewoman from 1881 until her death in 1885.13

Unlike many women of their social status, who were forced to marry their cousins or maternal uncles—an economically driven tradition to ensure property stayed within the larger family—Biblewomen had considerable freedom of choice within the mission. Encouraged by their supervising matron, they found spouses from among pastors and schoolteachers within the mission infrastructure. Eligible male employees of the mission also preferred a wife with an income.

In some regions it appears that the missionaries thought it safe to employ women based on “age and ugliness,”14 since marriage was preferred to celibacy. But largely, being a married woman offered social respect and made Biblewomen more welcome into homes.15 This pattern of preparing Biblewomen as individuals and in small groups was eventually replaced by more formal programs of training. American Baptist missionaries founded a Bible Training School in Nellore in 1913, while Canadian Baptist missionaries founded a similar institution in Palakonda in 1922.16 This was cbeinternational.org

Traditionally, Brahmin men demanded deference because they could read sacred texts and legal deeds.

Biblewomen, who had been denied educational opportunities on account of their birth as women and/or as Dalits, were now learning not only to read but also gaining skills that would earn them social respect. The larger education offered in the seminary was aimed at enabling Biblewomen to be well received in Hindu homes. However, reports sent out by the Basel Mission in the neighbouring state of Karnataka indicate that Brahmin households were not always accessible to oppressed-caste Biblewomen.17 The Wesleyan Mission was even more candid. Sanjivi, a Biblewoman praised for her intelligence, piety, and sincerity to her task, is referred to as having only one drawback: “she came into this world branded with the curse of being low-caste.” Though she is appraised as “doing her best,” a mission report says that the missionaries were anxious to get another recruit from a “social position” more suited to reaching the “respectable people of the city.”18 While literacy and education attempted to build equal opportunities for the oppressed castes, traditional gender roles continued. In Bible school, men were taught carpentry,19 while women were taught sewing.20 Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

21

Job Description Reading the Bible and narrating stories from it became the primary job description for these new professionals. For some of these women, especially those who had been Dalit priestesses, becoming a Biblewoman entailed a major shift. Their previous vocation called on them to perform as divine oracles. During communal ceremonies they would enter into a trance, stimulated by the sight of flames of fire and the sound of musical invocation. In this trance state, they would speak on behalf of the deity. But now they had to trust the written Scriptures as the infallible and immutable word of God.

Hindu scriptures being recited. In contrast, low-caste Biblewomen could now sing the Christian Scripture, positively renegotiating their new social standing.

Biblewomen focused primarily on ministering to women and children at their homes. Women, in their role as homemakers, were identified as naturally influential over the family. The strategy was based on the reasonable assumption that, once persuaded into the Christian faith, a woman would lead her entire family to the faith. Although women and children received special attention, men were not completely outside the sphere of Biblewomen’s activities. There were instances when they specifically reached out to men, even outside the context of the family. An astonishing example is that in the Northern Circars, some Biblewomen were recognized and highly regarded for their religious discourses with Brahmin priests.26

Eliza F. Kent calls the Biblewomen “masters of improvisation” who bridged a cultural and social gap to bring the gospel to their Indian audiences. They could identify the concerns of enquirers and match their questions with appropriate hymns or verses from the Bible.21 A distinctly favourite passage was Matthew’s rendering Another logical locus of ministry was in schools, considering the of the parable of the sower (Matt 13:1–23). Anna Kugler, founder Biblewomen’s training and literacy. In Samarlakota, Americus V. of the Women’s Hospital at Guntur, explained that Biblewomen in Timpany, a Canadian Baptist missionary, started a school in 1880, her hospital repeatedly told this story because the audience of and Ellen, an Anglo-Indian Biblewoman, became its founding agricultural labourers readily identified with it.22 They knew all teacher.27 Occasionally, a Biblewoman played all the roles that a about scattering seeds and kinds of soils. Another attractive aspect of this story was that Biblewomen were quick to recognize school needed. For example, Neela, a Biblewoman at Bobbili, was a themselves in the role of the sower. Through repeated narration, chef, teacher, and matron of the boarding school, while her they not only trusted in the ability of colleague and sister-in-law, Sayamma, was a Scripture to produce faith but also regular schoolteacher.28 celebrated their own participation in Biblewomen focused A unique category of Biblewomen were heralding the kingdom of God. zenana workers. Zenana is Persian for “inner primarily on ministering chamber.” In India in the mid-nineteenth Another story that addressed the hearer’s felt to women and children at century, Muslim women followed the purdah need and introduced the Christian God as one (“curtain”) system, that is, a system that capable of meeting their needs was the story their homes. Women, in confined them to women’s quarters known as of the pregnancy of Elizabeth (Luke 1). zenana. The purdah system isolated these Abishekamma, a chief nurse and Biblewoman their role as homemakers, women from education and healthcare. Such at Medak Hospital, founded by the Wesleyan were identified as naturally segregation of women was also practised in Methodist missionaries, repeatedly related forward-caste Hindu homes. To reach out to this story to waiting outpatients. Arley influential over the family these cloistered women, the Baptist Munson, a doctor in the hospital, reported Missionary Society inaugurated zenana that many patients, especially the childless, missions in the year 1854. Some Biblewomen returned to hear the story again.23 The story of made it their special vocation to minister to these women—Muslims an elderly Elizabeth bearing a child brought hope to childless women. and high-caste Hindus—who were confined to their homes. They Stigmatised in society, they were drawn to a God whom they hoped taught reading skills on a regular basis and occasionally gave lessons would bless them similarly. on the Bible. Perhaps initiatives such as the zenana mission led to the founding of an Urdu school for Muslim girls, in Guntur in 1884.29 Along with Scripture, songs were the other tool that Biblewomen employed in their ministry. The lyrics mostly drew their content from Bible passages. They celebrated the life of Jesus or described an The majority of Biblewomen, however, visited women of oppressed ideal Christian home. The songs of Gnanaratnamma Philip, and outcaste status and focused on teaching the Bible rather than Vesapogu Gulbanamma, and Katta Chandramma, all of whom were literacy. One story of Bathsheba’s ministrations is illustrative of schoolteachers, reflect this focus on Christ and the model Christian the Biblewoman’s strategies to lead these women to Christ. family.24 As a forerunner to the choreographed songs of today, Bathsheba was sent for by an ailing woman. To introduce the woman to the Great Physician, Bathsheba read from the Gospel Biblewomen associated with the Methodist movement composed accounts about the woman with the issue of blood (Matt 9:20–22). action songs based on the parables and miracles of Jesus. Some of Two days later, Bathsheba visited her again and read about the these action songs further developed into dramas.25 Another crucifixion. During her next visit, the woman lay dying and asked category of songs was similar to “spirituals”—group songs to ease Bathsheba, “I am praying to Jesus, will he forgive me?” Bathsheba the ardour of farm labour. Typically, these were songs of dissent. comforted her with the assurance from Isa 1:18, “Though your sins The lyrics were a coping mechanism used by the oppressed castes are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red against their perpetually subordinate status. The irony was that preas crimson, they shall be like wool” (NIV).30 conversion, Dalit Biblewomen were not permitted even to hear the 22

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

cbeinternational.org

Outcome The office of the Biblewoman was in many ways a support role to the missionaries. The provision of a regular wage allowed them to consistently and professionally undertake this commitment. Their access to Indian women and their families and their reading, preaching, and narration of the Bible inevitably led to conversions.

In a survey undertaken by the National Christian Council of India,31 Pickett estimates that at least 15,000 from the lowest of the castes converted to Christianity between 1928 and 1932 in the six mission stations that his team studied.32 The aspiration of the outcastes for social improvement, according to Pickett, was one of the motives behind the conversions. Later, Pickett affirmed that Biblewomen were responsible for these mass conversions, especially among the Telugus.33 Mrs. Calvin F. Kuder, a missionary wife at Rajahmundry, for example, proudly informed her readers about the “increasing number” of oppressed caste conversions.34 American Lutheran missionaries responded to this by appointing more Biblewomen.

While there were only 113 Biblewomen working with American Lutherans in 1920, the number increased to 217 by 1930, showing a remarkable growth rate of 92 percent.35 Conclusion: A Symbiotic Relationship In the bigger picture of Christian missions in south India, missionaries and Biblewomen enjoyed a mutually beneficial collaboration. Foreign missionaries depended on the local women to

Notes 1.

The Northern Circars (also spelt Sarkars) was a division of British India’s Madras Presidency within the present-day states of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. Biblewomen formed a vital part of missionary enterprises in different parts of India, such as the German Evangelical Mission in Chattisgarh, the Basel mission in Karnataka, and Amy Carmichael’s..Church of England mission in Tirunelveli. This article restricts itself to the Northern Circars.

2. Specifically, in Cuddapah of the Rayalseema area, Andhra Pradesh, comprising the ceded districts which formed the Northern Circars during the British Raj. 3. Elspeth Platt, The Story of the Ranyard Mission, 1857–1937 (Hodder and Stoughton, 1937) 61.

4. Frank Prochaska, The Voluntary..Impulse: Philanthropy in Modern Britain (Faber, 1988) 48.

5. Prochaska, The Voluntary Impulse, 49.

6. C. Chandra Sekhar, “Dalit Women and Missionary Christianity: Telugu Bible Women as Teachers of Wisdom,” Economic and Political Weekly 56/11 (2021) 58.

7. James Elisha Taneti, Caste, Gender, and Christianity in Colonial India: Telugu Women in Mission (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) 131.

8. Siddharth,..“Inter-caste Marriage Isn’t the Problem, Marrying a Dalit Man Is,” The Print, 13 July 2019, https://theprint.in/ opinion/inter-caste-marriage-isnt-the-problem-marrying-adalit-man-is/262491.

9. This is the Law of Manu, 8 §365, a Hindu legal text delineating how society should be run.

10. Taneti, Caste, Gender, and Christianity, 1. cbeinternational.org

gain access into Indian homes, and Biblewomen often made the introductions and served as interlocutors.

Employing native women was financially viable as well.

Missionaries soon discovered that Biblewomen, as female workers, could be paid minimal wages for maximum gain. A Biblewoman usually was paid five rupees per month. This was less than five percent of what a foreign female missionary received and only one-third of what a male Indian preacher earned. While male Indian catechists who collaborated with American Lutheran missionaries received ten rupees per month, Biblewomen received between three and five rupees. According to an 1883 report, Hariamma and Shanthamma together received 120 rupees per annum (CAD 46) while their employer Carrie Hammond, a Canadian Baptist, received 1300 (CAD 500).36 But Biblewomen also received non-monetary benefits.

Biblewomen learned to read and recite portions of Scripture; they also developed the capability to interpret and contextualize the text. True to their title of “Biblewomen,” they appropriated the Bible in a uniquely personal way, carrying it wherever they went, respecting it as sacred. Through daily interaction with the transforming word, it is reasonable to assume that many Biblewomen’s spirits broke free from centuries of social oppression, gender discrimination, and economic deprivation while they themselves played their part in building a kingdom not of this world.

11. Daniel Orville, Moving with the Times: The Story of Outreach from Canada into Asia, South America, and Africa (Canadian Baptist Foreign Mission Board, 1973) 47. Taneti, in Caste, Gender, and Christianity, ch. 3 n. 106, says: “The ability to debate with Brahmin men was a celebrated gift.” See also a report from Mrs. Isaac Cannaday, entitled “Meenakshi: The Bible Woman,”..in..Lutheran Woman’s..Work..14:3 (March 1921) 83–84.”

12. Taneti, Caste, Gender, and..Christianity,..66. Jeevamrutha means “honey of immortality.”

13. Mary Julia Harpster, Among the Telugoos: Illustrating Mission Work in India (Lutheran..Publication Society, 1902) 60.

14. Eliza F. Kent, “Tamil Bible Women and the Zenana Missions of Colonial South India,” HR 39/2 (1999) 147.

15. James Elisha Taneti, “Reconfiguring..Home: Telugu..Biblewomen, Protestant..Missionaries, and Christian Marriage,” International Review of Missionary Research 35/1 (2011) 30.

16. Winnifred Eaton, Eva Rose York Bible Training School: Memories from the Early Days (Wolfville, Canada: Esther Clark Wright Archives, Vaughan Memorial Library, Acadia University).

17. Mrinalin..Sebastian, “Reading Archives from a Postcolonial Feminist..Perspective: ‘Native’ Bible Women and the Missionary Ideal,” JFSR 19/1 (Spring 2003) 17.

18. Sebastian, “Bible Women and the Missionary Ideal,” 18.

19. Clarence H. Swavely, One Hundred Years in the Andhra Country: A History of the India Mission of the United Lutheran Church in America, 1842–1942 (Diocesan Press, 1942) 100–1.

20. The Union Baptist Theological Seminary, Ramapatnam, South India: Jubilee Memorial, 1874–1924, and Seminary Catalogue, 1924 (Mission Press, 1924) 54–55.

21. Kent, “Tamil Bible Women,” 137.

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

23

22. Anna S. Kugler, Guntur Mission Hospital, Guntur, India (Women’s Missionary Society of the United Lutheran Church in America, 1928) 73.

23. Arley Isabel Munson, Jungle Days: Being the Experiences of an American Woman Doctor in India (Appleton, 1913) 43.

24. Gogu Syamala, Nalla Proddhu: Dalita Streela Sahityam [Black Dawn: Dalit Women’s Literature] (Hyderabad Book Trust, 2003) 39–41, 48–50.

25. Jarrell Waskom Pickett, Mass Movements in India: A Study with Recommendations (Abingdon, 1933) 260.

26. Orville, Moving with the Times, 47; Cannaday, “Meenakshi: The Bible Woman.”

27. Taneti, Caste, Gender, and Christianity, 76 28. Matilda Churchill, Letters from My Home in India, ed. Grace McLeod Rogers (McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart, 1916) 283.

29. Sandeep Kumar Dasari, “Missions at Work: Contribution Towards Social Change in Telugu Speaking Region” (1956) 5, https://academia.edu/1947203/MISSIONS_AT_ WORKCONTRIBUTON_TOWARDS_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ IN_TELUGU_SPEAKING_REGION. 30. Sekhar, Telugu Bible Women as Teachers of Wisdom, 60.

31. Pickett, Mass Movements in India, 295.

32. Church Missionary Society, Kistna, Madras Presidency, Telugu; London Missionary Society, South Travancore, Tamil; Gossner’s Evangelical Lutheran Mission work, Chotta Nagpur, Hindi; Methodist Episcopal work, Western United Provinces, Urdu; United Presbyterian Work, Punjab, Punjabi; American Presbyterian Work, Etah, United Provinces.

33. J. Waskom Pickett, Christ’s Way to India’s Heart: Present Day Mass Movements to Christianity (Friendship Press, 1938) 75.

34. Lutheran Woman’s Work 22/11 (Nov 1929) 523.

35. M. L. Dolbeer, Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church: A Brief History (Andhra Evangelical Lutheran Church, 1951) 60.

36. George Drach and Calvin F. Kuder, The Telugu Mission of the General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America (General Council Publication House, 1914) 219.

In the bigger picture of Christian missions in south India, missionaries and Biblewomen enjoyed a mutually beneficial collaboration. Foreign missionaries depended on the local women to gain access into Indian homes, and Biblewomen often made the introductions and served as interlocutors.

Philip Malayil, a journalist turned content marketer, is the South Asia coordinator for the online Dictionary of Christian Biography in Asia (https://dcbasia.org). He is enrolled in a bachelor's programme in theological studies. He makes his home in Bangalore, India, with his wife, Mary, and two daughters, Zoe and Charissa.

Unlock the Power of Biblical Equality with CBE International!

Get up to 15% off church and organization memberships!

Visit cbe.today/orgsale or scan the QR code to claim your discount today!

24

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

cbeinternational.org

“Let us not spend our time in trifling”: Susanna Wesley, a Mother to her Sons Patrick Oden

In late Spring of 1725, Susanna Wesley (1669–1742) wrote a letter to her second oldest son John, whom she called Jacky. After noting some particular frustrations experienced by his brother Charles on a recent journey, frustrations that involved his sister Hester, Susanna turns to more theological musings. John, it seems, included some quotes from Thomas à Kempis in a previous letter, and Susanna shared her opinion that à Kempis was “extremely wrong” to suggest that God “by an irreversible decree hath determined any man to be miserable in this world.”1 She goes on to write, “Our blessed Lord, who came from heaven to save us from our sins . . . did not intend by commanding us to ‘take up the cross’ that we should bid adieu to all joy and satisfaction [indefinitely], but he opens and extends our views beyond time to eternity. He directs us to place our joy that it may be durable as our being; not in gratifying but in retrenching our sensual appetites; not in obeying but correcting our irregular passions, bringing every appetite of the body and power of the soul under subjection to his laws, [if we would follow him to heaven].”2 We are to take up our cross, she writes to John, as a contrast to “our corrupt animality” in order to fight under “his banner against the flesh.” This fight is not an empty one, because “when by the divine grace we are so far conquerors as that we never willingly offend, but still press after greater degrees of Christian perfection . . . we shall then experience the truth of Solomon’s assertion, ‘The ways of virtue are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.’”3 After her brief theological insights, Susanna returns to the topic of à Kempis noting that she takes “Kempis to have been an honest, weak man, that had more zeal than knowledge, by his condemning all mirth or pleasure as sinful.” Misery is seen as misery to Susanna, who acknowledges how it can be used by God, but is not itself the place God leads us. “We may and ought to rejoice that God has assured us he will never leave or forsake us; but if we continue faithful to him, he will take care to conduct us safely through all the changes and chances of this mortal life to those blessed regions of joy and immortality where sorrow and sin can never enter!” John received this letter when he was nearing his twenty-first birthday, a student at Oxford, and not too long before he was ordained as a deacon in the Church of England.

I open with these extended quotes because it is all too easy to gloss over the sometimes radical influence a parent has on a child, especially when this child grows up to be a great historical figure. We read the writings of such a figure, see their significant contributions, and in the case of religious leaders, we analyze their writings so as to formulate a systematic picture of their overall theology. Yet doing this often results in an ahistorical study that pulls the figure out of their context and robs their contributions of vitally important tools of interpretation. For people live and respond to specific contexts, not a generalized reality, and it is only in seeing a figure, a movement, or a mission within specific contexts that we can hope to develop a cbeinternational.org

more accurate, and thus more helpful, understanding of the person and their contributions. It is with this in mind that I now consider John Wesley, seeing him not as a figure who suddenly erupted into this world great and wholly unique. Rather, he was a man whose extremely significant influence was partly a testimony of his own great passion and work ethic, but also very much in keeping with the tradition in which he was born, and in which he was raised.

In what follows, I consider his mother, who has been often used to explain Wesley’s later development, yet has generally been misused and misunderstood, leading to sometimes wrong conceptions of John Wesley as a man and as a Methodist. I will first give a basic introduction to her life, followed by a brief overview of some of the psychological interpretations that have developed from earlier studies. I will then suggest that these earlier studies were inadequate because they had not included the scope of Susanna’s interactions with her sons in their research. The bulk of this essay, then, will be to help remedy future interpretations by providing examples from her letters to her three sons: Samuel, Charles, and John. In doing this I hope to show that, far from being a restrictive or domineering mother, Susanna has felt the brunt of much misogynistic interpretations from the past, leading her own intelligence and learning to be denigrated.

It is indeed true that John and Charles Wesley were vitally shaped by their mother. This was, however, a predominantly positive influence that helped give them both a creative genius and intrepid spirit that led to the founding and thriving of the Methodist movement.

The Life and Influence of Susanna Wesley There’s nothing plainer than that a free-thinker as a freethinker, an atheist as an atheist, is worse in that respect than a believer as a believer. But if that believer’s practice does not correspond with his faith . . . he is worse than an infidel.4 Although it cannot be said that Susanna Wesley has been forgotten to history—either in its popular or its more formal forms—there is a curious emphasis which seems to dominate any mentions of John Wesley’s mother. This emphasis, no doubt, in large part derives less from an interest in Susanna for her own self as it does for a way to better understand the social, spiritual, and psychological quandary which John Wesley has caused for those attempting to understand his motives and issues. This is especially the case if one dismisses outright the religious truth of John Wesley’s claims, leaving him a shell to be filled up with all manner of psychoanalytical theories.

Indeed, for this purpose, Susanna Wesley appears to offer a very fruitful source—both in how Wesley related to himself and how he related to other women.

Many biographers have seen Susanna’s form of child-rearing as being the shaping force in John’s psychological development. Especially Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

25

in considering Wesley’s later development and his own religious philosophy, it can be said that he was consumed with doubt and feelings of inadequacy. In his study of Wesley, Robert Moore writes that his “personal style as a ‘Methodist’, compulsive, over-organized, perfectionistic in his attempts to obey authorities which he believed to be legitimate, just, and consistent was determined at this early age.”5 If we understand shame as being a “vague, diffuse sense of falling short of some ideal,” then “our ‘fault’ (in biblical terms) is a sin of omission; we have left undone that which we ought to have done.”6 From the time of his earliest youth, Wesley sought internal spiritual order through increasing patterns of discipline and “methods” which would help him towards the perfection that he thought was the goal of the true Christian life. At the root of this interpretation is the statement of Susanna about her method of raising children and her “bylaws,” which formed the foundation of her approach with each of her children. “Whatever pains it cost, conquer their stubbornness,” she writes, “break the will if you would not damn the child.”7 It is understood that the shame induced by Susanna’s breaking of the will results in John’s later feeling that “he had fallen short of the mark, that he had not reached his spiritual ideal.”8 Thus, in this perspective, it was an underlying sense of doubt and shame which led to his later strivings for full acceptance both before his parents and before his God. Yet, this interpretation runs into numerous difficulties when pressed by more than a desire to explain away John Wesley’s apparent neuroses.9 Indeed, while a discussion of Susanna’s approach to child-rearing could itself take up a large amount of space, it would be more efficient in this present effort to instead try to understand Susanna not from her approaches to her children, but rather to see her as an educated, thoughtful, highly spiritual, strong-willed woman in her own right.10 In approaching Susanna from this direction, we find that John Wesley was not a stereotypical conglomeration of the more obvious Freudian psychoses, but rather the son of a very strong Christian woman who was taught from his earliest age the reality of an active relationship with God and the priority of pursuing this relationship in the midst of a complicated world.

Susanna exhibited early the independence of thought and action which characterized her throughout her life. Despite the not only dedicated but also sacrificial commitment to the Dissenting tradition shown by her father, Susanna, at the age of thirteen, made the decision to step away from her family’s identification and return, on her own, to communion with the Church of England. The specific reasons for this precocious step are not precisely known.

In 1709, the year of the Epworth fire, Susanna wrote to her son Samuel and told him that she had written a substantial explanation of her reasoning for her return to the Church of England, but this, along with so many of her own and her father’s writings,

Susanna exhibited early the independence of thought and action which characterized her throughout her life.

26

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

were burned.11 She did not, it seems, pen another version of this testimony, so we are left to surmise some reasons for her change.

Many researchers make note of the highly influential apologetic preaching of such Anglicans as John Tillotson, Thomas Tenison, and William Beveridge, who were calling Dissenters back into the national church.12 Whatever the particular reason that Susanna left the family religious tradition, it does not seem that she in any way forsook her father or his spiritual wisdom. Indeed, she was, it seems, quite close to him throughout his life. This no doubt led to her continuing to read deeply of spiritual writings.

This reading and the spiritual emphasis that permeates her collected writings places the more well-known statements on education within a broader context—a context which shows Susanna to be, above all, interested in serving God in her life, a life in which she was given significant responsibility for raising a brood of likewise very intelligent children.13 We find in her letters, in her journals, and in her other writings that she was a serious, highly intellectual woman with strong, developed opinions which found a curious, profound role in an age in which women were not given anything near equal voice with men.14 She had, as Charles Wallace puts it, “a deeply formed sense of self; a Puritan self-understanding that ultimately values the individual and empowers her when in conflict with ‘the world,’ however that might be construed.”15 Her occasional conflicts with “the world” were not, however, public battles in which she sought to recreate society. Rather, she was her own self within the confines of her context, a conventional woman of the early eighteenth century. Even so, within these conventions, she revealed a great sense of independence of thought and very well-formed theological insights. “That sense of self allows her not only to love and support her family but also to advise, teach, argue with, and sometimes stubbornly resist even her husband, brother, and sons.”16 Given the strong identity of each of her sons, it is not surprising that different aspects of her personality are revealed in her various interactions with them.

Letters Susanna’s relationship with her husband, Samuel, is well known.

In a famous passage she wrote to John about his thoughts on considering ordination, she notes, “I was much pleased with it and liked the proposal well, but ’tis an unhappiness almost peculiar to our family that your father and I seldom think alike.”17 She continues, “Mr. Wesley differs from me, would engage you, I believe in critical learning.” She then adds, “I earnestly pray to God to aver that great evil from you of engaging in trifling studies to the neglect of such as are absolutely necessary.”18 What was absolutely necessary was not to listen to his father, but for young John to pursue that which leads to the fullest relationship with God. John did, of course, pursue ordination and upon doing so finally did have the support of his father, who apparently had changed his mind about career choices. Yet, in their disagreements about all manner of issues, Susanna remained loyal to Samuel in public and in private. This is most evident in a letter she wrote to her brother, Samuel Annesley, Jr., who had been successful in business in India, and who had had some unfortunate financial dealings with Samuel Wesley. She admits her husband was not a wise man of business, ample evidence was easily convincing, but she adds: cbeinternational.org

And did I not know that almighty Wisdom hath views and ends in fixing the bounds of our habitation which are out of our ken, I should think it a thousand pities that a man of his brightness and rare endowments of learning and useful knowledge in relation to the church of God should be confined to an obscure corner of the Country, where his talents are buried and he is determined to a way of life for which he is not so well qualified as I could wish.

She will admit to his lack of business acumen—which caused the family suffering—but continues to admire and respect his learning and spirituality, which is for her a more important reality. No doubt this was a factor in their early relationship. After her return to the Church of England, she notes that she was for a time tempted to the position of the Socinians, but a wise man helped her better understand and appreciate the orthodox teaching on the Trinity.19 Susanna, with her defined priorities, ended up marrying this man. It seems having a spiritual insight and wisdom was something Susanna respected in her father, in her husband, and in her sons and her daughters.20 We see in her letters to each of her sons a slightly different expression of Susanna. Indeed, the very distinctions in her response and in the personalities of her children—all of whom continued strong in the faith—argue as much as anything against her being identified as a psycho-social oppressor.

In her letters to her eldest son Samuel, we find a spiritual and emotional counselor sharing insights to her eldest son, apparently in response to questions he had sent.21 Her comments during his school days in the early years of the eighteenth century are not merely emotional encouragement meant to bolster his attitude during his education, and go well beyond reminders for him to attend church and to his studies. In a letter written in March 1704, Susanna reveals an intellectual and insightful theology, and hopes to remind her eldest of his spiritual responsibilities by means of what is, in effect, a short philosophical treatise on the nature of religion. “We may,” she writes as she gets into the heart of the letter, “distinguish the propositions of natural religion into theoretical and practical.

I’ve already said enough of the first. I proceed to the second and shall divide the propositions of a practical natural religion into two parts: first the internal, second the external worship of God.”22 At the end of the long letter she notes that going well beyond her own counsel, young “Sammy” should seek God continually in his own devotions. “That you may more perfectly know and obey the law of God, be sure you constantly pray for the assistance of the Holy Spirit.” She continues, “Observe that assistance implies a joint concurrence of the person assisted; nor can you possibly be assisted if you do nothing. Therefore, use your utmost care and diligence to do your duty and rely upon the veracity of God, who will not fail to perform what he has promised.”23 In later letters, she specifies more what this diligence involves, including watching how much he drinks and taking note of his specific temptations.

A summary of her approach might be found in a letter she wrote to Samuel in August of 1704: The mind of a Christian should always be composed, temperate, free from all extremes of mirth or sadness, and always disposed to hear cbeinternational.org

the still small voice of God’s Holy Spirit, which will direct him what and how to act in all the occurrences of life, if in all his ways he acknowledge him and depend on his assistance.24 These early letters to Samuel are important not simply as insights into Susanna’s relationship with her eldest son, but also as an indication of her theological and intellectual life in John Wesley’s earliest years, showing the atmosphere in which he was raised was filled with very engaged theological thought. To be sure, the letters sent to a young man in school were not the complete picture of the relationship Susanna had with her eldest son. Indeed, after his untimely death in 1739, Susanna wrote Charles with her expressions of grief. “Your brother was exceedingly dear to me in his life, and perhaps I’ve erred in loving him too well. I once thought it impossible for me to bear his loss, but none knows what they can bear till they are tried.”25 She then adds an honest expression of her spiritual need in her grief.

“As your good old grandfather often used to say, ‘That’s an affliction, that God makes an affliction.’ For surely the manifestation of his presence and favour is more than an adequate support under any suffering whatever. But if he withhold his consolations and hide his face from us the least suffering is intolerable.” After her husband’s death, she had lived with her eldest son and was dependent on him for her own needs. But she writes she had not even thought about this, as she had indeed felt God’s provision, felt called to “a firmer dependence” on him. “That, though my son was good, he was not my God—and that now our heavenly father seemed to have taken my cause more immediately into his own hand; and therefore even against hope, I believed in hope that I should never suffer more.”26 In her letters to her youngest son, Charles, we find Susanna showing the same interest in spiritual guidance, acting as a sought-after spiritual counselor, giving practical and theological advice. Yet, there are other aspects shown as well, especially later on in her life when Charles had gained a fair amount of his own spiritual confidence.

After the Wesley brothers had their enlightening experiences of renewed faith, it seems Charles was eager to share the fruits of their discovery with his mother, and may have been a bit zealous in his own attempts to convince her that his own faith was lacking prior to his new experience, apparently implying her understanding was deficient as well. After quoting a long passage from the French-born Anglican priest, Pierre du Moulin, she writes, “I think you are fallen into an odd way of thinking. You say that till within a few months you had no spiritual life nor any justifying faith. Now this is as if a man should affirm he was not alive in his infancy, because, when an infant he did not know he was alive. A strange way of arguing, this!”27 Despite this sharp disagreement, with both holding their ground, the letters as a whole reflect a continued interest in worthwhile conversation. In 1735, she writes, “that as pleases God, but if while I have life and any remains of health, it may be useful or pleasing to you, that we hold a correspondence together by letters, I shall gladly do it. But then, dear Charles, let us not spend our time in trifling, in talking of impertinent matters that will turn to no account.”

Indeed, while her letters do contain the occasional tidbit of personal information—especially as it seems Charles was in closer contact with several of the Wesley daughters—there was a frank spiritual conversation that Susanna continued to pursue. In one of her last letters, when she was seventy-two, she finishes her brief comments Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

27

to Charles by expressing her confidence in God’s work in John’s life and also in his, saying “my fears are at an end,” for she sees her life’s work not only taking shape but also exhibiting great fruit.

She had sought to teach all her sons the ways of God, and they were incomparably active in teaching this to others. She finishes with an exhortation to continue in service to God. “Proclaim his universal love and free grace to all men. And that ye may go on in [the power of the Lord and in] the strength of his might and be preserved from yielding place to those bold blasphemers so much as for an hour is the hearty prayer of your loving mother. I send thee my love and blessing.”28 It is not surprising that her letters to John are the most numerous of all that have been preserved. Throughout these letters she shows the same quality of affection and deep interaction that she reveals in her letters to Charles and Samuel. Indeed, as in the example with which we opened this study, Susanna was willing to engage in theological musings with her son, interacting with him about readings in spirituality and theology. It seems John was curious about his mother’s opinion on topics, knowing that she was well-read.29 Throughout the letters to John, there does seem to also reflect a lot of mutual respect. In March of 1734, she responds to a letter of his, in which she addresses a particularly troublesome interaction John experienced, and then replies to his apparent questions about his own devotions. She writes, “You want no direction from me how to employ your time. I thank God for his inspiring you with a resolution of being faithful in improving that important talent committed to your trust.” She admits her own haphazard devotions, adding that because of her circumstances, likely related to her health, “I can’t observe order, or think consistently, as formerly. When I have lucid interval I aim at improving it, but alas, it is but aiming.”30 However, she always does seem to have an opinion or a suggestion, adding that while she sees nothing of his use of time “but what I approve, unless it be that you do not assign enough of it to meditation, which is (I conceive) incomparably the best means to spiritualize our affections, confirm our judgments, and add strength to our pious resolutions of any exercise whatsoever.” She then proceeds to a passionate meditation on God. “And what is so proper for this end as deep and serious consideration of that pure, unaccountable love which is demonstrated to us in our redemption by God Incarnate!

Verily, the simplicity of divine love is wonderful! It transcends all thought, it passeth our sublimest apprehensions! Perfect love indeed!” She continues on, “And yet this great, incomprehensible, ineffable all-glorious God deigns to regard us! Declares he loves us!”

She presses on with her passionate reminder, proceeding back to her counsel, reminding John of how God reaches out to his people.

“How oft doth he call upon us to return and live! By his ministers, his providence, by the still, small voice of his Holy Spirit! By conscience, his viceregent within us and by his merciful corrections and the innumerable blessings we daily enjoy!” She notes we cannot truly contemplate God as he is in himself, but she gives hope. “But when we consider him under the character of a Savior we revive, and the greatness of that majesty which before astonished, and confounded our weak faculties now enhances the value of his condescension towards us and melts our tempers into tenderness and love.”

Susanna realizes that she is running out of paper, so tries to conclude, steering the note back to his state of life, and adding 28

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

"And what is so proper for this end as deep and serious consideration of that pure, unaccountable love which is demonstrated to us in our redemption by God Incarnate!"

—Susanna in a letter to John, March 1734 encouragements. “Therefore you must not judge of your interior state by your not feeling great fervours of spirit and extraordinary agitations, as plentiful weeping, etc. but rather by the firm adherence of your will to God.”31 She then adds, “follow Mr. Baxter’s advice, and you will be easy.”32 Given the course of these middle years of the 1730s, it seems John was not quick to take Baxter’s or Susanna’s advice, and he was not easy. Susanna ended her note, written four years prior to John’s Aldersgate experience, with these words: “Dear Jacky, God Almighty bless thee!”

It seems God answered Susanna’s prayers.

Conclusion Susanna Wesley was, to be sure, a woman of her age, a wife to an oft tempestuous pastor and a mother to significantly more children than is understandable in our era. In this she was conventional. In light of her seemingly rigid ideals about parenting, it would then seem to be very fitting to interpret her, and thus her children, in light of conventional approaches to developmental psychology. Her goal to break the will of her children would lead to anxiety about guilt and lead to forms of religious interactions that were defined by performance, proving one’s worth in order to gain approval and love.

Such a picture of Susanna would also be useful in explaining John Wesley’s particular troubles with women, caught as he was between an intense interest in them and a persistent awkwardness in developing close relationships with them. This impression of Susanna then leads to interpretations of John Wesley’s theology and later Methodism that fit this developmental narrative. In this way, Susanna has served as a decisive if not always prominent part of Wesley studies. John Wesley, you see, had mother issues, and that explains a lot.

It is for this reason that Susanna should be further studied for who she actually was and how she thought as a real person, not as a caricature. She was, in many ways, a conventional woman of her age but, in many other ways, she was an extraordinarily unique woman. She was extremely well-read, and more than this she showed continued evidence of intellectual engagement with the key thinkers of her era, whether in philosophy or religion. She expressed from her earliest days a strong will of her own, an independence of thought and judgment that led her to independently leave the Dissenting tradition of her father and return to the Church of England. Her letters show both the evidence of her learning and her tendency towards intellectual sparring, not for its own sake but as a way of better determining the truth about God and life. She was, it seems, characterized by cbeinternational.org

a persistent intellectual and spiritual curiosity, one that became expressed in her relationships with her sons, leading her to give counsel and seek counsel, to discuss what she read and respond to the issues her sons were worried about. She was not, it seems, an overbearing mother but an involved mother who was dedicated to her children. It is her lasting legacy that she helped instill in her sons their own intellectual curiosity and independent drive, a drive oriented around a quest for the Living God and what it means to live with God in this present life and into eternity.

Notes This article was first published as “‘Let us not spend our time in trifling’: Susanna Wesley, a Mother to her Sons,” Wesleyan Theological Journal 48/2 (2013) 112–25. It is reproduced with kind permission and has been lightly edited for length.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

Charles Wallace Jr., ed., Susanna Wesley: The Complete Writings (Oxford University Press, 1997) 107.

Wallace, Susanna, 108.

Wallace, Susanna, 108.

Wallace, Susanna, 112.

Robert L. Moore, “Justification without Joy: Psychohistorical Reflections on John Wesley’s Childhood and Conversion,” History of Childhood Quarterly: The Journal of Psychohistory 2/1 (1974) 36.

Moore, “Justification without Joy,” 36.

Wallace, Susanna, 370.

Moore, “Justification without Joy,” 36. Cf. James Fowler, “John Wesley’s Development in Faith,” in The Future of the Methodist Theological Traditions, ed. M. Douglas Meeks (Abingdon, 1985); Claire E. Wolfteich, “A Difficult Love: Mother as Spiritual Guide in the Writing of Susanna Wesley,” Methodist History 38/1 (1999) 58ff. Fowler, 183, in fact attributes Wesley’s later identity crisis to repressed infantile anger and a personality organized out of his superego.

For another perspective on John’s family life, see Anthony J. Headley, Family Crucible: The Influence of Family Dynamics in the Life and Ministry of John Wesley (Wipf & Stock, 2010).

Headley utilizes Murray Bowen’s Extended Family Systems Theory and Alfred Adler’s concept of family constellation.

He offers a worthwhile exploration of Wesley’s intimate interactions. However, he does not utilize Susanna’s collected works, relying instead on six letters written by her and a similar number written by other family members.

See further Martha F. Bowden, “Susanna Wesley's Educational Method,” Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society 44/1 (2002); David Butler, “‘Look for the Mother to Find the Son’: The Influence of Susanna Wesley on Her Son John,” Epworth Review 25/4 (1998) 90–100; Frank Baker, “Susanna Wesley: Puritan, Parent, Pastor, Protagonist, Pattern,” in Women in New Worlds (Abingdon, 1982) 112–31; Henry D. Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast: John Wesley and the Rise of Methodism (Abingdon, 2002) 54ff.; Wallace, Susanna, 367ff.; Kenneth J. Collins, A Real Christian: The Life of John Wesley (Abingdon, 1999) 11ff.; John A. Newton, Susanna Wesley and the Puritan Tradition in Methodism (Epworth, 2002) 106ff.

Wallace, Susanna, 71.

Newton, Susanna, 59ff.

In 1731, she wrote to John: “No one can, without renouncing the world in the most literal sense, observe my method, and

cbeinternational.org

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

there’s few (if any) that would entirely devote above twenty years of the prime of life in hope to save the souls of their children (which they think may be saved without so much ado); for that was my principal intention, however unskillfully or unsuccessfully managed.” Wallace, Susanna, 150.

See Charles Wallace Jr., “Susanna Wesley's Spirituality: The Freedom of a Christian Woman,” Methodist History 22/3 (1984) 158–73.

Wallace, Susanna, 33.

Wallace, Susanna, 33.

Wallace, Susanna, 106.

Wallace, Susanna, 107.

Newton, Susanna, 66.

We have significantly more evidence of her interaction with her sons, and they found more opportunity than the Wesley daughters. Society did not give ample space for educated women, and they, for the most part, were victims of this reality. See Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 51ff.; Samuel J. Rogal, “The Epworth Women: Susanna Wesley and Her Daughters,” Wesleyan Theological Journal 18/2 (1983) 80–89.

See Wallace, Susanna, 41–75: Wallace, Susanna, 42.

Wallace, Susanna, 48.

Wallace, Susanna, 50.

Wallace, Susanna, 179.

Wallace, Susanna, 180. Indeed, her poverty and the death of almost half of her children, as well as frequent ill health, suggest a near continual experience of suffering which underlies her spiritual writings.

Wallace, Susanna, 176. Her understanding of the continual gradual work of the Holy Spirit in the life a maturing Christian is something that John Wesley, and later John Fletcher, continued to consider.

Wallace, Susanna, 190.

In her journals we learn more about the extent and depth to which she read, both intellectually and devotionally. Among her dialogue partners are Aristotle, Plato, Beveridge, and many others from history and Scripture. She especially valued Richard Lucas, George Herbert, John Locke, Pascal, and Richard Baxter, each providing profound influence in her expressions, spirituality, and overall philosophy of life. See Charles Wallace Jr., “‘Some Stated Employment of Your Mind’: Reading, Writing, and Religion in the Life of Susanna Wesley,” CH 58/3 (1989) 354–66; Wallace, Susanna, ch. 5. See further Richard E. Brantley, Locke, Wesley, and the Method of English Romanticism (University Presses of Florida, 1984); Frederick Dreyer, “Faith and Experience in the Thought of John Wesley,” AHR 88/1 (1983) 12–30; Robert C. Monk, John Wesley: His Puritan Heritage (Scarecrow, 1999); Richard Lucas, An Enquiry after Happiness (W. Innys and R. Manby, 1735).

Wallace, Susanna, 165.

Wallace, Susanna, 165–66.

She here refers to Richard Baxter, a Puritan preacher from the seventeenth century: “Put your souls, with all their sins and dangers, and all their interests, into the hand of Jesus Christ your Saviour; and trust them wholly with him by a resolved faith. . . .”

Patrick Oden is the Director of Academic Integration for Fuller Equip and Research Associate Professor of Theology at Fuller Seminary, as well as ordained in the Wesleyan Church. He is married to Amy, a worship leader. They have two children, Vianne and Oliver, and live in Lake Arrowhead, California.

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

29

Book Review: Voices Long Silenced: Women Biblical Interpreters through the Centuries

By Joy A. Schroeder & Marion Ann Taylor (Westminster John Knox Press, 2022) Reviewed by Kimberly Dickson Though my bookcase is lined with collections highlighting women leaders, interpreters, and scholars from ancient Israel through to the 21st century, I had yet to come upon such a well-researched, dense-yet-readable volume as Voices Long Silenced: Women Biblical Interpreters Through the Centuries.

Joy Schroeder and Marion Ann Taylor have meticulously researched each woman, mining primary sources to allow the women, when possible, to make their own interpretive arguments in their own voice. And not only do Schroeder and Taylor cover the Western church, but they also cover Latin American interpreters, Native Americans, slaves and freed-women. These unique voices deepen and expand scriptural understanding. Predictably, the reception of each woman’s work depended on her historical context, of which Schroeder and Taylor provide detailed descriptions. These ranged from enthusiasm, to male allies promoting the women’s work, to resistance, to confiscation of libraries and all written works, to persecution, to burning at the stake.

International’s translation team was the first to make this correction. I recognized many other patterns that persist today. Across time, women have take pains to make their works palatable to a general audience that believes women should not teach men. And often, across time, men have made women’s words their own, only after which other men are able to hear the women’s words. I laughed as I related to women who lived over 500 years ago, as they considered the Reformation’s implications for women leaving the convents, marrying, and raising children. Ultimately these women used similar exegetical methods to those we use today, studying the many women of Scripture and identifying their God-given gifts to lead, preach, judge, fight, heal, and serve. They learned the ancient languages to better understand and correct translations. And they asked hard and probing questions. They may have felt they were the only ones, but in reading this text, I was encouraged to see the long line of women who have been called to better understand, translate, and teach the Bible.

As a reader, I could not help but be impressed by the many accounts of women’s courage as they defied traditional male interpretations to defend the inherent value of women, women’s intellect, and their contributions to theology. Schroeder and Taylor trace many women who saw the link between biblical patriarchy and slavery, and who thus became outspoken abolitionists. That said, hypocritical racism and unanalyzed cultural biases remained in many of these same women interpreters, and Taylor and Schroeder do not hide it. They comment on the hypocrisy in Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s racism.

They show how Spanish nuns in Latin America opposed slavery, not because they rejected the idea of treating slaves as property, but because they rejected the idea of owning property at all. They point out the outright antisemitism embraced by European women interpreters even while they themselves were being persecuted.

Schroeder and Taylor’s inclusion of the interpretive voices of Black women who had been enslaved in America provide welcome voices and corrections to the western church’s racism and antisemitism— Sojourner Truth and Amanda Berry Smith, Jewish interpreters, and women enslaved in the Latin American convents,.

This book deserves to be used as a master’s level textbook. However, its very thorough nature is also what makes it a daunting book to read. The print was small and tightly spaced, with no word wasted.

Thus, the reader will need to be fully attentive. While the main historical periods are divided by subheadings, the narrative moves from a lengthy discussion of one interpreter onto the next without warning, often causing me to back up and make sure I hadn’t missed a transition. Further, though I was surprised at the depth and detail it provided on so many women—Sor Juan Inés de la Cruz providing one such example—I was disappointed that certain other women barely received a mention, such as Katharine Bushnell. Likewise, Hannah Moore was mentioned but, considering Schroeder and Taylor’s intentional discussion of racism, slavery, and the abolitionist movements, I was surprised that her deep dedication to abolition and her work with William Wilberforce was not discussed. However, the authors do expressly say that this type of work could not possibly cover every aspect of every woman featured. Rather, they hope it will motivate more work like their own. Overall, I give the book five stars, knowing it will be my go-to each time I write about or research a woman from our faith history.

In covering such a vast time period and number of women, Schroeder and Taylor identify recurrent patterns of interpretation over the centuries. Throughout history, the distribution of women’s work was so minimal that most women believed they were the first or only women to interpret scripture. Ignorance of their contributions persists. For instance, I was surprised to see that Elizabeth Smith (1776–1806) had already corrected Augustine’s interpretation of Job’s wife, where he translated the Hebrew word “blessing” as “curse,” reading the Hebrew as a euphemism. Prior to reading this book, I believed that CBE 30

Priscilla Papers | 37/4 | Autumn 2023

Kimberly Dickson has worked in the Middle East, East Africa, India, and in her home state of California, working with communities and families to bring the marginalized, especially women, into the center of decision making. She is studying an MA in Theology at Fuller Theological Seminary to better understand the Judeo-Christian faith’s perspectives on women.

Kimberly is co-host of CBE International’s Mutuality Matters podcast segment, “Global Impact: Egalitarian Activism and Human Flourishing.”

cbeinternational.org

CBE INTERNATIONAL (Christians for Biblical Equality)

CBE International (CBE) is a nonpro��t organization of Christian men and women who believe that the Bible, properly interpreted, teaches the fundamental equality of men and women of all ethnic groups, all economic classes, and all age groups, based on the teachings of Scriptures such as Galatians 3:28.

ENVISIONED FUTURE

CBE envisions a future where all believers are freed to exercise their gifts for God’s glory and purposes, with the full support of their Christian communities.

CBE MEMBERSHIP

Priscilla Papers is the academic voice of CBE International, providing peer reviewed, interdisciplinary, scholarship on topics related to a biblical view of women and men in the home, church, and world. “… when Priscilla and Aquila heard Apollos, they took him aside and explained the Way of God to him more accurately,” (Acts 18:26b, NRSV).

CBE is pleased to make available, for free, every Priscilla Papers article ever published. In addition, find the full archive of CBE’s magazine, Mutuality, and hundreds of book reviews and recordings of lectures given by world-renowned scholars like Linda Belleville, Lynn Cohick, Nijay Gupta, N.T. Wright, and more! Find it all at www.cbeinternational.org.

MISSION STATEMENT

CBE BOARD OF REFERENCE

CBE exists to promote the biblical message that God calls women and men of all cultures, races, and classes to share authority equally in service and leadership in the home, church, and world. CBE’s mission is to eliminate the power imbalance between men and women resulting from theological patriarchy.

STATEMENT OF FAITH

• We believe in one God, creator and sustainer of the universe, eternally existing as three persons equal in power and glory.

• We believe in the full deity and the full humanity of Jesus Christ.

• We believe that eternal salvation and restored relationships are only possible through faith in Jesus Christ who died for us, rose from the dead, and is coming again. This salvation is o�fered to all people.

• We believe the Holy Spirit equips us for service and sancti��es us from sin.

• We believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, is reliable, and is the ��nal authority for faith and practice.

• We believe that women and men are equally created in God’s image and given equal authority and stewardship of God’s creation.

• We believe that women and men are equally responsible for and distorted by sin, resulting in shattered relationships with God, self, and others.

• Therefore, we lament that the sins of sexism and racism have been used to historically oppress and silence women throughout the life of the church.

• We resolve to value and listen to the voices and lived experiences of women throughout the world who have been impacted by the sins of sexism and racism.

CORE VALUES

• Scripture is our authoritative guide for faith, life, and practice.

• Patriarchy (male dominance) is not a biblical ideal but a result of sin that manifests itself personally, relationally, and structurally.

• Patriarchy is an abuse of power, taking from women and girls what God has given them: their dignity, freedom, and leadership, and often their very lives.

• While the Bible re��ects a patriarchal culture, the Bible does not teach patriarchy as God’s standard for human relationships.

• Christ’s redemptive work frees all people from patriarchy, calling women and men to share authority equally in service and leadership.

• God’s design for relationships includes faithful marriage between a woman and a man, celibate singleness, and mutual submission in Christian community.

• The unrestricted use of women’s gifts is integral to the work of the Holy Spirit and essential for the advancement of the gospel worldwide.

• Followers of Christ are to advance human ��ourishing by opposing injustice and patriarchal teachings and practices that demean, diminish, marginalize, dominate, abuse, enslave, or exploit women, or restrict women’s access to leadership in the home, church, and world.

cbeinternational.org cbeinternational.org

Miriam Adeney, Myron S. Augsburger, Raymond J. Bakke, Michael Bird, Esme Bowers, Paul Chilcote, Havilah Dharamraj, Lee Grady, Joel B. Green, David Joel Hamilton, Fatuma Hashi, Roberta Hestenes, Richard Howell, Craig S. Keener, Tara B. Leach, Gricel Medina, Joy Moore, LaDonna Osborn, Jane Overstreet, Philip B. Payne, John E. Phelan Jr., Ron Pierce, Kay F. Rader, Paul A. Rader, Ronald J. Sider, Aída Besançon Spencer, William David Spencer, John Stackhouse, Todd Still, Ruth A. Tucker, Cynthia Long Westfall, Cecilia Yau.

JOIN If your church, seminary, school, or nonpro��t agrees with CBE’s Statement of Faith and Core Values, join CBE as an organizational member to receive publications, discounted conference registrations, and more. Visit cbe.today/orgmembers for more info.

SUBSCRIBE Receive a year of print copies of Priscilla Papers, CBE’s academic journal, and Mutuality, CBE’s popular magazine. Subscriptions are available for individuals, churches, and libraries. Learn more at cbe.today/subscriptions.

CONNECT WITH CBE

Connect with CBE online to learn more about us, enjoy the resources Connect with CBE to learn more about us, enjoy the we offer, and take partonline in our ministry resources we offer, and take part in our ministry.

Visit website, cbeinternational.org, to find to ��nd Visitour our website, cbeinternational.org, thousands thousandsofoffree freeresources—articles, resources—articles,book bookreviews, reviews, and and video audio recordings. video andand audio recordings.

Get Getnews, news,updates, updates,and andfree freeresources resources(cbe.today/news). (cbe.today/news).

Followour ourblog blog(cbe.today/mutuality). (cbe.today/mutuality).

Follow Followus uson onXTwitter @CBEInt (twitter.com/cbeint).

Follow @CBEInt (twitter.com/cbeint).

Find us on Facebook (facebook.com/cbeint).

Find us on Facebook (facebook.com/cbeint).

Follow us on Instagram @cbeinternational Follow us on Instagram @cbeinternational (instagram.com/cbeinternational). (instagram.com/cbeinternational).

Follow us on LinkedIn (linkedin.com/company/ christians-for-biblical-equality/).

Follow us on LinkedIn (linkedin.com/company/christians-for-biblical-equality).

Find us on YouTube (youtube.com/@cbeinternational).

Listen to us on Soundcloud (soundcloud.com/cbe-international).

CBE International 122 W Franklin Ave, Suite 218, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2451 | (612) 872-6898 CBE International 122 W Franklin Ave, Suite 218, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2451 | (612) 872-6898

Scan to subscribe to Priscilla Papers.

PPRISCILLA RISCILLAPPAPERS APERS|| |37/2 37/2 Spring2023 2023 331 1 Priscilla Papers 37/4 ||| Spring Autumn 2023 • 31

cbeBookstore providing quality resources on biblical gender equality

New in CBE Bookstore! Scan the QR code or visit cbe.today/bookstore and browse new resources.

The Struggle to Stay: Why Single Evangelical Women Are Leaving the Church

Bible Women: All Their Words and Why They Matter, Expanded Second Edition

Voices Long Silenced: Women Biblical Interpreters through the Centuries

Women in God's Mission: Accepting the Invitation to Serve and Lead

Katie Gaddini

Lindsay Hardin Freeman

Mary T. Lederleitner

The Struggle to Stay is an intimate and insightful portrait of single women’s experiences in evangelical churches. Drawing on unprecedented access to churches in the United States and the United Kingdom, Katie Gaddini relates the struggles of four women, interwoven with her own story of leaving behind a devout faith.

Women of the Bible have been trapped in dry and dusty literary caskets for centuries—but no more. In a groundbreaking book, author Lindsay Hardin Freeman identifies every woman who speaks in the Bible, providing their words, context, and historical background.

Through these women, God spoke, intervened, changed, illustrated, and proclaimed the story of redemption.

Joy A. Schroeder, Marion Ann Taylor Schroeder and Taylor introduce readers to the notable contributions of female commentators through the centuries. They unearth fascinating accounts of Jewish and Christian women from diverse communities—rabbinic experts, nuns, mothers, mystics, preachers, teachers, suffragists, and household managers—who interpreted Scripture through their writings.

Mission researcher Mary Lederleitner interviewed and surveyed respected women in mission leadership from across the globe to gather their insights, expertise, and best practices. In this book, she unveils how women serve in distinctive ways and identifies key traits of faithful connected leaders. Women and men will find resources here for partnering together in effective ministry and mission.