I have a woman pastor who has faithfully led the church for 48 years now, and her husband built the church for her, but has since passed on. She is spoken well of in the community, and everyone has a good word for her. 48 years ago, there were not many , if any women preaching, especially in the small town in which we live, that is right in the middle of the Bible Belt, and full of churches, all led by men. In my way of thinking, it took the power of the Holy Ghost for her to be able to stand in the pulpit and proclaim the Word of the Lord.
In her 1889 book Woman in the Pulpit, Frances Willard, the head of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, counted some 500 female evangelist preachers as well as 350 Quaker women ministers.
In protestant theology women were not forbidden to be heard according to the universal ministry doctrine “all of us are priests, provided we are Christians “Luther said in 1520. His claim also meant that priesthood was not sacred, “priesthood being just a ministry” (meaning service)
On 23 March 1930 for the first time a woman was ordained. Her name was Berthe Bertsch and it occurred within the Alsace and Lorraine Reformed Church. Why there ?
Because during WWI women had to work to replace men, in factories as well as in post-offices. There were known cases of pastors’ wives who replaced their drafted or departed husbands, but still fulfilled their duties towards the children, the sick, and even presided over funeral and baptism services.
Women were needed to make up for the lack of men due to the war. “Order, good behaviour, honour, require that women should stop talking when a man speaks ; but when no man speaks, women should preach” Luther wrote in 1521, which sums up the way churches considered women during the first half of the 20th century. Women were definitely needed but were kept to their traditional activities, such as catechism, deaconry, and preaching only if need be.
But women were obstinate. They were qualified, proved their abilities in parishes, where the Church appointed them. They worked.
in the second Great awakening more than one hundred women crisscrossed the country as itinerant preachers, holding meetings in barns, schools, or outside in fields. they were the first group of women to speak publicly in america.
Some argued that she was “bold and shameless,” a disgrace to her family and to the evangelical movement. Others insisted that she was the “instrument of God,” a humble woman who had given up everything for Christ.
Few women in early nineteenth-century America provoked more admiration, criticism, and controversy than Harriet Livermore. She was the daughter of a congressman and the grand-daughter of a senator, but after an emotional conversion experience, she renounced her privileged life in order to become a female preacher.
Reputed to be a gifted evangelist who was also a beautiful singer, she became so popular that she was allowed to preach in front of Congress four times between 1827 and 1844, each time to huge crowds. According to a Washington newspaper, more than a thousand people assembled in the Hall of Representatives to hear her preach in 1827, and hundreds more gathered outside to catch a glimpse of her.
President John Quincy Adams had to sit on the steps leading up to her feet because he could not find a free chair. Harriet Livermore was the best-known female preacher of her day, but she was part of a larger community of evangelical women, both white and African-American, who claimed to have been divinely inspired to preach.
In her 1889 book Woman in the Pulpit, Frances Willard, the head of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, counted some 500 female evangelist preachers as well as 350 Quaker women ministers.
In protestant theology women were not forbidden to be heard according to the universal ministry doctrine “all of us are priests, provided we are Christians “Luther said in 1520. His claim also meant that priesthood was not sacred, “priesthood being just a ministry” (meaning service)
On 23 March 1930 for the first time a woman was ordained. Her name was Berthe Bertsch and it occurred within the Alsace and Lorraine Reformed Church. Why there ?
Because during WWI women had to work to replace men, in factories as well as in post-offices. There were known cases of pastors’ wives who replaced their drafted or departed husbands, but still fulfilled their duties towards the children, the sick, and even presided over funeral and baptism services.
Women were needed to make up for the lack of men due to the war. “Order, good behaviour, honour, require that women should stop talking when a man speaks ; but when no man speaks, women should preach” Luther wrote in 1521, which sums up the way churches considered women during the first half of the 20th century. Women were definitely needed but were kept to their traditional activities, such as catechism, deaconry, and preaching only if need be.
But women were obstinate. They were qualified, proved their abilities in parishes, where the Church appointed them. They worked.
in the second Great awakening more than one hundred women crisscrossed the country as itinerant preachers, holding meetings in barns, schools, or outside in fields. they were the first group of women to speak publicly in america.
Some argued that she was “bold and shameless,” a disgrace to her family and to the evangelical movement. Others insisted that she was the “instrument of God,” a humble woman who had given up everything for Christ.
Few women in early nineteenth-century America provoked more admiration, criticism, and controversy than Harriet Livermore. She was the daughter of a congressman and the grand-daughter of a senator, but after an emotional conversion experience, she renounced her privileged life in order to become a female preacher.
Reputed to be a gifted evangelist who was also a beautiful singer, she became so popular that she was allowed to preach in front of Congress four times between 1827 and 1844, each time to huge crowds. According to a Washington newspaper, more than a thousand people assembled in the Hall of Representatives to hear her preach in 1827, and hundreds more gathered outside to catch a glimpse of her.
President John Quincy Adams had to sit on the steps leading up to her feet because he could not find a free chair. Harriet Livermore was the best-known female preacher of her day, but she was part of a larger community of evangelical women, both white and African-American, who claimed to have been divinely inspired to preach.
