Strife Behind The Pulpit: An Examination of Women In Ministry: A Historical Overview

Strife Behind The Pulpit: An Examination of Women In Ministry: 

A Historical Overview

The popularity of women in ministry is largely connected with the growing emergence of the Women's liberation movement of the 1800's.

Women in pastoral ministry is by historical terms a relatively new concept. There were a handful of women involved in ministry in the first few centuries of the church, yet there lacks historical and biblical evidence of women serving in a divinely improved pastoral role. It was not until the early 1800's when women began to make a major run for pastoral positions.

In the early 19^th century women like Catherine Booth, Olympia Brown, Anna S Hansacombe, and began to fill pastoral roles. Unlike their predecessors of the first and second century, these women were not simply opening their homes for studies and ministering to the saints. They took on the primary leadership of congregations, preaching the word and the authority of the local church. There are no records of women being ordained into the public gospel ministry before the 9^th century ("Chronology of Women's Ordination.")

During the 18^th and 19^th century in American history, the nation experienced a surge of reformative voices. It was an era commonly known as the enlightenment. Today the Enlightenment is often viewed as a historical anomaly, a brief moment when a number of thinkers infatuated with reason vainly supposed that the perfect society could be built on common sense and tolerance.

It was during this time that people started to question religious norms. Rational thought and logical seemed to invade the principals of scripture. Thomas Jefferson, a leading enlightenment thinker, compiled his own version of the Bible in which he cut out anything that could not be logically justified (ie. miracles, or divinity). Making good on a promise to a friend to summarize his views on Christianity, Thomas Jefferson set to work with scissors, snipping out every miracle and inconsistency he could find in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John ("A Founding Father's View of God."). Then, relying on a cut-and-paste technique, he reassembled the excerpts into what he believed was a more coherent narrative and pasted them onto blank paper -- alongside translations in French, Greek and Latin

The waning sense of religious importance, the rise of tolerance, and the woman’s right movement of the 1800s contributed greatly to the emergence of women in pastoral positions. One could almost draw a parallel between the history of woman’s rights movements and the rise in women ordained into pastoral ministry. In 1848 The first women's rights convention is held in Seneca Falls, New York. Subsequently, in 1853 Antoinette Brown was ordained by the Congregationalist Church.

There is not a single women mentioned among the Apostles (messengers of God). Women served alongside them, as we shall discuss later. All through out the New Testament men are called to lead the church. Women are assisting and ministering as well but in various roles. Later we shall explore in detail the roles of such great women , as Phoebe, Dorcas, Chloe, Nympha, Lydia and others. It is my desire to discover to the best we can their role in the Church and what all of us can learn from their service. Has there been but one women known to have preached a world renowned revival, leading to the salvation of hundreds of souls? What one woman “pastor” is considered among the greatest pastors of all. History has yet to produce one female pastor that ranks with Whitfield, Edwards, Spurgeon, or the like. I empathize greatly with the cries of the women to let their voices be heard. I applaud their fight to have voting rights and be treated as equal. But the pulpit is no place for such a battle.