From Arise<\/a><\/strong>, the weekly e-newsletter from Christians for Biblical Equality.<\/p>\nPriscilla Pope-Levison is Professor of Theology and Assistant Director of Women\u2019s Studies, Seattle Pacific University, affiliate faculty in Women Studies, University of Washington, and a United Methodist clergywoman.<\/p>\n
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The momentous contribution of women evangelists to American life, past and present, is only now emerging from dusty archives shelves, where their sermons, diaries, papers, and autobiographies were boxed away. These women have been notably absent from the history of American evangelism, which conventionally moves in a single-gender trajectory: Jonathan Edwards\u2013Charles Finney\u2013Dwight Moody\u2013Billy Sunday\u2013Billy Graham. A decade ago, when preparing for an introductory lecture on American evangelism, I was inundated by resources on these men. With my simple question\u2013were there any women?\u2013the first stirrings toward a nearly forgotten history began to transpire. To summarize briefly the enormous impact of women evangelists, we will consider four arenas: institutions, social outreach, political impact, and audience numbers.<\/p>\n
Institutions: they provided for the education and nurture of converts as well as future generations by founding denominations, educational institutions from grade school to university, and a host of churches from New York to California.<\/p>\n
Social outreach: they often incorporated humanitarianism along with evangelism. Sojourner Truth solicited aid for freed slaves living in squalid camps in the nation\u2019s capital city. Phoebe Palmer began Five Points Mission, one of America\u2019s first urban mission centers, in a New York City slum. Within two months after Aimee Semple McPherson\u2019s Angelus Temple Free Dining Hall opened in 1931, its workers had already fed more than 80,000 hungry people, and the Angelus Temple Commissary, opened in 1927, was crucial to the survival of many in Los Angeles during the Depression. In terms of race relations, women evangelists wielded influence by holding integrated meetings, like Jarena Lee, whose audiences in the 1820\u2019s included \u201cwhite and colored,\u201d \u201cslaves and the holders,\u201d and \u201cIndians.\u201d This practice continued into the twentieth century with Aimee Semple McPherson\u2019s and Kathryn Kuhlman\u2019s integrated services.<\/p>\n
Political impact: they influenced the nation\u2019s leaders as well as the populace. Harriet Livermore preached in Congress several times between 1827 and 1843 about the predicament of Native Americans. Sojourner Truth generated a petition and presented it to President Ulysses S. Grant requesting that a colony for freed slaves be established in the western United States. Jennie Fowler Willing\u2019s speech on women and temperance in 1874 prompted many who heard it to consider forming a national temperance organization. Through her periodical,\u00a0Woman\u2019s Chains<\/em>, Alma White supported the platform of the National Woman\u2019s Party, including the Equal Rights Amendment.<\/p>\nAudience numbers: They preached to audiences often numbering in the thousands. During her 1889 Oakland revival, Maria Woodworth-Etter repeatedly packed to capacity her 8000-seat tent. Aimee Semple McPherson\u2019s church in Los Angeles had a 5300-seat auditorium, which filled up three times for Sunday services. Uldine Utley preached in Madison Square Garden to a crowd of 14,000. Numbers are impossible to gauge for Kathryn Kuhlman\u2019s radio program, \u201cHeart-to-Heart,\u201d which was regularly broadcast for over 40 years, or her long-running CBS television program.<\/p>\n
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Turn the Pulpit Loose: Two Centuries of American Women Evangelists<\/em>, by Priscilla Pope-Levison, uncovers this nearly forgotten history, as does this\u00a0website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Telling the truth of the Church\u2019s Story means telling the whole story. In the Church\u2019s Story are the stories of women who did mighty things. But these stories are not being told.\u00a0What can we do to include these stories in our church\u2019s story? The following is from Arise and is written by Priscilla Pope-Levison\u2026 From […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
Women Preachers, A Story Often Neglected<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Telling the truth of the Church's Story means telling the whole story. In the Church's Story are the stories of women who did mighty things. But these\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2010\/08\/30\/women-preachers-a-story-often-neglected\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Women Preachers, A Story Often Neglected\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Telling the truth of the Church's Story means telling the whole story. In the Church's Story are the stories of women who did mighty things. 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