Women’s History Month
Women’s roles in the church and in church history have been debated. However, it was never an issue for Jesus. March is women’s history month, so I’m starting this month with a brief look at the roles of women in the spiritual movements in America.
Women At Forefront
Women have been at the forefront of spiritual movements throughout the course of time. A woman ushered in a new faith in the New Testament. Mary was told she would have a child whom she would name Jesus. Her quick and simple response was, “I am the Lord’s servant . . . may it be to me as you have said.” (Luke 1:38). Simple faith in Christ was born. Likewise, other women of the New Testament quickly responded in faith to Jesus and His teachings. Women continued that quick response in the Holiness and Pentecostal movements of the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century.
Century Of The Holy Spirit
The twentieth century has been called the “Century of the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit moved in women in the Holiness and Pentecostal movements, placing them in integral positions in ministering to the masses. However, once the movements got organized and began to have a hierarchical structure, the women were blocked out. The daughter of the revered Billy Graham, Anne Graham Lotz, once said, “when people have a problem with women in the ministry, they need to take it up with Jesus. He’s the one that put us here.”
Gender Equality In The Spirit
The prevailing pattern of church leadership has been, once “foundational work of the church had been carried out and the church was better organized, men took over the leadership role.”1. Sociologist Max Weber notes that in almost all new religious movements, when the movement stabilized it acclimated to society and then female leadership then declined.2
Spirit-filled movements of the 19th and 20th centuries were egalitarian. The Holy Spirit moved within both men and women. However, these men and women came from established churches and denominations. The Spirit poured out in men and women leading to the formation of the denomination, but then there was a failure for those giving structure to the organization to include women. We can surmise this exclusion was either by ignoring the Holy Spirit’s guidance or failure to even seek His guidance.
Why Not Women?
Loren Cunningham, author of “Why Not Women?,” suggests that pride is why women have been held back. He gave the example of Elisha and Elijah, who both had to depend on women before they were able to raise the dead.3 He also references that it was women – not men – who were first given the news of Christ’s resurrection. It was the women who told the men of the resurrection. Both of these examples test the pride of these men: how would these men react to submitting to a woman being the evangelist and sharing the news or submitting to the hospitality of the woman? That is, would the men continue to pursue God if they had to first go through a woman?
Women’s History
Women played significant roles in Jesus’ life, resurrection, and the furtherance of God’s Kingdom on earth. Women such as Pheobe Palmer, Aimee Semple McPherson, Lucy Farrow, and Anges Ozman, proved the Holy Spirit moves through the female preacher as well or better than the male preacher. These women made history as powerful preachers of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. Let’s celebrate these women in history as we celebrate women’s history month.
Women are Seen
Jesus sees us. God sees us. Hagar said that God is truly the God who sees. In my forthcoming Bible study, Seen, I explore five Old Testament women who were deceived, disregarded, and raped, yet seen by God. It’s important to know, at the start of this women’s history month, that God sees us and has seen us since the beginning of time.
How will you celebrate women?
God celebrates women throughout the Bible. How will you celebrate women?
Learn more about “Seen: A study of 5 Biblical women who were deceived, raped, and disregarded, yet seen by God” by clicking here.
Sources
Clouse, Bonnidell and Robert Clouse. Women in Ministry: Four Views. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press 1989), Kindle, 149
Tucker, Ruth A. and Walter Liefeld. Daughters of the Church. 373 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1987), Kindle
Cunningham, Loren “Why Not Women” 64