Mutuality | Blog + Magazine | Winter 2007
The print + digital magazine of CBE International
Mutuality offers articles from diverse writers who share egalitarian theology and explore its intersection with everyday life.
Blog + Magazine ArticlesThe opinions expressed in these articles are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of CBE International or its members.
Winter 2007
Volume: 14 | Number: 4
Heritage & Legacy
Authors in this issue provide examples of evangelical pioneers whose commitment to biblical authority and to fulfilling Jesus’ Great Commission convinced them that women needed to be free to use their ministry gifts and equipped to answer God’s call wherever it led.
Contents
But authors in this issue of Mutuality provide many examples of amazing evangelical pioneers from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries whose commitment to biblical authority and to fulfilling Jesus’ Great Commission convinced them that women needed to be free to use their ministry gift s and equipped to answer God’s [...]
Whether rich or poor, black or white, male or female, free or slave, egalitarians of the nineteenth century called the world to answer for its oppression of those made in the image of God
With the help of missionaries named Samuel Austin Worcester and Elizur Butler who had traveled The Trail of Tears with them, the Cherokees at Park Hill began a seminary for women in 1851.
One of the most important contributors to the biblical basis for women’s ministry was Katharine Bushnell (1856–1946), who wrote perhaps the most extensive biblical treatment of gender ever published.
These were among the first women to find in Methodism a liberating power to preach the gospel, but they were not the last. A qualified openness to women as spiritual leaders and preachers carried over into early American Methodism
Sarah Trimmer (1741–1810), Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896), and Elizabeth Baxter (1837–1926) are three foremothers of faith who have left us an extensive legacy of published works.
Sarah’s contributions as an abolitionist and defender of women’s rights are remarkable given her personal background.
I later learned that common conceptions of ‘evangelical’ were shaped by memories of fire and brimstone pre-millennial tent revivals, or perpetuated by negative caricatures of tele-evangelists or mega-church sales gimmicks asking for money.
My interest in women and missions of the 1800s has been reinvigorated by several experiences I’ve had lecturing at Christian colleges and seminaries around the county.
