Good News in the Gospel for Women Theological and Social Priorities Embedded in the Work of the Early Evangelicals

by Mimi Haddad

Mimi Hadad (Ph.D. in Historical Theology, University of Durham) is President of Christians for Biblical Equality and Adjunct Professor at North Park University, Chicago. This paper was presented at the Chicago CBE. Chapter Conference, September 2010.

The lives and ministries of the early evangelicals is an absolute case-study in spiritual and social vitality … Their organizations, institutes, and hospitals; hymns, sermons, and literature; and abolition and suffrage activities were driven by their theological convictions and their passion for Christ. We reflect upon these people—these early evangelicals and their life work—so that, as the writer of Hebrews suggests, we might consider the outcome of their life and imitate their faith (Heb 13:7). The early evangelicals placed themselves at the center of God’s renewing work through which they became instruments of social and spiritual reform. If there was ever a time to recall God’s renewing presence among us as evangelicals, it is now! Why? Because even though we enjoy many of the benefits gained by these remarkable believers, the depth and scope of their faith and its significance seems to have drifted far from our collective memory.

Here is what I mean. As president of Christians for Biblical Equality, I am often invited to speak at Christian colleges or universities on the contributions of Christian women throughout history. When invited to lecture, I make an effort to learn about the history of the school, particularly their founders and graduates. I usually do not have to work very hard to recover their history. Typically the school’s archives are bursting with letters and journals produced by their female graduates who were prolific writers and correspondents. In doing so, I have discovered an impressive body of material that points to the vast numbers of women graduates who were trained by these Bible Institutes today’s Christian colleges and universities. The school’s archivists are typically thrilled to have someone take an interest in the many letters, diaries and other historical documents they have carefully organized for such purposes. In my brief exploration of this material, it is clear that the female graduates from American Bible Institutes went on to become leaders on the mission fields all over the world. And, they had the full support of their Bible Institutes! These audacious women were not interested in becoming Miss Captivating in order to attract Mr. Wild at Heart because they had their own wild hearts, hearts that were captivated by Jesus and the gospel. What is even more interesting is that their Bible Institutes were proud of the wild-hearted way in which their male and female graduates served Christ.

Why did these institutes so eagerly celebrate the gospel service of their graduates, even their female graduates? The answer is clear and carefully documented by missiologists like Dana Robert, of Boston University. Robert notes that by end the of “the final years of the twentieth century, more than half of all Christians were to be found outside the region that had been the historical heartland of Christianity for nearly 1500 years. New centers of Christian strength and vitality were now to be found where missionary initiatives were focused in widely scattered places in the Americas, Africa, and Asia.”[1] This was the direct result of the emphasis evangelicals placed on evangelism and conversion, and women were a driving force behind it. In fact, women outnumbered men on the mission field two to one. These women became founders of mission organizations; they paid for most of the work and provided leadership and service at all levels. Their missionary endeavors also differed slightly from their male colleagues in that they also pioneered humanitarian efforts in tandem with their evangelism.[2]

There is so much historical material on this fact waiting to be published in the archives of evangelical colleges and universities. Even so, as I rehearsed the gospel-work of these early evangelical women, the schools that trained them are not also as eager to celebrate their own history. In fact, when I was invited to speak in chapel on the history of women in one Christian college, formerly a Bible Institute, a number of the Bible faculty boycotted my chapel. I was told later the reason for this was that as evangelicals with a high view of Scripture, they believe the Bible prohibits women from preaching or teaching men, even while whole communities learned of Christ’s love and embraced the gospel through female graduates from their institution. The question for me became: Will the real evangelical please stand up? These women, these early evangelicals, contributed to one of the greatest expansions of Christian faith in all of history. What is more, these women were the theological conservatives of their day. It was a zeal for God, inspired by their devotion to Scripture that directed their extraordinary lives.

In speaking with three retired evangelical women all past the age of eighty, all three remember hearing women speak, teach or preach from prominent evangelical platforms. Amy Lee Stockton and Rita Gould were examples of such women. They comprised an evangelistic team that led thousands to Christ during their lives. Stockton preached from evangelical pulpits in places where women have since been banned. When I questioned my ninety-two year old friend about this fact, she said, “You know it wasn’t until 1950 that women preachers were considered liberal. Before that, no one thought twice about women preaching the gospel!” Rita Gould was a talented vocalist who led worship, while Stockton followed her as an evangelist. Stockton’s biblical insights and spiritual capacity gained her an international reputation. She was the first woman to enroll in Northern Baptist Seminary in 1913,[3] and, according to their website, she graduated and went on to become one of the nation’s leading evangelist.

Northern Baptist Seminary was a highly respected evangelical institution. Their first president John Marvin Dean had a vision to train men and women who would fearlessly “spread the gospel far and wide and influence the world for Christ.”[4] More concerned with biblical correctness, than political correctness, Amy Lee Stockton addressed evangelical audiences throughout Chicago and around the world, and her life typified the theological priorities of evangelicals. She had a passion for biblical scholarship and evangelism. It is said that Stockton even preached from the Moody platform, which may seem unthinkable for many today, but consider the history of Moody Bible Institute. Not everyone realizes that Moody Bible, one of the nation’s early evangelical institutes, was conceived by, prayed and lobbied for by a woman—Emma Dryer.

Emma Dryer

In 1870, the evangelist D.L. Moody was introduced to Emma Dryer, who had been a principle at University in Illinois. She also served as secretary of the YWCA-Chicago. Emma was also involved in preaching and teaching Christian doctrine, but she longed to reach the inner city and young people for Christ. After a fire devastated Chicago, in 1871, Emma worked tirelessly among fire-victims, now homeless women and children. In respect for her gospel-work, Moody invited her to relocate her Bible-discipleship classes at his Church—North Side Tabernacle.

Here Dryer trained women as inner-city missionaries, referred to as “Bible Readers.” They evangelized the poor, cared for the ill, distributed Bible tracts, and opened schools throughout inner-city Chicago. For the next sixteen years, Emma continued to train women (or Bible Readers), while she also prayed for and tried to persuade Moody to open a Bible Institute. Offering intensive Bible Courses in 1883, Dryer opened and ran her own “May Bible Institute,” which eventually merged with Moody’s Evangelistic Society to form the Moody Bible Institute—the goal was to develop revival leaders.[5] Moody and Dryer shared a similar objective—to train the laity for evangelism. In 1925, Moody Bible Institute offered a pastor’s course and women also enrolled. Three years later, the female and male graduates of Moody filled revival pulpits around the world and reached one quarter of a million people.[6]

The early years of Moody Bible Institute can be found in a publication entitled The Christian Worker, which celebrates the achievements of its graduates, many of whom women evangelists. These women preached the gospel to large audiences around the world, and preached “the good news to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15). They were compelled by Scripture to do so. In this way, they typify the priorities of the early evangelicals. Though their actions may be viewed as liberal by some today, they were in fact theologically conservative.

The question then becomes: Will the real evangelical please stand up? Who really represents God’s renewing work in this world—an activity which the term evangelical originally implied? From the very beginning, the term “evangelical” referred to the good news of Christ’s birth, life and resurrection. The early Christians used the term “evangelical” to mean simply the gospel.[7]

From the Protestant Reformation through the revivals of the 1800s, the term evangelical was used by Christians as a return to the Cross, to the good news of Calvary, as Mark Noll observes. The Protestant Reformation was evangelical because it centered on Christ’s achievements at Calvary, rather than the system of indulgences.[8] Similarly, the evangelical revivals centered the good news of the gospel,[9] which according to Noll, were “not only intense periods of unusual response to the gospel,” but were also linked with unusual efforts at godly living which marked the origin of a distinctly evangelical history.”[10] It was the gospel, lived out in word and also in deed.

Moreover, in as much as evangelical preaching centered on the cross, those who were touched or renewed by its message were also believed to be radically changed people. To be renewed by the cross was more than an intellectual assent to theological propositions. It was that, but it also meant you had traveled the greatest distance in life and as such you were to become a better human being. To become an evangelical was to harmonize the gospel through words and action. Convinced that their lives needed renewing, the early evangelicals were equally assured that the cross was God’s source of restoration. Because of this, mothers waited and watched for signs of spiritual rebirth in the lives of their children. William Gladstone, who would become Prime Ministry of Britain, was raised by a devout evangelical mother who also watched eagerly for signs that her son had become a new creation in Christ.[11]

While there were dissimilarities among the early evangelicals, four core qualities came to characterize their movement, as David W. Bebbington observed.[12] These include:

1. Conversionism: The belief that lives need to be changed.
2. Activism: Advancing the gospel through effort.
3. Biblicism: A particular regard for the Bible … that all spiritual truth is to found on its pages.[13]
4. Crucicentrism: An emphasis on Christ’s victory on Calvary.[14]

These four qualities, Conversionism, Activism, Biblicism and Crucicentrism, coined Bebbington’s quadrilateral, capture what makes the early evangelicals distinct. What is more, it also represented a degree of prodigious spiritual and social renewal in the history of the church. Because of this, when one or more are missing from a Christian movement, it may suggest a degree of spiritual anemia that can diminish the good news to which the term evangelical refers. What is also significant are the vast numbers of women who shaped the early evangelical ethos and history, though their names and achievements are often overlooked. Pioneering an evangelical heritage that not only advanced the gospel, but also brought needed social reform, we will consider the women who provided integral leadership to this unique and powerful movement.

Conversionism

Those who are the happy recipients of Christian conversion themselves are therefore called to lead others to the cross. As David Bebbington notes, “The line between those who had undergone the experience and those who had not was the sharpest in the world.”[15] Since unconverted lives need to hear the gospel, every converted soul was ipso facto, inaugurated as an evangelist. What is more, evangelicals increasingly believed that Christ’s return was imminent.[16] This not only heightened the priority evangelicals gave to the task of evangelism, but also eclipsed gender or ethnic bias and worked to extend women and slaves new positions of leadership as evangelists. Consider the following examples.

Born to slavery in the US, Amanda Smith (1837–1915) was deeply touched and converted by the revivals of the second Great Awakening. During one of these meetings, Amanda believed God had called her to preach, and she was faithful to that call. Smith became a prominent evangelist who preached throughout the US, and around the world in India, England and Africa.

While speaking to highly educated leaders at a Keswick revival in England, in 1882, Smith said, “You may not know it, but I am a princess in disguise. I am a child of the King.”[17] Smith located her call to evangelism in her own conversion, which was not rooted in her gender or social status as a slave, but in her rebirth in Christ. She boldly embraced her God-given leadership, which changed the world, though she faced prejudice all of her life.

As she was evangelizing in England and India, there were Christians who seemed more concerned that a woman might preach than that souls were being saved. Smith wrote: “The work seemed to be signally blessed of God, but the good Plymouth Brethren did not see it at all, because I was a woman, not that I was a black woman, but a woman …”[18] Yet, she was a powerful leader. While in India, a male missionary wrote to her saying that through her he had “learned many valuable lessons from her … that has been of actual value to me as a preacher of Christian truth, than from any other person I ever met.”[19]

The precedence given to conversion, so highly valued by early evangelicals, pressed them beyond cultural taboos to give women and slaves new opportunities. William Bell Riley, founder of Minneapolis Bible Institute—today’s Northwestern College in St Paul, Minnesota—was also pastor of First Baptist Church, the largest church in the Northern Baptist Convention. Though founder and president of the World’s Christian Fundamentalist Association, Riley attended a lecture by a woman—Frances Willard. Considered the most popular woman in her day, second only to Queen Victoria, Willard was president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), the largest women’s organization in the United States. A foremost advocate of suffrage, abolition and temperance, Willard lectured on the impact of alcohol on women and children. After hearing her speak, Riley was[20] “convinced that so long as saloons … embrute women’s husbands; blight women’s beautiful boys, blast women’s lives; and even blacken women’s souls, that every speech against it would be justified, no matter who made up their assemblies, and would be approved and applauded by that heavenly assembly of saints and angels when in defense of all that is true, a suffering woman feels compelled to break the silence and speak against it.”[21]

Influenced by the leadership of Frances Willard, Riley longed to inspire other women to become outspoken advances of the gospel, in word and deed. To prepare women leaders, Riley founded Minneapolis Bible Institute in 1902, and all classes were open to women. Female graduates served in prominent evangelical ministries like the China Inland Missions. They also pastored congregations throughout North America. The historical material documenting the service of female graduates of the Minneapolis Bible Institute is abundant as journalists, impressed by their accomplishments, documented their lives. In 1923, a Wisconsin journal ran a story on two graduates, Irene Murray and Alma Reiber, both of whom “carry with them the highest endorsement of the pastor and people … through these young women God has bestowed the greatest spiritual blessings.”[22] Another Minneapolis Bible Institute graduate, Minnie Nelson, described her ministry in 1948, as one of “resurrecting dead churches, uniting divided ones, repairing church property, paying off old church debts, all while facing strenuous travel and many speaking engagements.” The success of women graduates was unambiguous, and Riley was for the most part, willing to support the education and ministries of women, despite much gender prejudice.

Activism

The early evangelicals believed that Christian conversion leads to the change in human life. Because of this, a converted person demonstrates their newness of life in action, both in word and in deed. “A converted character would work hard, save money and assist [their] neighbor,”[23] as Bebbington notes. Women were particularly adept at harmonizing evangelism with social action.[24] Addressing the social needs as part of their evangelical activism is clearly noted in the work of Catherine Booth (1829–1890). A powerful preacher, a tenacious inner city missionary, and an activist on behalf of women and children, Catherine Booth worked day and night with her husband, among the poverty-stricken residents of London’s East end.

Booth was joined by other female evangelists who were indomitable gospel-workers, and as with the female graduates of the Minneapolis Bible Institute, they captured the attention of London reporters who were inspired by their tireless evangelistic efforts. Referring to the Salvation Army evangelists as “Hallelujah Lassies,” one journalist wrote; “I found two delicate girls, (hallelujah lassies) ministering to a crowded congregation which they had themselves collected out of the street which other churches regarded with blank despair.”[25]

Booth was also involved in the temperance movement and in work with prostitutes. She traveled back and forth between London’s West end, lobbing Members of Parliament to raise the age of consent beyond thirteen years of age.[26] Booth was bold in exhorting women to use their time and talents for Christ’s kingdom. She once said, “It will be a happy day for England when Christian ladies transfer their attention from poodles and terriers to the destitute and starving children.”[27] For Booth, evangelism worked in tandem with social activism. She and her husband William Booth founded the Salvation Army, one of the great evangelical organizations of all time, committed to evangelism and social work around the world.

Like Booth, the ministry Pandita Ramabai (1858–1922) combined humanitarian efforts with evangelism seamlessly. After coming to faith through a revival sponsored by the Salvation Army in India, Ramabai founded the Mukti Mission in India. Mukti means salvation and for Pandita coming to faith meant a life of evangelism and activism. Hence, at Mukti, Pandita translated Scripture from Greek and Hebrew into Marathi—a prominent Indian dialect. Historians note that in all of history, there has never been a production of Scripture, from translation, proofreading, to printing, binding and distribution, which was solely the labor of women.[28]

The Mukti Mission was interdenominational, serving needy women and children, and it is often referred to as the best example of Christian faith in action. The mission housed 800 abandoned babies, people suffering from visual or physical impairments or disease, and unwed mothers. In her book, The High Caste Hindu Woman, Pandita exposed the desperate lives of women in India; the child brides and temple prostitutes; the act of wife burning; and the impact of a lack of education, poverty and prejudice on their daily lives.

She could not separate spreading gospel from serving the oppressed. Like Booth, evangelism and activism were inseparable, an ideal that is a heritage of the evangelical tradition.

Evangelism and activism were evangelical ideals embodied in the life and ministry Frances Willard (1839–98), president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). The WCTU was comprised of an army of female evangelists, who served workers of many trades. With over two million members, the WCTU advanced not only the gospel, but also abolition, temperance and suffrage.

Willard was also a noted educator of women. As president of Evanston Ladies College (today’s Northwestern University), Willard believed women might attain leadership in any field in a world without gender prejudice. Interestingly, as part of her liberation of women she not only worked among prostitutes and lobbied for laws against rape and domestic violence, but she also battled fashion designers who imprisoned women’s bodies in tight corsets, causing untold bodily damage. To promote women’s well-being, Willard encouraged them to wear baggie bloomers and to learn to ride a bicycle. She wrote a book entitled, How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle—and her bike is housed in her home, now a museum in Evanston, Illinois. When she died, thousands expressed remorse, and flags were lowered in cities like Chicago, Washington D.C., and New York.[29] Her passion for conversion and the gospel, Scripture, and Christian activism was inseparable from her commitment to Christ—ideals that embodied in the mission of the WCTU—and evangelicals as a whole.

Another example of the social and spiritual vitality of the early evangelicals is noted among members of Clapham Sect,[30] a devout group of British Christians committed to ending slavery. Among its most prominent members were William Wilberforce (1759–1833) and Hannah More (1745–1833). Their history is celebrated in the recent movie Amazing Grace, which documents their more than twenty year effort to abolish slavery in England and elsewhere. As evangelicals, neither More nor Wilberforce could separate their faith as evangelicals from their commitment to build a just society.

Any discussion of the early evangelical activists must include Sojourner Truth (c 1797–1887). Evangelist, preacher, abolitionist and suffragist, Truth caught the attention of many political leaders; even President Lincoln was one her admirers. She had one of the most brilliant theological minds of her day, even though she never learned to read or write. She had an intimate relationship with Christ, and offered an indomitable challenge to ascriptivism, which is the tendency to ascribe value, dignity and opportunity to individuals based on gender, skin color or class. At a suffragist meeting in Ohio, Truth said that to deny women the privilege of voting or preaching because Christ was male, was to ignore the fact (posited by the Cappadocians in 4th century, and also Karl Barth—years later) that it was Christ’s humanity, not his gender, that made him the perfect sacrifice for all people, including women. She showed that the value, dignity and service of women, is located in their truest identity—in their rebirth in Christ—whose life, service and sacrifice was not gender-based.

Activism, like conversionism, was the responsibility of all those who had crossed that sharp line that marks the deepest change in life. For the early evangelicals, the response to conversion was to pursue holiness personally and corporately, as noted in the life of Catherine Booth, Pandita Ramabai, William Wilberforce, Hannah More and Sojourner Truth.

Biblicism

It was amid the evangelical awakenings throughout the 1800–1900s that the success of women and slaves like Amanda Smith and Sojourner Truth prompted many to question the presumed inferiority of slaves and women. In addressing this issue, evangelicals did so through a robust biblicism that comprised the third ideal precious to them. If they were poised to love anything, the early evangelicals loved Scripture.

Biblicists of the highest order, evangelicals appealed to Scripture when considering the pressing issues of their day. Scripture was their guide for all matters related to life, faith, and social engagement. Holding that Scripture is authoritative for each generation, the early evangelicals labored to understand God’s will regarding slavery and gender, believing that the answer could be found within the biblical texts.[31] Initially, this biblical inquiry was concerned with how to understand the various words in Scripture. But eventually it evolved into an extensive debate over methods of biblical interpretation, which though divisive, led to the development of a whole-Bible approach regarding ontology, gender and service. By 1930, evangelicals published more than forty-six biblical treatises on gender and service from various evangelical denominations.[32] These biblical documents represent the emerging first wave of feminism, which grew out of an evangelical commitment to biblicism.

The notion that all spiritual truth emanates from the pages of Scripture led to fresh assessment of humankind as the early evangelicals asked: How does our conversion as male or female affect our service in any sphere?[33] As they searched for biblical answers they developed a new Christian worldview that extended women and slaves equal positions of service and leadership. In doing so, they departed radically from previous generations of Christians, whose racist and patriarchal suppositions went unchallenged. By developing a whole-Bible approach, the exegetical work of the early evangelicals inaugurated an egalitarian theology that overturned centuries of teaching that viewed the inferiority of women as self-evident. There are numerous examples of prominent evangelicals who helped initiate an egalitarian hermeneutic.[34] Here are a few examples.

Fredrik Franson (1852–1908) was a prominent leader of the Free Church Movement and also founder of the Evangelical Alliance Mission. Equally devoted to the authority of Scripture and to evangelism, Franson asked, “if there is no prohibition in the Bible of public service by women … then we stand face to face with the fact that the devil has succeeded in excluding nearly two thirds of the total number of believers-damage to God’s work so great that it can scarcely be described.”[35] He published his support of women’s leadership in an article entitled “Prophesying Daughters: A Few Words Concerning Women’s Position in Regard to Evangelism”.[36] Franson insisted upon a whole-Bible approach in understanding 1 Tim. 2:12 and 1 Cor. 14:34, believing that those who ground “a doctrine on one or two passages in the Bible, without reading them in context,” are heretics.[37]

A. J. Gordon (1836–1895), for whom Gordon College and Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary were named, was a nationally recognized evangelical Baptist preacher and an able Bible scholar. An ardent advocate of abolition, evangelism and women’s leadership in ministry Gordon also insisted upon a whole-Bible hermeneutic when considering gender, ethnicity and service. Gordon believed that Pentecost inaugurated the new covenant where all ethnic groups and women participate equally in Christ’s new community.[38] In the new covenant, those who had once been viewed as inferior by human birth acquire, through the Holy Spirit, a new spiritual status. For God’s gifting no longer rests on a “favored few, but upon the many, without regard to race, or age, or sex.”[39] For Gordon, Paul’s instructions in 1 Timothy 2:8–11 and 1 Corinthians 14:34 should be read recognizing the numerous biblical examples of female prophets, apostles, teachers, and evangelists who worked beside the Apostle Paul.

Catherine Booth also engaged the whole of Scripture, insisting that the biblical texts be understood in their historic and cultural context. She wrote: “If commentators had dealt with the Bible on other subjects as they have dealt it on this [gender], taking isolated passages, separated from their explanatory connections, and insisting on the literal interpretation of the words … [oh] what errors and contractions would have been forced upon the Church, and what terrible results would have accrued to the world.”[40]

Among the early evangelicals, it was Dr. Katharine Bushnell (1856–1946) who offered the most systematic and in-depth biblical assessment of gender and service. A medical doctor, missionary and activist, she was prominent for her work rescuing girls and women from forced prostitution. Working beside the British evangelical, Josephine Butler (1828–1906), they infiltrated brothels throughout the United States and India to gain first-hand accounts from abused females. After decades of work, it was Butler who realized that until the gender teachings of Scripture became part of Christian experience, the work of the church—evangelism and activism—would never reach its fullest potential. Just before dying, Butler begged Bushnell to publish Scripture’s teaching on gender. For the many years, Bushnell learned Greek, Hebrew, and ancient history to research every passage in Scripture—over 300 passages—that address gender. In 1919, Bushnell published God’s Word to Women, a book that remains in print today, and egalitarian scholars continue to cite her research.

God’s Word to Women shows that the whole of Scripture views women and men as equal in being and also in function, a point made explicitly in the early chapters of Genesis. Beginning with Genesis, Bushnell demonstrates that Adam and Eve were both created in God’s image,[41] and therefore, both were instructed to be fruitful and to share dominion equally in Eden.[42] Genesis does not identify Eve as the source of sin[43] thus God does not “curse” women because of Eve.[44] The domination of men over women was inspired by Satan, rather than God.[45] It is God who extends leadership to those who act rightly, regardless of their gender, ethnicity birth order, or class.[46]

In evaluating the writings of the apostle Paul, Bushnell demonstrates that the apostle affirms the authority and leadership of women, provided that neither their lives nor their leadership are abusive or domineering (1 Tim. 2:12); that those who become teachers must advance the truth concerning the gospel (1 Tim. 2:11–12, Acts 18:26, Rom. 16:1–5, 7, 12–13, 15), and when females worship, pray or prophesy, they must not be disruptive, either in their clothing or through their speech (1 Cor. 11:5, 1 Cor. 14:34). Ultimately, Bushnell shows that women’s value and ontological status arises not from the fall, but through Christ’s victory on Calvary. An accurate interpretation of Scripture must evaluate the spiritual and social status of both men and women based on the atonement of Jesus.[47] According to Bushnell, “[We] cannot, for women, put the ‘new wine’ of the Gospel into the old wine-skins of ‘condemnation.’ ”[48] Because all of Scripture points to Christ, Bushnell insists that both men and women are renewed by the cross, an empowering that licenses both men and women equally for ministry.

Crucicentrism

A vibrant passion for the cross and all Christ accomplished on Calvary comprises the fourth distinctive of the early evangelicals. They were crucicentrists of the highest order and their songs, sermons and devotional literature basked in the glories of the cross. The early evangelicals “aimed at bringing back, and by an aggressive movement, the cross, and all that the Cross essentially implies.”[49] Preaching on Galatians 2:20 more than any other text,[50] the early evangelicals never tired of rehearsing Paul’s words—“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”.

Among the early evangelicals, the most prominent crucicentrists were the Scottish theologian P.T. Forsyth, Britain’s Prime Minister William Gladstone, and the Welsh revivalist Jessie Penn-Lewis. However, it was Jessie Penn-Lewis’ Cross Theology that offered women and those marginalized by society fullest benefits of Calvary. For Penn-Lewis, the cross was a place of blessing and a platform for reconciliation not only between men and women, but also between all ethnic groups and social classes. Grated into Christ’s body through his death, Penn-Lewis suggests it is here that hostilities that once separated Christians are overcome. Thus the cross was the source of both salvation and also sanctification.[51] Penn-Lewis wrote:

The ‘old creation,’ in its form of ‘Jew and Gentile’, must die to make way for a new creation ‘after the image of Him’ that created them; where … there can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female; for we are one in Christ Jesus. In the face of these words we cannot wonder that the Cross is a stumbling-block, and its message likened to a sword or knife, for it cuts deep into the very core of the pride of the old creation. God’s cure … is not a superficial one … Nothing but the Cross will bring about the unity He desires.[52]

For Penn-Lewis, Calvary is a place of reconciliation because at the cross we receive a new life, which equips us to become a new creation. As a new creature, we have God’s power to oppose ancient prejudice and hostilities.[53] Penn-Lewis said:

Christ upon the Cross of Calvary broke down the middle wall of partition between man and man, as well as between man and God. He died that in Him there might be a new creation, one new man, [in which] all divisions caused by sin cease in Him.[54]

Penn-Lewis captures the ethos of the early evangelicals understanding that salvation leads necessarily to personal and corporate holiness. Penn-Lewis’ soteriology—what she understands about salvation—informs her ecclesiology—what she understands about the Church.[55] Just as Christ entered the grave, we also enter our baptismal water, and rise up a new creation, just as Christ rose victorious over sin and death. This is the fruit of Calvary, which extends a newness of life and the power to oppose our prejudices and self-centeredness. According to crucicentrists like Penn-Lewis, the cross does not eliminate gender or ethnic distinctions. Rather, through the cross, our differences impart strength and capacity we might not have otherwise known.

Conclusion

For the early evangelicals, the cross changed everything. To walk in newness of life, was to advance the Gospel in word and dead, making plain that you had indeed crossed the sharpest line in all of life. Conversionism, activism, biblicism and crucicentrism were not only inseparable ideals for the early evangelicals, they also guided their lives and ministries. Perhaps it is time to ask: Do we, like the early evangelicals, long to build a holy church and a just society, and do we live each day eager to express our infinite gratitude for having crossed the sharpest line in life? Like the early evangelicals, do we allow Scripture and the Cross to pull us in, and redeem and correct our prejudices and sin? It would seem that the early evangelicals placed themselves dangerously close to these portals of God’s renewing power, and were instruments of enormous spiritual and social renewal. May we consider the outcome of their extraordinary lives and imitate their faith, as the writer of Hebrews suggests (13:7).

Notes

1. Dana L. Robert, American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice (Macon: GA: Mercer University Press, 2005), ix.
2. See Ruth A. Tucker, Guardians of the Great Commission: the Story of Women in Modern Missions (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1988). See also Dana L. Robert, American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice (Macon: GA: Mercer University Press, 2005).
3. See http://www.seminary.edu/alumni--friends/give/, accessed May 25, 2011.
4. See http://www.seminary.edu/about/history/, accessed May 25, 2011.
5. Janette Hassey, No Time for Silence (Christians for Biblical Equality: Minn. MN, 2008), 3&ff.
6. Hassey, No Time for Silence, 38.
7. Mark Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism: the Age of Edwards, Whitefield, and the Wesleys (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 16.
8. Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism, 16–19.
9. Noll, Rise of Evangelicalism, 16–19.
10. Noll, Rise of Evangelicalism, 18.
11. As cited by David W. Bebbington, “The Gospel in the Nineteenth Century,” Vox Evangelica 13 (1983): 19, G. W. E. Russell, Mr. Gladstone’s Religious Development: A Paper read in Christ Church, May 5, 1899 (London: Rivingtons, 1899) 7.
12. David. W. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from 1730s to the 1980s (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1989), 2, See also Noll, Rise of Evangelicalism, 19.
13. Noll, Rise of Evangelicalism, 19.
14. Noll, Rise of Evangelicalism, 19.
15. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 5.
16. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 81ff.
17. Walter B. Sloan, These Sixty Years: The Story of the Keswick Convention (London: Pickering & Inglis, 1935), 91.
18. Amanda Smith, An Autobiography; The Story of the Lord’s Dealings with Amanda Smith, the Colored Evangelist (Chicago: Meyer & Brother, 1893), 281.
19. Smith, An Autobiography, viii.
20. Much of this material was published in “Dr. Catherine Kroeger: An Evangelical Legacy.” Priscilla Papers, Vol 25, No 3, Summer, 2011. Published quarterly, Priscilla Papers is the award-winning academic journal of Christians for Biblical Equality (www.cbeinternational.org). To learn more about CBE publications and resources visit www.equalitydepot.com.
21. William Bell Riley, as quoted by Janette Hassey, No Time for Silence (Minneapolis, MN: CBE, 1986), 23–24
22. William Vance Trollinger Jr., God’s Empire: William Bell Riley and Midwestern Fundamentalism (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1990), 105.
23. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 5.
24. See Tucker, Guardians of the Great Commission and Robert, American Women in Mission.
25. Ruth A. Tucker and Walter Liefeld, Daughters of the Church: Women and Ministry from the New Testament Time to Present (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1987), 266.
26. Roger J. Green, “Catherine Booth, The Salvation Army, and the Purity Crusade of 1885,” Priscilla Papers 22, no 3 (Summer 2008): 9–18.
27. Catherine Booth as quoted by Frederick St. George De Lautour Booth-Tucker in The Life of Catherine Booth: The Mother of the Salvation Army, Vol 1 (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1892), 474.
28. Edith Deen, Great Women of the Christian Faith (Westwood, NJ: Barbour and Company, Inc, 1959), 258–268.
29. To learn more about Frances Willard see Frances Willard, Glimpses after Fifty Years: The Autobiography of an American Woman (Chicago: H.G. Smith, 1889).
30. John Telford, A Sect that Moved the World: Three Generations of Clapham Saints and Philanthropists. (London: Charles H. Kelly, 1907).
31. See Willard Swartley’s outstanding volume, Slavery, Sabbath, War and Women: Case Issues in Biblical Interpretation (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1983). See also Mimi Haddad, “Reform Movements: How the Revive the Church,” Global Voices on Biblical Equality: Women and Men Serving Together in the Church, edited by Aida Besancon Spencer, William David Spencer and Mimi Haddad (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2008).
32. Charles O. Knowles, Let Her Be: Right Relationships and the Southern Baptist Conundrum Over Woman’s Role (Columbia, Mo.: KnoWell Publishing, 2002), 85.
33. Noll, Rise of Evangelicalism, 19.
34. The historical examples that follow were published by Mimi Haddad, “Egalitarian Pioneers: Betty Friedan or Catherine Booth?” Priscilla Papers 20, no 4,(Autumn 2006): 53–60.
35. Fredrik Franson, Prophesying Daughters: A Few Words Concerning Women’s Position in Regard to Evangelism, 25, available thanks to The Covenant Quarterly, November 1976, made available at http://www.cbeinternational.org/files/u1/free-art/prophesyingdaughters.pdf
36. Available at http://www.cbeinternational.org/?q=content/prophesying-daughters
37. Franson, “Prophesying Daughters,” 35.
38. A.J. Gordon, “The Ministry of Women,” The Missionary Review of the World 17 (1894): 910–11, also available online at http://xythos.gordon.edu/Archives/Gordon_Herritage/Ministry%20of%20Women.pdf
39. Gordon, “The Ministry of Women,” 912.
40. Catherine Booth, “Female Ministry; or, Women’s Right to Preach the Gospel,” in Terms of Empowerment: Salvation Army Women in Ministry (London, 1859; reprint, New York: The Salvation Army Supplies Printing and Publishing Department, 1975), 19–20.
41. Katharine C. Bushnell, God’s Word to Women: One Hundred Bible Studies on Women’s Place in the Divine Economy (Minneapolis, MN: Christians for Biblical Equality, 2003), 9ff.
42. Bushnell, God’s Word to Women, 10.
43. Bushnell, God’s Word to Women, 37&ff.
44. Bushnell, God’s Word to Women, 39, 48–49.
45. Bushnell, God’s Word to Women, 75.
46. Bushnell, God’s Word to Women, 68, 75.
47. Bushnell, God’s Word to Women, 169.
48. Bushnell, God’s Word to Women, 169.
49. Gladstone as quoted by Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain. p.14.
50. Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain. 13.
51. Jessie Penn-Lewis, The Climax of the Risen Life (Bournemouth, England: The Overcomer Room, Publication date is uncertain, though most likely it was during 1909), 32.
52. Penn-Lewis, The Climax of the Risen Life, 37.
53. Jessie Penn-Lewis, The Cross of Calvary and its Message (Dorset, England: The Overcomer Literature Trust, 1909), 61.
54. Jessie Penn-Lewis, Thy Hidden Ones: Union with Christ as Traced in the Song of Songs (London: Marshall Brothers, 1899), 30.
55. Gordon Fee, Listening to the Spirit in the Text (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing, 2000), 59.