Women
in Modern Christianity
Introduction
Nineteenth
century marks the period of development of feminism in America and Britain
nations. There are various factors led to the formation of feminism, feminist
movements, and particularly feminist theology emerged in ecclesiastical arena.
Pietism, Great Evangelical awakening and enlightenment contributed for the
emergence of feminist movements and feminist theologies which could liberate women
from oppression. Through these movements women got aware of their bondage and
sought measures for liberation. This paper will help to understand how changes
in church led to the formation of women’s movements, and growth of feminist
theories and feminist theology which arose in 19th and 20th
centuries.
1.Pietism - impact on
women
Pietism
emerged as a reaction to a complex of social forces that transformed western
civilization from Religion to Secularism. It emphasized an internal, subjective
and individual return to Bible and the expression of true religion through good
works were emphasized. Women played a major role in the Pietistic movement for
the specific reasons; a levelling of class and other traditional hierarchies, widespread
apocalyptic fears which created an unusual situation, a negation of women’s
prohibition of public speaking to some extent, and most importantly a new
emphasis on the direct revelation from God, as something available to every
human being who honestly sought it. Many pietistic women were devoted
correspondents writing letters to religious leaders, recorded their convictions
in diaries, formal theological tracts, sermons and also recognized as religious
leaders in their area.
1.1.Johanna Eleonora
Merlau Peterson (1644-1724)
Johanna
an educated women, was most important figure in the Pietistic movement, spread
pietism and also responsible for spreading many of the theological ideas for radical
branch of movement. The thirty years of war, the social and economic turmoil of
the era led Johanna to devote her life to religious activism.[1]
Through Spener, she had contact with Maria Juliane Baur Von Eyseneck, wealthy
widow both led the ‘conventicler’ Bible Study meetings. It attracted many
women, and men who offered interpretations of scripture.
1.2.Susannah Wesley and
her influence
During
18th century the protestant churches presented an academic way of
Christian life, and people began to experience general religious awakening.
Conversion or rebirth became the focus of Christian living. John Wesley was
responsible for bringing this change of religious revival and arose Methodism
at a crucial moment in English history. From the beginning women played a key
role in the Wesleyan Revival, organizing and teaching the class meetings.
Wesley allowed women to participate fully in the class meetings, to serve as
leaders, gave permission to exhort rather to preach, so that their ministry
become more public and official. This opened wider opportunities for women
participation in the Christian community and women were allowed to serve as
preachers and evangelists. Wesley had a conclusion that a women’s call was the
key factor in determine her ministry.
Susannah
the mother of Wesley spend more time with her children in spiritual
instruction. Her influence extended beyond her family, by holding meetings
within her home grew in popularity and increased the number of attendants. She
never campaigned for women’s right to preach, but she simply shared her
understanding of the gospel and invited others to journey with her. God used
her faith to ignite the hearts of many both men and women. It is also said
Susannah struck the flint of revival: John caught the spark and fanned it into
a blazing fire.
1.3.Sarah Crosby – the
itinerant preacher
Sarah
travelled to 960 miles in a year and conducted four meetings daily, held 120
public services, led more than 600 private meetings and wrote 116 letters. She
was appointed as leader of classes in Bristol and had 200 students under her,
thus preached and taught effectively under Wesleyan revival. She continued her
itinerant work for twenty years and after her retirement she headed several
classes, bands and served as matriarch of a group of women preachers referred
to as the female brethren.[2]
1.4.Lady Selina
countess of Huntingdon
Selina
a wealthy and influenced women secured a foot holding for Methodism and saved
the travelling preachers. She sponsored for travelling preachers, opened
various estates to preachers and invited her friends among the upper class to
attend meetings. She also sponsored for the Trevecca School for training,
pastoral assignments, finances and was the general overseer of the work. Within
ten years she built more than twenty chapels for her preachers.
2.Great Awakening and
women
The
second great awakening offered women greater opportunity to actively
participate on a lay level in revivalism. Women began seeking lay ministries
which was voluntary in nature both inside and outside the church. At the
gatherings the Holy Spirit touched the lives of women as well as men and they
both responded in typical revivalist. Women responded to their spirituality in
various ways. Many societies were founded or directed and supported by women
and they were actively involved in ministries to the sick, poor, orphans,
prostitutes and prisoners. Women’s social work was not focused only on women and
girls, Louisa Daniel organized in 1860 an organization to serve men at various
military bases, providing them with recreational facilities, home cook food and
Bible study materials. Women were instrumental in founding voluntary societies
both within their own churches and across denominational lines, through these
societies’ women ministered to her women, to children as well as to men.
3.Enlightenment and
women
The
enlightenment period tried to replace a religious worldview with a view more
associated in human reason. The status of women during the enlightenment period
changed drastically, and concerned about liberties, social welfare, economic
liberty and education. In many ways the position of women was seriously
degraded during enlightenment. The rise of capitalism produced laws that
severely restricted women’s rights to own property and run business. Women were
forced out of a variety of business throughout Europe. Sixteenth century
witnessed that two thirds of the business in London were owned by women but by
the eighteenth century that number shrunk to less than ten percent.[3]
Most scholars see the emergence of movements as an outgrowth of the
enlightenment and the impetus that gave arise to thinking about human rights.[4]
4.Women’s movements
The 19th century
saw the emergence of organized women's movements, which, enlarged their
opportunities and forced the issue of their rights. The origin of women’s
movement was generally traced to Olympe de Gouges’ declaration of the rights of
women brought out in 1789 on the eve of French revolution. The social
activities of Evangelicals, the agitations on behalf of better working
conditions for women in factories and the women’s role in the American
anti-slavery movement.[5]
The changes in the status of women took particularly with the breakdown of
feudalism and the rise of Capitalism.[6]
4.1.The
women question and the women's movement for suffrage in England
Many of the
historical changes that characterized the Victorian period motivated
discussions about the nature and the role of women. This was what Victoria
called “The Woman Question”. This question encompasses group debates about the
physiological nature, the political capacity, the moral character and the place
of woman in society. The question of the place of women in society and in
politics arose most acutely in times of wars through the Revolution of 1848 to
the dislocation of industrial change, and the raise for Empire towards the end
of the 19th century. Yet the woman question was also debated at the
level of everyday life. Because women contested the limitations placed on their
education, their property rights and their status in marriage and family. The
ideas of the suffrage movement in Britain descended directly from Enlightenment
political philosophy and nineteenth-century liberal theory, notably through
Mary
Wollstonecraft's
Vindication of the Rights of Woman and John Stuart Mill's The
Subjection of
Women.
They
shared a fundamental theoretical premise: “the human attributes of men and
women and the consequent social injustice involved in their unequal treatment”
4.2.The
role of Mary Wollstonecraft and John Stuart Mill
During the
Enlightenment the “Rights of Man” were under discussion in England and in
France. Mary Wollstonecraft
has been called the Mother of Feminism and the first feminist. She was identified with the revolutionaries of 1789. She
proposed to apply enlightened ideas to women. To her, women were rational
creatures who were no less capable of intellectual achievement than men. Her
“Vindications of the Rights of Women” were published in 1792 and was addressed
to Talleyrand, protesting against the exclusion of French women from citizen
rights. It is an important work since it advocated the equality of the sexes.
She ridiculed the prevailing notions about women as helpless, charming and
foolish. To her, women were educated in “slavish dependence”. She criticized
the sentimental and foolishness of women. Her text is a protest against women
subjugation. Education held the key of achieving self-respect.
To make women
able to achieve a better life, not only for themselves but also for their
children and their husbands. Women provided education to their children: that
is why education was so important. It took more than a century before her ideas
were put into effect. Her ideas caused enormous controversy because they were
so revolutionary. The question of women role and women rights was discussed by
the public in the 1860. The first pamphlets in favor of the enfranchisement of
women began to appear in the middle of the 19th century.
John Stuart Mill
published “The Subjection of Women” in 1869. He used the image of
slavery and bondage. He argued in favor of social, economic and political
emancipation of women, and assumed that each individual had interests which
only he or she could represent, and on these grounds Mill justified votes for
women. He presented a petition in Parliament calling for the inclusion of women
suffrage in the Reform Act of 1867. The 1860s saw the unsuccessful demand for
female suffrage (the failure of the 1867 Reform Act) and the partially
successful demand for a secondary higher education.[7]
4.3.Anti-slavery
movement
In
1820 and 1830 in North US an exciting and contagious spirit of reform was in
the air and it began in churches. Women of Christianity began to play an
important role in these reform movements. They raised voices against slavery in
America, which became a most serious moral and political issue in the society
during nineteenth century. Grimke Sisters were outspoken and witnessed and they
said it is not the slave who alone suffers from the licentiousness of the
master and his sons, but the wronged and dishonored wife and daughter, who
deeply injured and weep in secret places. In 1833 leading abolitionists met in Philadelphia to form the American
Anti- slavery society, which permitted women to attend and to speak. Later
nearly twenty women met to form Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society and it
grows and spread to New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. In 1837 the first
anti-slavery movement was held at New York, where nearly 200 women
participated. In this movement they first learned to organize, to hold public
meetings and to conduct petition campaigns. The movement grew very faster and
there were few more movements emerged and strengthened each other.
4.4.Women rights
movement
Mary
Lou Thompson says women who started out to plead for the slave found they were
not allowed to plead. They were ridiculed and not accepted when they appeared
on the speaker’s platform or in anti-slavery conventions. So most of the women
spoke for their own rights though a formal organization advocating complete
legal equality and suffrage was not formed for another twenty years. Feminist
Scholar, June Sochen opines that anti-slavery movement and the women rights
movement were tied together in various ways.
4.5.Seneca Falls
convention and the Progress of Women’s movements
F.S
Downs comments, “The beginning of the organized women’s movement is generally
identified into the woman’s rights convention convened at Seneca Falls.[8]
The upstate New York village of Seneca Falls hosted a gathering of fewer than
three hundred people, earnestly debating a Declaration of Sentiments to be spread
by newsprint and oratory, and met on July 19, 1848 for three days. Lucretia
Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton's, Martha Wright, Jane Hunt and Mary Ann
McClintock were all separatist Quakers, long active in working to improve the
position of women within their church were the prominent figures in organizing
the convention.[9] The
movement was given tremendous impetus by the civil war in the early 1860’s,
during it women were called to assume responsibilities traditionally reserved
for men. They developed organizations for the purpose of securing rights for
themselves which were traditionally denied including the right to own property,
the right to inherit, the right to keep their children in case of divorce, and
the right to vote, to participate in the political process with men. The
resolutions called for complete equality in marriage, equal rights in property,
wages and custody of children, the right to make contracts, to sue and be sued,
to testify in court and to vote. Within a year a National Women’s Rights
Association was organized and State and National conventions were held
regularly.[10]
The Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights Convention marked the beginning of the woman’s
rights movement.[11]
4.6.Temperance movement
Alcoholism
was a problem in the nineteenth century which affected
women and the family members in numerous ways. Women were dependent on men for
all their worldly needs, they believed that the only solution was to ban it.
The movement gained momentum in twenty years and this was a middle class
problem, and so middle class women and men who formed temperance societies to
educate the masses to abstinence. Among all the reform movements, temperance
was the cause which was taken up by Christian women more than any other cause.
The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was a descendant of the
temperance crusade and encouraged Christian women to unite for temperance.
5.Women’s organizations
Nineteenth
century is distinguished for the formation of a number of Woman’s movement. The
second revival and the preachers’ encouragement to do good works helped to
sprang up many voluntary groups. Women involved in various women’s
organizations such as – Maternal societies, Benevolent Associations, Reform
Associations, the club World and many other Women Organizations.[12]
Among the organizations Women’s Missionary society was noteworthy, its origin
of women’s missionary organizations goes back to 1800, when the Bosten Female
Society was started by Mary Webb with fourteen Baptist and Congregational
friends. The primary activities were prayer and fund raising for the cause of
missions. Their initial interests was in mission work among the Native
Americans but gradually their focus shifted to India and China. The success of
missionary societies removed prejudice and opposition on the mission fields as
well as home. Well trained young women became a source of strength to over
worked missionary wives.
6.Feminist theories and
Feminist movements in twentieth century
The
movements which emerged during the nineteenth century helped to get courage and
fight for their rights. This movements united and led the women forward which is
known as the Feminist Movement. Feminism may be defined as the movement that
works for the liberation of all that need to be liberated particularly women.[13]
Feminist theories emerged in the field of Women’s studies during 1970 in
American universities. Feminist theories is a collection of feminist texts with
shared goals, practices, and assumptions. Feminist theories stand in service to
the women’s movements. Feminists sought to identify the various forms of
oppression that structured women’s lives and they imagined and sought to create
an alternative future without oppression.[14]
6.1.Liberal Feminism
The
main concern for Liberal feminism is equality of civil rights particularly for
women. Rosemary Radford Ruether states, “Liberal feminism has roots in both
Biblical and Scholastic anthropology, but it represents a radical remodeling of
the patriarchal component of these traditions under the impact of the
eighteenth century Enlightenment”. The main activity of the liberal feminist in
the first half of the twentieth century was to campaign for women’s right to
vote, which paved the way for all other political office. They also sought full
access to higher education in the fields such as law, medicine and ministry to
which women were deprived historically. The early period is the heyday for the
activists, but Second World War laid a pause for the campaign for women’s
equality. The liberal feminists sought equal rights further by demanding equal
pay for equal work, equal access to all levels of a profession. They also
focused on male control over women bodies and claimed women’s right to
reproductive self-determination, sex education, birth control and abortion. It
also focused on factors such as women’s right to dignity, control over their
sexual passions, against sexual harassment, wife battering, rape and
pornography which dehumanize women.
6.2.Socialist feminism
Socialist
feminism attempts to synthesize best insights of Marxist and Radical feminism.
Capitalism, male dominance, racism, imperialism are intertwined and
inseparable. Socialist feminism remains more historical than biological and
more specific than universal: recognizes all the important differences among
human beings—class, sex, but also age, race, ethnicity, nationality, sexual
orientation. Women, like all human beings, are constituted essentially by the
social relations they inhabit. A woman’s life experience is shaped by all these
various dimensions. Refuses to reduce oppression to one single type or cause.[15]
According to Storky, socialist feminism has its origin in the eighteenth
century enlightenment. Reuther however traces it back to the nineteenth century
classic study by Fredreich Engels, the origin and history of the family, private
property and the state. There are other scholars who assume that the socialist
feminism is the byproduct of the students’ unrest and civil rights movement of
the 1960’s.[16]
6.3.Radical feminism
Radical
feminists appeal to women not as an economic class but as a class defined by
the sex/gender system. Sexuality is the root cause of oppression women are
oppressed because they are women. Radical feminists, through their analysis of
the gender system, first disclosed the elaborate system of male domination known
as patriarchy. Radical feminists focus on the subordination of women as its
primary concern revealing how male power is exercised and reinforced through
such practices as sexual harassment, rape, pornography, prostitution, as well
as childbearing, housework, love and marriage. Radical feminists made stride in
the battle against violence against women.[17]
Radical feminists identify that biological differences as male and female are
the sources of women’s oppression. They affirm that the only way for women liberation
is to dethrone the whole patriarchal structures.[18]
The important aspect of radical feminism is that they cannot be identified as a
group. But they are found scattered here and there among other groups. They are
anti-male attitudes which was exhibited right from the beginning.[19]
6.4.Feminist theology
Feminist
theology is as nonsensical a concept as a theology of liberation, of hope, of
questioning.[20]
Feminist theology has its root in the women’s movement of the late 1960 and
1970 in North America. Feminist theology emerged as a grass root challenge to
traditional views of women’s role in religion and society. Feminist theology
does not represent the theology of every woman who reflects on her spiritual
journey and her beliefs about God and the world. Feminist theology is an
attempt to characterize feminist theology, Reflection on patriarchy, Feminist
approach to the Bible, Feminist emphasis on mutuality and connectedness. Feminist
theology takes feminist critique and reconstruction of gender paradigms into
the theological realm. They question patterns of theology that justify male
dominance and female subordination, such as exclusive male language for God,
the view that males are more like God than females, that only males can
represent God as leaders in church and society, or that women are created by
God to be subordinate to males and thus sin by rejecting this subordination.
Feminist
theologians move beyond traditional views of doctrines which are the conceptual
arenas in which character is shaped. Doctrines shape not only individual
identities but the identities and practices of entire communities as well.[21]
Feminist theologians also seek to reconstruct the basic theological symbols of
God, humanity, male and female, creation, sin and redemption, and the church,
in order to define these symbols in a gender inclusive and egalitarian way. In
so doing they become theologians, not simply critics of the dominant theology.[22]
Conclusion
Women
in modern Christianity made the church and society to think about the role and
place of women. Modern period witnessed the growth of feminist movements,
feminist theories and particularly feminist theology for Church. Through these movements
women sought liberation from the existing patriarchy, in society and church. The
theories have led to many in this contemporary world, which will continue to
live and grow, as long as women anywhere have grievances they can proclaim and
as long as they are willing and able to organize to rectify them. Feminists tend
to read the Bible in a critical method which gave rise to Feminist theology.
Bibliography
Heine,
Susanne. Women and Early Christianity.
London: SCM Press, 1986.
Imchen,
Narola. Women in the History of
Christianity. Assam: Tribal Development and Communication Centre, 2010.
Jones,
Serene. Feminist theory and Christian
Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress press, 2000.
Martin,
Francis. The Feminist Question.
Michigan: William B. Eerdmanns Publishing Company, 1994.
Ralte,
Lalrinawmi Women re-shaping Theology.
New Delhi, ISPCK, 1998.
Webliography
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http://www.opinionarchives.com/files/dissent_womens_hist_month.pdf
(Accessed on 24-01-2017)
http://faculty.ycp.edu/~dweiss/phl380_feminist_thought/what%20is%20feminist%20theory.pdf (Accesed on
24-07-2017).
http://www.biblicaltheology.com/Research/AdebayoFO01.pdf
(Accessed on 24-07-207).
[1]
Narola Imchen, Women in the History of
Christianity (Assam: Tribal Development and Communication Centre, 2010), 112,
114.
[2]
Narola Imchen, Women in the History …, 116.
[3] Narola Imchen, Women in the History …, 117-121.
[4] Francis Martin, The Feminist Question (Michigan: William
B. Eerdmanns Publishing company, 1994), 146.
[5] Lalrinawmi
Ralte, Women re-shaping Theology (New
Delhi, ISPCK, 1998),16.
[6] Narola Imchen, Women in the History …, 126.
[7]
http://www.jfki.fu-berlin.de/academics/SummerSchool/Dateien2011/Papers/juncker_remy.pdf (Accessed on 24-01-2017)
[8] Narola Imchen, Women in the History of Christianity
(Assam: Tribal Development and Communication Centre, 2010), 129-132.
[10] Narola Imchen, Women in the History …, 132- 134.
[12] Narola Imchen, Women in the History …, 137- 139.
[13] Narola Imchen, Women in the History …, 140-141.
[14] Serene Jones, Feminist theory and Christian Theology
(Minneapolis: Fortress press, 2000), 3.
[15] http://faculty.ycp.edu/~dweiss/phl380_feminist_thought/what%20is%20feminist%20theory.pdf (Accesed on 24-07-2017).
[16] Narola Imchen, Women in the History …, 142- 143.
[17]
http://faculty.ycp.edu/~dweiss/phl380_feminist_thought/what%20is%20feminist%20theory.pdf (Accesed on 24-07-2017).
[18] Narola Imchen, Women in the History …, 145.
[19] Francis Martin,
The Feminist Question (Michigan:
William B. Eerdmanns Publishing company, 1994), 147.
[20] Susanne Heine, Women and Early Christianity (London:
SCM Press, 1986), 49.
[21] Serene Jones, Feminist theory and Christian Theology
(Minneapolis: Fortress press, 2000), 13-16.
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