Women Preachers: The Conservative Lawsonite Position

The woman's place in the church is one of the most contentious subjects in Christendom. Those denominations that ordain women are at odds, overtly or covertly, with those that do not. It is very fortunate for the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ to have in For the Defense of the Gospel a sourcebook from which its ministers, members, and other interested parties may directly discern the organization's original viewpoint on female clergy.

All of our writings up to this point should sufficiently show that it was not Bishop Lawson's intention to be oppressive. In fact, Lawson was quite progressive, licensing women to carry out their life's spiritual work in a time when most Protestant churches were still quite at a loss when it came to giving direction to women who believed they had a spiritual vocation. Lawson also understood that to transform Pentecostalism from a fringe sect to an effective soul-winning movement, there had to be social stability, strong work and family ethic, cooperation, and even some assimilation into mainstream Protestant culture.

More than anything, though, Lawson strove to be true to scripture. He conscientiously rebelled against practices in the church that he felt were too constrictive, and also decried worldly practices that he felt were too loose. Points taken from For the Defense reveal Lawson to be a both man of uncompromising scriptural conviction and a scholar of surprising scriptural indulgence.

In the sermon "A Woman Shall Compass a Man" (Defense, pp. 24-26, 35), Lawson is only six years departed from the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World (1925), and his sermon is hard-hitting. (Some of this sermon has been touched on in a previous article.) In answer to claims that "men were failing God in these last days by not living clean," Lawson writes that "[e]xperience does not bear out the assumption," which he calls "absurd."

The the contrary, experience bears out that women fall in sin more than men; at least, as such, for whenever a man falls in sin, he usually falls with a woman. Wherein then are the women any cleaner than the men? Many times one man defiles four or five women, on the basis of percentage therefore, women fall four to one. In reference to all other ways of falling in sin within each sex ... the assertion of Isaiah, "All flesh is grass." (Defense, p. 25, par 4)

In other words, Lawson concludes that men and women are at least equally prone to sin, but "there is no doubt about" the fact that "women are the weaker vessels" (1 Peter 3:5-7). Because "God and His word cannot fail," Lawson is convinced that God "hath and will always have men ... whom He can use" (pp. 25-26).

Though women are not permitted to preach in the church, "otherwise they may teach, yea, they should teach both by example and good behavior, and in their services by doctrinal instrction among themselves" (p. 27), and he quotes from Proverbs 31, the well-known passage of instruction from the mother of King Lemuel. Nevertheless,

[f]or a woman to assume the role of leadership or equality with men, putting themselves as pastors and administering the rights and duties of the church and ministry, such as giving communion, baptising, [sic] burying the dead, marrying etc., is an error not so small. She ... has [not] any vestige of authority in the scripture. ... [S]he is forbidden by the apostolic rule and order ... to usurp authority in preaching. (Defense, p. 26, par 3)

Finally, the sermon ends with Lawson's appeal to the scripture's exclusion of women as biblical authors, apostles, bishops, and deacons, and admonishes women to forego "[t]he world's ways, and pride, and plaudits" and to "subject yourselves, not to the word of men particularly, but to 'the command of the Lord.' [Ref. 1 Cor. 14:37.] It is both your happiness and your honor to obey what is written" (p. 35).

If the words above seem a bit strident, then consider that the intensity of Lawson's convictions were not diminished some 26 years later when he published the ("article" [p. 196], or) sermon "Sinners in Zion" (1951), in order to show some of the errors believed and practiced by God's people." First and foremost (and, well, most) mentioned among these was

the encouraging and toleration of women as preachers and pastors, which is contrary to the laws of the New Testament church ... To circumnavigate the above prohibition, some use the reference, "there is neither male nor female in Christ" but [the Bible] states in II Cor. 6:18: " . . . And I will receive you and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." The statement in Gal. 3:28 ... means that we are one body in Christ. This doesn't mean that there is only one sex. (Defense, p. 196)

He continues,

Some try to confuse prophecy as being the same as preaching. Prophecy [however] is the free expression of the Spirit in foretelling things to come, and exhorting by testimony under inspiration, (I Cor. 14:2-3; Titus 2:1-6) But, preaching involves ordination, authority to baptize, marry, give communion, and execute Holy orders. This is limited to men only. (Defense, pp. 196-97)

Apparently, what Bishop Lawson meant by "women as preachers" is bound up in an understanding of what authority many of these women were assuming. Later in the sermon, Lawson says women preachers "should be rebuked and exposed as one of the sins of God's people in the church, for sin ... is the transgression of the law." Howbeit, even he allowed that women have some speaking capacity that could be utilized scripturally. He does endorse the idea of women prophesying, or "exhorting by testimony under inspiration."

Also, Lawson differentiated between spiritual matters and church administration. When asked if women should "keep silent in the church," Lawson responds that, while "[the] church is the mystical Body of Christ," in the church as a "sect" or "an organization, a woman may talk as much as she likes" (Defense, p. 424).

There are several other of Lawson's sermons and writings that show that he understood the ministry not as fundamentally having a gift or a position, but in being called to a place of spiritual authority that made it necessary for one to develop his God-given ministerial gifts. We lack the time and space needed to exhaust our available sources, but we can summarize our findings as follows: Bishop Lawson believed in women and their ministries, but fervently did not believe in there being any biblical support for women 'preaching' (that is, being the authoritative conveyors of biblical doctrine) or for women performing any sacerdotal functions, including baptism, marriage, communion, ordination (giving or receiving it), anointing with oil, and funerary rites.

Times and expectations have changed, however. A call to the ordained ministry is generally understood as a calling to preach, with all other duties being secondary. Additionaly, the traditional identification of the pastoral role as a patriarchal one has been on the decline for decades in mainstream U.S. churches, and women are finding a warmer welcome into pastoral and ministerial roles formerly filled almost exclusively by men. Though the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ remains truly Lawsonite in its licensing and ordination practices, some of her daughter churches seem to have found scriptural and historical precedent for the ordination of women and now have female ministers and elders. Many apostolic organizations are reconsidering their zero-sum stance against females in ministry, while others are becoming more and more conservative (more conservative sometimes than Lawson himself) in the face of a rapidly changing society.

Let us conclude this series with an article that examines the future of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, as well as the Body of Christ at large, with regards to Lawson's view of the woman's role in ministry.