Why: No Makeup, No Earrings

Among Black American Christians, there has always been a strong association between modesty and piety. Largely because Christianity in the United States had strong Pietist influences, every generation of Christianity, every doctrinal iteration of the faith among American-born Africans has seen its version of discipline or doctrine that, among other things, proscribes certain kinds or colors of clothes, shoes, and accessories, for both men and women. In the 1800s, for instance, bows and ribbons were, among Methodists black or white, not sufficiently modest enough for a minister's wife to wear. There is a long and broad history of sartorial modesty that has followed the church since its earliest years; the scriptures record the apostles' warnings to first-century believers to be modest in dress and hairstyles.

Pentecostals are the latest to embrace (and transcend) the call to modesty in apparel. Originally an offshoot of the Holiness movement, early Pentecostalism inherited a culture of abnegation due to so many former Holiness (especially Wesleyan Holiness) adherents flowing into the new movement, so much so that in certain circles the term "Holiness church" became synonymous for "Pentecostal congregation." (There were exceptions, of course.) 

The Pentecostal movement took off just before the Great Migration, which saw hundreds of thousands of Southern-born African Americans leaving the region of their birth and culture to resettle in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, northern Midwest, and West Coast. It is worth mentioning that the poverty of the South was such that farmers, white or black, had little to spend on fancy clothes, shoes, or jewelry. The lack of development meant that the trip to church would be on dusty or muddy dirt roads, by foot or by wagon. Additionally, blacks were discouraged or prohibited from dressing above their station in many places. Thus for many African American Christians in the South, there were financial and social considerations that led t modesty in colthing.

One underappreciated fact about this time is that there was a widespread cultural conservatism held by many different segments of the Black Church concerning modesty in clothing. Baptists were often just as strict as Holiness churches in having and enforcing rules about what to wear to church. Methodists had a long and living legacy of plainness in dress. Moreover, African Americans tended to being culturally conservative. In their memoirs Having Our Say, sisters Sarah and Annie Elizabeth Delany exemplify this conservatism as they recall how their father, an Episcopal priest, would "scowl" with disapproval when they wore long dresses in the early 1900s that broke with past traditions and revealed a little ankle.

Migrant blacks often used fashion to assert themselves as Americans and to distance themselves from their impoverished past. Nevertheless, there was a deep cultural connection between modesty in apparel and spiritual sincerity. The praying forebears of the 1800s, who had no money and often went without decent food and clothing, became the spiritual standard for many African Americans in the early 1900s. Charles Mason, in his pursuit of the sincere Christian faith he saw among former slaves, did not wear a tie, the color red, or anything that could be construed as ostentatious, like a gold watch. Additionally, makeup, jewelry, calf-length dresses, and elbow-length sleeves were considered immodest by many early Pentecostals born in the mid- to late-1800s.  Mason, like many in the movement, became less rigid about what color clothes or type of adornment was allowable among saints later in his life, and began to wear dark-colored ties. 

Bishop Lawson, like all Pentecostals, embraced the concept of modesty. However, he felt that mature Christians should be led by the Spirit in their choice of apparel, and he broke early on with the habit of using by-laws and church discipline to define standards of dress. This is not to say Lawson himself was not quite demanding. He held the minority opinion among Pentecostals that women ought to have a head-covering in the church at all times. Dr. Robert Spellman wrote in The Life, Legacy, and Legend of Bishop R.C. Lawson  of being chastised by the bishop for not wearing a suit jacket in the sanctuary. By all accounts, Lawson definitely embraced the concept of spiritual abnegation for ministers and missionaries.

However, though perhaps the majority of his following was conservative, some photographs show members of Refuge Temple wearing earrings. In one picture, a family arrives at Refuge Temple for Easter wearing similar hats; one sister in the group appears to be wearing lipstick. In another photograph, Bishop and Mother Lawson are photographed at one of his appreciation banquets: Mother Lawson is wearing a hat with feathers and and a small string of pearls, both of which were very much frowned upon during their early days in the PAW. While visiting the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ in Detroit in 1960, Lawson and a young Elder William Bonner are photographed with Bonner's wife, Ethel Mae, and other sisters from the church, all of whom are wearing costume jewelry. Thus, there was a time when moderation meant modest adornment, and not an absence of it.

The stereotypical image of a "saved" person, interestingly, did not come down to us directly from those early days of American Pentecost. Instead, black social conservatism, in response to cultural liberalism, and expressed through church discipline, birthed out what would become a gendered kind of holiness that made sanctification an anti-feminist statement. In the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, apparently in the 1970s, William Bonner, now presiding apostle of the church, led the organization to re-embrace a strict version of scriptural modesty. Explicit exhortations were made against jewelry and make-up. The 1980s saw the issue of the first COOLJC Missionary Guidebook, in which Mother Gertrude Frazier lays down some very strict rules about clothing and jewelry. Jewelry in general -- even the allowable cross pendant or class ring -- would come to be viewed with suspicion. In certain parts of the country, to wear earrings was another sign that a person was not "saved," or at best a new convert. Certainly no saved person could wear makeup, since a Holy Ghost-filled person would be convicted about looking "worldly." 

There is some irony in this situation, in that despite COOLJC being a Finished Work organization doctrinally, the terminology and practice of Wesleyan Holiness cohabited with, and in practice even reigned over, the notion of progressive sanctification. COOLJC saints consider themselves saved because of a discreet born-again experience. They are sanctified in ways indistinguishable from the way, for example, COGIC saints might claim: no drinking or smoking; great conviction concerning sin and worldly practices; and certain practices being "taken away" by the Holy Ghost (that is, a sudden loss of interest or lack of compulsion to pursue certain actions, causally ascribed to the Spirit). Both describe themselves as Holy Ghost-filled, and indeed, it may be that the baptism of the Holy Ghost represents a point of convergence for Wesleyan and Finished Work proponents, in that both seemed to see the baptism of the Holy Ghost as a catalyzing factor for sanctification, either in anticipation of it (Wesleyan) or immediately after it (Finished Work), or both (individual testimonies).

There was a time when the stringent requirements of sanctification served as a test of sincerity for those coming into Pentecost. However, now that the Neo-Pentecostal/Charismatic movement has come full bloom, the old Holiness standards, with its feminine emphasis and anachronistic otherliness, appear quaint and dated, like a Pentecostal Hasidic order. Today one rarely finds a congregation of old-school Holiness discipline, where parishioners are allowed no adornment at all, even fobidding certain hairstyles. The New Old-School is quite specific in excluding all makeup and jewelry, with ample allowance given for modestly stylish hairdos. Some people embrace the "standards"wholeheartedly; others remain committed to a notion of progressive sanctification and expect to grow in holiness to the point that abnegation comes naturally; still others have largely vacated the notion that giving up makeup and jewelry are spiritual disciplines.

Why: Chapel Veils

One thing that set Bishop Lawson's new organization apart early on was the wearing of hats by women as a part of their participation in service. This practice is based on 1 Corinthians 11, where Paul taught that women should cover their heads (and that men should not cover theirs) when they pray or prophesy.

Lawson began his ministry in a time when men and women normally wore hats when they left home. Inside buildings, men showed respect by removing their hats, while women donned or doffed their hats according to context. Church services were traditionally times when men took off their hats. A good many established traditions, like Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and many Protestant groups, taught that women should have some sort of covering on their heads in church.

Refuge Temple being situated in Manhattan, it would have been easy for Lawson and the people who joined his movement to observe the veiling traditions of other Christian communities. Of the churches that practiced veiling, the Roman Catholic would have been by far the largest and most pronounced in New York City. 

Veiling traditions from Europe included hats and cloth coverings. One covering in particular, the mantilla, found widespread usage in the Americas. Originally from Spain (and perhaps ultimately from the Middle East), the mantilla was a lace-trimmed, light-weight, often decorative headdress. It was used primarily for covering the head during worship, or even as a part of daily wear for the very religious or very traditional. The mantilla took many forms: it could be large or small; triangular, rectangular, or circular; and could cover just the top of the head or extend as far as the shoulders. Some women veiled themselves in lace scarves, wrapped loosely around the neck like a normal scarf and then pulled to conceal one's hair.

It is clear that, long before coming to New York, Lawson taught that women ought to cover their heads in church, be it a gathering for prayer or when in the church building itself. This was not a firm teaching in the Pentecostal movement, but the practice of women's headcovering has surfaced among several different Pentecostal groups. Moreover, precursors to Pentecostalism had also practiced women's headcovering, including segments of the Holiness movement, Methodism, and Anabaptist fellowships. Thus, the doctrine of women's headcovering was not an idiosyncrasy of Lawson's doctrine, but it did become characteristic of his movement.

Traditional Lawsonites women were hat-wearers. They did not feel that the head was truly covered with a veil. In some of the more traditional branches of the Lawsonite Apostolics, even little girls are expected to wear hats, not veils, in services. In Lawson's organization proper, chapel veils (also known as prayer scarves, prayer caps, prayer veils, or chaplets) are normally worn by girls as they come into their preteen years and are normally worn well into young adulthood (or beyond). Hats are associated with age, not altogether negatively; like reaching a marriageable age, young women are known to (avoid or) think carefully about hatwearing, finding the kind of hat that fits one's personality and compliments one's face.

The hat, with its sturdiness and fixed shape, becomes a symbol of maturity and authority, both socially and spiritually. Missionaries are supposed to wear hats, not veils, when in uniform; the same goes for the wives of ministers and deacons. Pastors' wives are presented with an assortment of hats at pastoral appreciation ceremonies; mothers of the church are blessed with hats for their birthdays. Moreover, even though early Pentecostals had strict rules about the plainness of hats (no feathers, no flowers), even in the Church of Lord Jesus Christ, in addition to their primary spiritual significance, hats have become (secondarily) fashion statements and (tertiarily) adumbrations of financial status.

That said, there was a less well known headcovering tradition in the African American community during Lawson's lifetime. Women of African descent practiced a variety of headcovering and hairwrapping practices that were only tangentially religious, if at all, but nonetheless widespread. The most pronounced one was probably the head kerchief (also known as a head scarf or head rag). It was common for tradition black Southern women to cover (or "tie up") their heads before going out. The practice, as the writer has read on it and observed it, seemed to center around modesty at times (mainly not showing the hair), but even then was optional, both in the home and abroad. (Read more about this tradition here.)

Lawson founded Refuge Temple near the beginning of the first wave of the Great Migration, when many women would have been bringing their Southern ways with them, including the head kerchief. Longtime Northerners abhorred the backward look of the kerchief, and it became both a bone of contention between them and the newcomers as well as a telltale sign of a Southerner just come up. The traditional headcovering would never thrive in Harlem, much less in a church like Lawson's. Author Cheryl Wills describes the Refuge Temple scene in her family memoirs Die Free:

Lawson's faithful members were not low-key rural folks... These were Southern-born, fast-paced city slickers, who had fled the oppressive South during the so-called Great Migration, and prided themselves on being one of Harlem's own. Many acted as though as they were born and bred New Yorkers, and the South no longer existed in their minds.(Die Free, 51)

Kerchiefs just did not fit in a "big-time city church with fancy pews, polished floors, bright lights, and sparkling silver communion serviceware" (Die Free, 51). In fact, the head kercheif eventually became associated with the occult: voodoo, hoodoo, root, and conjure. Traditional headcoverings--head kerchiefs, turbans, bandanas, straw hats--were acceptable where traditional culture thrived (i.e., the South), but were too exotic for the North. For this reason, traditional headcoverings never found a formal integration into Lawson's (nor most other) holiness praxis.

Eventually, even hats went out of fashion as daily wear. Today, hatwearing is a matter of personal preference. Also, it is not convenient to carry around a hat solely to accommodate headcovering practices. Enter the chapel veil: conveniently portable; nonostentatious for prayer in public (think street ministry or workplace prayer); inexpensive and simple to make; and a way of celebrating and affirming the disciplines of prayer and practical holiness.
The chapel veil as worn by Lawsonite women is normally circular, made of embroidered tulle, with lace trimming sewn around it.


Chapel veils are not doilies, though a doily could certainly serve as a headcovering if needed. Technically, anything could be a headcovering, if it reasonably covers the head. In the 1980s, young women wore pillbox hats, which only really covered a small section of the head. Some organizations use the most minimal headcoverings. Some have even adopted the teaching that the hair is the covering, or that women ought not cover. In the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, there has been an abrogation of this teaching in some, particularly urban, areas. Admittedly, some Lawsonites organizations, like the Progressive Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, have never been extremely strict about this teaching. At any rate, chapel veils are a matter of religious discipline, not intended to suborn women in particular, but to instill a sense of decorum and obedience to scripture in the church at large.


This article will end with a little irony. The same scriptural passage that calls for women's headcovering also calls for men's uncovering. While men are expected to remove their hats indoors and during prayers, speeches, and special observances, there is little spiritual teaching about men not covering. Prayer outdoors may find men covered; graduation ceremonies indoors also finds men covered, sometimes even during prayer. After Bishop Smallwood Williams established the Bible Way Churches of Our Lord Jesus Christ, he adopted the biretta. In his old age, Bishop William L Bonner is known to wear a small skullcap in service, even while preaching (perhaps to guard against hypothermia). These small exceptions granted, rare would be the man caught preaching, teaching or praying with a hat on, indoors or out.

Why: The Series

There is a lot of misinformation out there about church liturgy and discipline. One could venture to say that we are living in a time when liturgy (the performative embodiment of spiritual beliefs) and discipline (practices meant to instill and reinforce spiritual behaviors) have been greatly displaced by pragmatism and doctrines of self-enhancement. 

While men have been affected, the greatest visible and social changes have surrounded Western views and expectations of women. Particularly in church, many fundamental doctrines of discipline have gone by the way due to these changes and a great chasm of modern misunderstanding as to why things were the way they were.

Part of the purpose of this blog is to give present and future readers a view of the dynamic nature of Pentecostal history, which is a story still being written. Let's examine some of the misconceptions surrounding discipline and doctrine as it relates to women in Bishop Lawson's organization. 

Women Preachers: Future Projections

Someone once asked Bishop Lawson if prophetesses still existed. He answered,

I do not know of any. However, the Bible says, "Your sons and daughters shall prophesy." (Defense, p. 441)

One would not expect such an open-ended answer from a man who was so clearly opposed to women in positions of ecclesiastical authority. Yet this response reveals much about Lawson. His ability to envision a hypothetical modern-day prophetess while he condemned the female pastors he could see is paradoxical, to say the least. However, Lawson's sense of divine economy (how God handles things), ecclesiastical economy (how he felt the church should best be run,) and his insight concerning the issues of the Body of Christ at large are what formed his understanding of what ministry was and how women could operate in the church.

Never once did Bishop Lawson fail to remind his parishioners of the scriptures that limit women's authority in the church. He never ordained women as ministers (though there were several women he oversaw who might have qualified). When women presented their visions and callings to him, he licensed those whom he felt were sincere, trustworthy, mature, and of sufficient spiritual depth, but he did not turn churches over to them or install them into ecclesiastical offices (bishops, deacons). He encouraged and laid hands of blessing on the women, but never intimated that he would ever support, personally, hermeneutically, or otherwise, female pastoral ambitions.

However, as far as spiritual giftings go, Lawson was open God's sovereignty in choosing and using whom He will. Even though he preached that female pastors and bishops would be "lost unless they repent on their dying beds, because they have done things that God did not give them authority to do," he in the same sentence declares, "Yes, women can preach and get people saved" (Defense, p. 287). In other words, as long as women did not usurp authority over men, they could be used in myriad ways to the glory of God and the benefit of the church.

To give another example, in the article "Divine Healing" (1960), Lawson wrote that "gifts of healing are in God's hand and he gives to male and female as He wishes. No woman, however, should anoint with oil ... [or lay] hands on the sick anywhere except in her home" (Defense, p. 415; nor did Lawson condone individuals anointing themselves with oil, though he allowed that any saint could be called on for prayer). Paul's prohibitions for women, he reckoned, were not limits but parameters.

A careful scholar of scripture will note that Paul is speaking of himself when he writes, "But I suffer not a woman to teach" (1 Tim. 2:12). He appeals to the law in 1 Cor. 14:34 when he writes, "It is not permitted to them to speak." Not once from Paul, or from scripture in general, is there a direct and final 'thus saith the Lord' limiting women. To the contrary, scripture has shown that, in absence of a male, women were able to execute a variety of family, social, and religious roles with some success. Though the Bible unquestionably favors male headship, it is safe to say that the patriarchal fabric of the scriptural testimony is decorated here and there with precious stones, tried stones: women.

Not only does scripture present us with both the pattern and the exception, but rabbinical Judaism, Orthodoxy, Catholicism, early Protestantism, and American revivalism all have examples of women who were exceptional in their ability to fill a void in the story of human spirituality and to sustain the support and interest of men, whether as Doctors of the Church or rebbes or, yes, Pentecostal pastors.

We have already established the fact, too, that Lawson came into Pentecost at a time when women Pentecostal preachers were common. Even though he didn't endorse the practice as scriptural, he did acknowledge it. And even though he didn't permit it in his organization, it has already been mentioned that the birth and growth of churches depended largely on the spiritual efforts of women. So Lawson, true to his intention (Defense, p. 282) was like Paul: he himself didn't suffer a woman to preach, but he also knew many Priscillas and Phoebes and could hypothesize God using women in amazing ways outside of a sacerdotal calling.

Outside of a few conservative Pentecostal organizations, the question of women in ministry has found most Pentecostal, neo-Pentecostal (e.g., AME, FGBC), and charismatic organizations affirming the right of women to preach and lead congregations. Even in conservative organizations, like Way of the Cross Church of Christ, women that come ordained are recognized as such during their stay with the organization. The Church of God in Christ does not ordain women, but missionaries who start or lead congregations have gained substantial recognition as pastors or "shepherd mothers" or some parts of the United States. The influence of Bishops Lawson and Mason cannot be underestimated: The influence they were able to exert on the Pentecostal movement in respect to church polity during the first half of the 20th century still informs 21st century Black America's foreseeable religious future.

It is therefore a matter of of no little importance that organizations like International Bible Way, Free Gospel, and Scripture Cathedral have begun to endorse (license and/or ordain) female ministers. The Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ has become a refuge for those classical Pentecostals that long for the comfort to continue the holiness praxis that Pentecostalism inherited in its beginning: conservative, but also fairly flexible, as classical Pentecostal organizations go. Lawson's vision for his Pentecostal organization included room for both the folksy and the urbane, the rustic and the refined.

Unfortunately, today those two sides of Pentecost seem to be in competition with each other. The question becomes, "Will I be old-fashioned or up-to-date, traditional or progressive? will I stay true to the charted path or find new scriptural solutions to the problems of the day?" In general, those leaders who most want to identify with and show loyalty their respective founders tend to be traditional to a degree that they become fixated on a few salient doctrinal points and rigid in their stance. For instance, while Bishop Lawson apparently knew of and tolerated "Mother [Mary] Wilson," Bishop S.E. Williams' mother, running "a revival for him once a year" at Bible Way Temple in Washington, D.C. (Defense, p. 275), but the movement against women preachers in the 1990s by Bishop W.L. Bonner and the apostles indicated anything but toleration of women attempting to execute rhetorical techniques most readily identifiable with male preachers, drawing on some of Lawson's more incendiary (and thus more memorable) indictments against women preachers (e.g., Defense, p. 288) rather than on his catechismal teaching of the preacher as a sacerdotal functionary.

One of the sad side effects of this situation is that many women, potential spiritual matriarchs with strong speaking ministries, are often discouraged from "preaching," with the reasoning following a variety of paths, even when these women have no intention on pursuing a pastoral ministry. The sum effect of this discouragement is that many women expect little of themselves and become lukewarm, and therefore congregations entire become lukewarm, including the men. As Bishop Lawson's own life shows us, spiritual women can turn spiritual apathy into interest or even enthusiasm in the lives of the men they encounter.

Also, the history of the church shows us that many (if not most) churches were founded by women. Unlike non-clergy working men, who were generally the breadwinners, lay women and missionaries had ample time and opportunity to evangelize, disciple new converts, and nurture young ministries. Past articles in this series demonstrate how women were able to augment the work of pastors, or even serve as substitutes when male clergy were not available. Therefore, a categorical disallowance of women as ministers could conceivably spell the stagnation for an organization that has experienced a lack of male ministers throughout its history. It is not our opinion that the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ should follow the model of any other organization, but that there was sufficient room for women in ministry under the missionary model that was enacted long ago. However, you must have a missionary society on spiritual fire, not on doctrinal ice.

All that notwithstanding, Bishop Lawson's conservation of the pastor as a patriarchal community figure has proved prophetic. Many parishioners come to see their church as an extended family, with the pastor and his wife being more than preacher and first lady, but father and mother raising spiritual sons and daughters. The black community in the U.S. has not yet recovered the sense of familial stability that it knew in generations past, so the pastor's role as the father-figure will not cease to be valuable in the foreseeable future. An organization with a spiritual stake in male ministers can thus be seen as an organization committed to strengthening the family wherever it sets up shop. Perhaps Bishop Lawson saw this day when he preached on so many of the social ills of his time.

With Bishop Bonner being the last (active) of the great Lawsonites, the future of the Lawson's legacy, the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, hangs in the balance. In allowing his late daughter to address the international planning session, and in having installation services for his 12-member mother board in Detroit, Bonner has shown some of the same lenient economy that Lawson did: endorsing women's gifting, but rejecting women's ordination. The question is this: Will the Lawsonite praxis concerning women in ministry be retained (and possibly expanded), or will it be done away with altogether with as the organization transitions in the near future? If retained and expanded, there will be organizational growth and emulation by other likeminded organizations. If done away with in favor of some other church's model, then there will likely be controversy, schism, and parishioner migration to and from other organizations, all of which will lead to the compromise of the organization's original platform.

In any event, COOLJC is just one segment of the literal church of our Lord Jesus Christ. While we ponder the issues of this now concluded series, the reality is that no one yet has had a premium on interpreting scripture for Pentecostals.

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.

Women Preachers: Women of the Work

The Purpose of the Missionary Department of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ reads like a vision statement, enumerating several objectives for women's missionary work:

Section 1. This department was created for the purpose of aiding this church as an organism, to perpetuate the doings of the saints in the beginning of the church; that is, to make an opportunity for the missionary women to be helpers together with our ministers and pastors in bringing souls to Christ, and comfort to those in need: To visit the widows, orphans and sick, give godly council [sic] in the fear of God, and teach the younger women to be chaste keepers at home ...

Additionally, our purpose is to labor together with the brethren in establishing churches and spreading this truth as those women in the churches of old... (Discipline, p. 70)

When women used domestic, social, and economic skills to the church, they were ministering to the "church as an organism." Metaphorically, the church is a living entity, one that needs to be clothed, fed, schooled, nurtured, and properly socialized, whether referring to the souls that make up the ecclesia or to the church as a viable corporate body. Preaching alone does not a church home make. Thus, the organized efforts of women to see to the well-being of their fellow congregants and to the maintenance of their houses of worship (as well as, one dares add, bringing a feminine touch to the work) were integral to the development of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately, the equally important work of women in establishing and maintaining churches spiritually have not been as widely discussed. This may be due in part to internecine conflicts in the late 1980s, the 1990s, and the early 2000s concerning women in the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ who were sympathetic to the women's liberation movement. That subject is better discussed at another time, though it is important to realized that this controversy has had a chilling effect on the fairly robust spiritual activities of women.

It is also important to consider that missionaries are licensed, which reveals that Bishop Lawson understood that, even short of preaching, a woman's vocation may take her into unfamiliar territory. One of the common spiritual activities of missionary women was (and is) prayer and Bible study in the homes of saints and potential converts. The Discipline Book speaks of missionaries "holding meetings out from their own church" and, like male ministers, missionaries were liable to be "sent where needed best" (p. 72). Thus, women on the field also needed credentials to support their missionary activities, whether traveling or evangelizing locally.

Conveniently at hand is the 2003 Beacon, published by the International Missionary Department; it contains several biographies of missionary women who were inducted into the Apostolic Gallery of Excellent Services (AGES), from which one may draw examples. One such biography is that of Mother Catherine Seely, who

made numerous trips visiting relatives in 1931. She began to conduct prayer meetings in various homes ... Approximately nine years after Mother Seely's arrival in Mamaroneck, and with much prayer, the foundation for what was to become the Strait Gate Church began in what was no more than a "chicken coop" donated by a chicken farmer, Elder Brooks.

It may not have been until 1944 (the biography is unclear) that the small group was supplied with a regular minister. (In a previous article, it is mentioned that other women also contributed to the founding of Strait Gate, as per Mother Wheatley's interview with Bishop W.L. Bonner in My Father in the Gospel. Strait Gate is no longer a part of the COOLJC.) Mother Seely also served as a foreign missionary in Africa.

The internet also inures greatly to the benefit of the researcher in supplying information relative to the histories of local congregations. At Zion Temple COOLJC, Mmes Mozell Miller and Elvira Smith sent an inquiry to Bishop Lawson about starting a church in Pratt City, outside of Birmingham, Ala. An elder was sent to follow up the inquiry, and he introduced them to Bp. Perry Thomas, who received them into the organization and under his oversight. No minister was immediately sent to pastor the two women, who met regularly in Mrs. Miller's home, but

[a] missionary from New York, Sister Clark, came down saying the Lord had sent her to Birmingham to help them. Sister Clark began to tell them about the Holy Ghost and being baptized in Jesus’ name. Through her teachings, four more souls were added to the church: Sister Annie Adams, Sister Lucille Johnson, Sister Prentice, and Sister Eliza Hunter. This brought the church roster to six. Bishop Lawson named them the “Six Sisters.”

Obviously, Bishop Lawson approved of and encouraged missionary women doing as much as they could for the furtherance of the work of God (despite the history's cautious phrasing, "saying the Lord had sent her"). In any event, there was no evidence that either Mother Seely or Sis. Clark were assuming authority over men.

But what of women's missions that occured beyond the confines of church or home? Included in the aforementioned issue of The Beacon, Mother Doreather Kirkwood's biography describes how she came into the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ in 1958, near the end of Bishop Lawson's life. Apparently upon sharing her call to ministry with the bishop, he "told her to go out and do a great work for the Lord. She held many street meetings, prayed for souls to be saved and healed. Mother Kirkwood became a licensed missionary in 1964" (p. 22). She continued her missionary evangelism in the Bronx, "conducting services" at two area hospitals.

Mother Madeline Thompson of Charleston, S.C., also carried out a large part of her vocation outdoors. According to her obituary and personal testimony, when she explained her calling to Bishop Lawson, he laid hands on her and commissioned her to "[t]each; don't preach." She went on to hold missonary revivals throughout South Carolina and as far away as Florida; coordinated outreach services, including procuring capable male evangelists and passing out tracts during street services; and assisted pastors by teaching and training women in churches throughout her state as a senior missionary.

Other missionaries, like the legendary Mothery Delphia Perry of Harlem, were also known to take to the streets with testimonies of salvation and healing, as well as to the foreign fields. Mother Lillian Dunlap of Flint, Mich., is described in The Beacon as having also conducted prayer revivals and seminars, and has her own radio program, an extension of her husband's broadcast ministry (p. 19). With no one to replace her late husband as pastor of their church in Eden, N.C., Mother Esther Broadnax Meadows taught Sunday School and brought the morning message for three years until her bishop could find a suitable replacement (Beacon, p. 20).

It has probably occured to the reader by now that Bishop Lawson's position against women preachers was not a total indictment against women who acknowledged some sort of ministerial vocation. Because Bishop Lawson was spiritual, he could recognize the genuine burden for the lost that many of his female followers felt; because Lawson was practical, he could see how women profited their local congregations when allowed to exercise themselves spiritually, even in the absence of male leadership.

Some of the examples test the limits of traditional church polity, including Lawson's own fundamentally biblicist administrative scruples. Let us follow this article with an examination of Lawson's direct teachings on the subject of women preachers.

Women Preachers: Missionary Work

We, the women of the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, knowing that God has called us into holiness and sobriety, and charity, to rescue the fallen and administer any and all help, as we have opportunity, whether spiritual or material to the glory of God and to the honor and majesty of His great Name, now take our place in the ranks of the workers of our Lord to do our part in harvesting souls for Jesus Christ, as our Lord is coming soon to gather the precious fruits of the early and latter rain.

So begins the Preamble to the "Constitution of the Department of Women's Missionary Work of [the] Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ," organized in September of 1923. In the organization's Discipline Book, just above the preamble, are three scriptural references: Romans 16:1 (or 16:1-2, a reference to Phoebe, a female collaborator of Paul); Philippians 4:2 (sic, should be 4:3, where Paul enjoins the saints to help the women that worked with him, Clement, and others); and Titus 2:3-6 (sic, should be 2:3-5, which describes the teaching duties of older women; vs. 6 concerns young men). Taken together, these scriptures give a fairly modest, but conveniently flexible, framework for the missionary work of called women. While male ministers were to give themselves primarily to pastoral duties and evangelism, women were to augment the men's preaching ministry by whatever means they could (short of preaching), and were also to teach and set an example for younger women, especially as wives and mothers.

Missionary work, of course, did not have its beginning in the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is likely that Bishop Lawson was influenced by Bishop C.H. Mason, the influential founder of the Church of God in Christ. Though they differed in doctrine (Mason was, at least nominally, a trinitarian), the two were friends. Mason was very ecumenical in his fellowship, and as the founder of the first incorporated Pentecostal church, he had given credentials to ministers throughout the Pentecostal movement. Lawson, fairly broadminded and ecumenical, had great respect for Mason's administration of the church. They both agreed that the scriptures gave women a place in ministry, but that teaching, not preaching, was the appropriate focus of women's speaking abilities.

Mason further established a women's department under Mother Lizzie Woods Roberson (or 'Robinson'), based on Titus 2:3-5 (women, not men, are best suited to teach other women). Lawson's missionaries were not self-governed, but were under the authority of their local pastor or state overseer, who was more or less answerable to Lawson himself, during his administration. In both the Church of God in Christ and the Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ, women were organized in high-functioning missionary bands whose operations are likely traceable to the women's missionary societies of the Baptist church, to whom both men had ties.

Again and again in research, one encounters the confession that women who became missionaries in the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ had expressed some sort of calling to mission work. The most common work that one finds in reading biographies in COOLJC's The Contender for the Faith, in the International Missionary Department's Beacon, or in special publications (e.g., the IMD's Outstanding Women series), is work that characterizes what women do in general. Women sewed baptismal garments; cooked for the community; conducted prayer services; assisted with communion and church maintenance; taught life skills to girls and young women; counseled younger congregants and new converts; and helped the church meet its financial obligations. Examples include the late Mother Marie Robbins Dunlap, who zealously passed her baking skills on to the young women in her circle; Mother Clarissa Brown, who with her local missionaries supplied and maintained window treatments and altar cloths for their church; and of course, the late Mother Carrie Lawson, the consummate mother, homemaker, spiritual advisor, hostess, prayer warrior, cook, and first lady, who raised and trained the late Mother Grace Spellman beside her own four sons.

Here and there, however, there would appear women of unusual spiritual depth and gifting. Mother Lawson we have already discussed; yet there were many like her, women that chose to complement rather than compete, to supplement rather than supplant, and to transform Pauline limitations on female ministers into scriptural grounding for an expressly feminine brand of apostolic mission work. Let's examine the lives of a few such women.