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: 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: Pastors vs. Missionaries

When Bishop William Bonner interviewed Mother Wheatley for his book, My Father in the Gospel, she remarked at one point that Harlem was "infested" with women preachers. This may seem harsh, but one of characteristics of Lawson's doctrine was his disapproval of female ministers. Differences of interpretation of the New Testament scriptures concerning women in church help precipitate Bishop Lawson's withdrawal from the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. To this day, "no women preachers" is a fundamental point of doctrine for most of the church groups that came from under the Lawson umbrella. Some of these churches have recently begun the practice of ordaining women as elders, a practice that even the fairly liberal Church of God in Christ has yet to do.

Bishop Lawson's relationship with female clergy began in the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World, whose doctrine of gender-inclusive ministry was largely influenced by the egalitarian nature of the Azusa Street Revival. Women and men were considered equal in Christ, though ministerial titles differed. Women were known as "evangelists," while men were known as "presbyters," or "elders." Men, then as now, outnumbered women in the ministry; additionally, certain offices, such as district elder and bishop, were closed to women.

Bishop (then Elder) Lawson spent much of his early ministry traveling through the Mid-West and at least as far east as New York City. We know that he encountered a church in New York pastored by Mother Susan Gertrude Lightfoot (or 'Lightford'). Apparently Lawson preached for Mother Lightfoot's church, King's Chapel, though he did not endorse women preachers scripturally or experientially. When Lawson resigned from the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World and settled in Harlem, several of Mother Lightfoot's members 'defected' and began supporting his ministry.

According to Mother Wheatley's interview with Bishop Bonner, on more than one occasion women who were pastors ascribed to Lawson's doctrine and turned their churches over to male ministers. Interestingly, Mother Wheatley conceded that Lawson's teaching was not so much against women preachers as it was against women pastors, and went on to describe how she and a group of women were commissioned by God to begin a work in Mamaroneck, N.Y. (today known as Strait Gate).

In those days, a Pentecostal woman who became a missionary was not simply joining a women's auxiliary or a fundraising committee, but was acknowledging a calling to work alongside (but subordinate to) male ministers, at home or abroad, for the saving of souls. What kinds of activities typified the vocation of these called women? Let's find out by examining the work of several women who began their mission work under Bishop Lawson.