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: 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.

Women Preachers: "... Compass a Man"

One of Bishop Lawson's early doctrines was that of women in ministry. Lawson left the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World because of his disagreement with the prevailing practices of that day in Pentecost; women were allowed both to preach and to pastor. Lawson was one of G.T. Haywood's Bible students: he was constrained to read nothing but the Bible, and to read it six times in a year. Paul's exhortations to the the Corinthians, to Titus, and to Timothy seem to curtail women's authority to minister, but the apparent contradiction between these scriptures and others that seem to affirm women's rights to preach and pastor was not thoroughly explored.

Moreover, there was much ignorance in Pentecost at the time. There were "not many wise" in the new movement, and members were often discouraged from seeking education outside of scripture, including religious education. Bishop Lawson, who eventually went on to found one of the first Pentecostal seminaries, rebelled largely against the fact that the word of God not being rightly divided, much on account of a poorly informed reading of scripture. For example, oft quoted was the scripture Jeremiah 31:22, which contains the phrase "a woman shall compass a man"; this was interpreted as saying that women shall one day equal and even outdo men in ministry. Lawson replied in part on this wise:

Jeremiah ... did not have in mind "women preaching or the church, for he did not prophesy concerning the church, neither did he see the church age or our times. He prophesied rather about Israel his people, their then present state, and the immediate going into captivity and despair, and their future restoration and glory. ...
This is what is really meant by "a woman shall compass a man;" [sic] Israel the woman, seeking and wooing her Lord, Jehovah; [sic] who heretofore had sought and wooed her to whom she had been unfaithful and adulterous, yea, she in her last days shall seek her Lord; shall "compass" Him ... (For the Defense, p. 24, pars 2 and 4)

Bishop Lawson's thrust here is how people interpret the scriptures. In addition, the incorrect reading of the word "compass" also figured into Lawson's argument against this reading of that scripture. In the "Practical and Perplexing Questions" section of For the Defense, he addresses this most directly:

QUESTION 12:

Is Jeremiah 31:22 an endorsement of women preachers?
ANSWER:

No! "Surpass" means "outstrip". [sic] "Encompass" means "to go around" [sic] "Compass" mean [sic] to turn about. The women (Israel) who were once pursued will become the pursuer. The man (the Messiah), the once rejected suitor will be sought after by the women. (See Sermon "A Woman Shall Compass A Man").

Bishop Lawson deplored those who used this scripture, armed with an incorrect understanding of the word "compass," as implying that men were failing God wholesale; that women were somehow purer and therefore more fit for the Master's use; that women would have to save the church; and, most of all, that God was Himself unable to keep men (and His church) from falling.

Many of the beliefs that characterized Lawson's doctrine about women preachers were common among theologians of the day. Appeals were made to women being the weaker vessels, to her ministry being confined to the home, and to the Bible's requirements of bishops and deacons to be "husbands." We shall omit to discuss those here. It is sufficient to realize that Bishop Lawson's doctrine of limiting women's authority to ministry was based on a strict reading of the Pauline scriptures; was developed out of a need to address a gap between the scripture and the practice of the day among his Pentecostal cohorts; and was further strengthened by Lawson's desire to separate himself from perceived doctrinal instability and general uninformedness in the early Pentecostal church.

However, we shall see that the Bishop was not without sensitivity to the the spiritual desires of women to be used of God for the saving of souls.