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Timeline American Women in the United Methodist Tradition 1760 Philip and Margaret Embury and Paul and Barbara Heck Arrive in Ne
Timeline American Women in the United Methodist Tradition 1760 Philip and Margaret Embury and Paul and Rights of Woman. Barbara Heck arrive in New York from County Limerick, Ireland. 1794 The American Convention of Abolition Societies is formed in Philadelphia with 1766 Barbara Heck is instrumental in organizing delegates from nine societies. the first Methodist congregation in America (New York City), which includes 1800 First woman's missionary society is formed in Bettye, a black woman. Boston (Baptist and Congregational women) to raise money and pray for domestic and c.1770 Mary Evans Thorne is appointed class foreign missions. leader by Joseph Pilmore in Philadelphia, probably the first woman in America to be A camp meeting is held in Kentucky, so appointed. launching a movement closely identified with Methodism for over a century. Camp 1773 The first Methodist Conference in America is meetings are part of the Second Great held in St. George's Church, Philadelphia. Awakening, a series of revivals that sweeps the nation during the first decades of the 1774 Mother Ann Lee and a small group of Shakers nineteenth century. sail to America from England. Jacob Albright forms three classes among the 1775 German settlers account for about 10% of the Germans in Pennsylvania. total white population in the thirteen colonies. Philip William Otterbein and Martin Boehm 1776 American Revolution; all of Wesley's found the United Brethren in Christ. missionaries except for Francis Asbury return to England. 1803 The Louisiana Purchase opens new territories for white settlement. 1784 The Methodist Episcopal Church is organized at the Christmas Conference in Baltimore. -
86 Advancing Home Missions: Belle Harris Bennett's Contributions to Southern Methodism Laceye C. Warner Isabel Harris Bennett
Methodist History, 55:1 & 2 (October 2016 & January 2017) ADVANCING HOME MISSIONS: BELLE HARRIS BENNETT’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO SOUTHERN METHODISM Laceye C. Warner Isabel Harris Bennett (1852-1922) is most often known for her efforts to extend ecclesiastical rights and ministry opportunities to women in the Methodist Episcopal Church South (MECS). Indeed, Bennett led the cam- paign for full lay rights for women beginning in 1910.1 Once those rights were granted in 1922, her home annual conference of Kentucky elected her the first female delegate to General Conference. Sadly, too ill to attend, she died later that summer. Earlier, Bennett also championed opportunities for women’s ministry and training through her efforts to establish the role of Deaconess, adopted by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MECS) ,in 1902, as well as a training school dedicated a decade earlier.2 Serving as president of the Woman’s Home Missionary Society (1896-1910) and its successor organization, the Woman’s Missionary Council (1910-1922),3 Bennett’s leadership of these organizations had a broad and deep impact within and through Southern Methodism. Bennett’s ability to practice, and form others to practice, evangelistic min- istry4 with multi-dimensional characteristics through Southern Methodism’s Woman’s Missionary organizations provides a significant example for the contemporary church. Her remarkably comprehensive Christian vocation included education and evangelism among numerous disenfranchised pop- ulations in the United States, as well as the pastors and laywomen within her denomination. Bennett’s leadership arguably facilitated the establish- ment of schools and missions—mostly urban—in Italian, French, Polish, Hungarian, Slav, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Mexican, Latin American, and 1 Jean Miller Schmidt, Grace Sufficient: A History of Women in American Methodism 1760- 1939 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999), 172, see also 228-231. -
Belle Harris Bennett: Model of Holistic Christianity
BELLE HARRIS BENNETT: MODEL OF HOLISTIC CHRISTIANITY CAROLYN L~ STAPLETON Belle Harris Bennett was, undoubtedly, the most important woman in the history of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. She ranks with the greatest women among the various denominations of American Methodism. In addition to her significance as a denominational and ecumenical leader, Bennett presents us with a role model of one whose per sonallife integrated traditional Christian piety with a deep commitment to social action,. understanding the Gospel to hold these in gynamic tension. Today The United Methodist Church is experiencing increasing inter nal conflict between those who demand it be more responsive to God's call to the salvation of human souls and those who challenge the Church to i take more leadership in advancing God's kingdom through the creation of ., I a more just social order. The timing is thus excellent for an examination of i, I Belle Harris Bennett as one who embodied a holistic spirituality, affirming I II both aspects of Christian faith. I Influences Which Shaped Her ji Isabel Harris Bennett was born December 3, 1852 in the elegant sur- . roundings of "Homelands," the Bennett estate near Richmond, Kentucky. Belle, as she was known throughout her life, was the younger of two l i daughters and the seventh of eight children. She was descended on both I sides of her family from leaders in the Revolutionary War. Governors, ,j ,j Senators, and state legislators were numbered among her ancestors. She I grew up in a family with all of the best life had to offer to white I i aristocracy-servants, private education, financial security, pOliticfll in fluence, and gracious hospitality. -
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A WHEEL WITHIN A WHEEL: SOUTHERN METHODISM AND THE GEORGIA HOLINESS ASSOCIATION Briane Keith Turley New Martinsville, West Virginia B.A., West Virginia University M.Div., Nazarene Theological Seminary M.A., University ofi Virginia A Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Religious Studies University of Virginia May, 1994 ii @ Copyright by Br1ane Keith Turley All rights reserved May, 1994 iii ABSTRACT The dissertation offers two major theses regarding the Wesleyan-Holiness movement in the United States. First, the Holiness movement which emerged in the North after 1830 emphasizing the speedy attainment of human perfectibility failed to attract receptive audiences in the South due primarily to the cultural conditions of the region. Southern Christians were deeply affected by the culture of honor and the frequent violence it spawned. Moreover, southerners were reluctant to subscribe to the northern formula of Phoebe Palmer's "quick and easy" means to achieving perfect love when they recognized the ambiguities of the slave system--a system most southerners understood as a necessary evil. Second, during the Reconstruction period, at a time when most southerners were searching for new beginnings, the Wesleyan doctrine of immediately acquired perfect love began attracting widespread support in the Southeast. The study examines the Holiness movement's emergence in Georgia and demonstrates that, contrary to decree of several historians, a significant number of Wesleyan Holiness advocates in the New South were not drawn from the ranks of the dispossessed but were in fact members of the region's burgeoning middle class.