Women Leaders in the Wesleyan-Holiness Movement and Churches

emale saints have been models of holiness across the ages, yet es. In 1836, she combined them and shifted the venue to the large Fthey were barred from church leadership. A small change occurred parlor at the Palmer-Lankford residence. Thus began the “Tuesday in early Methodism when John Wesley, after his initial reluctance, Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness.” The meeting began at 2:30 authorized several women to join his burgeoning corps of lay PM, opened with “the Doxology,” and ended at 4:00 PM. Testimonies preachers in Britain. A generation later, female leadership in the and reports were published in The Guide to Christian Perfection. church emerged more visibly in America. Mrs. Palmer experienced entire sanctification in 1837, and Lank- The ministries of Jarena Lee and Julia Foote, two African Amer- ford urged her to assume leadership of the Tuesday meeting. Palmer icans, anticipated the wider role that women would play in the eventually was asked to speak at other gatherings. She developed an organized holiness movement. active lay ministry that took her to other cities, regions, and coun- Lee was born in New Jersey in 1783. In Philadelphia, she joined tries. Walter, her husband, a physician, left his practice to travel with the African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E. Church) founded her. At one point, they lived in England for four years, engaging in by Bishop Richard Allen. Lee experienced entire sanctification as a active religious work throughout their time there. young woman and sensed a call to preach. She shared this convic- They returned to New York near the Civil War’s end. Merritt tion with Bishop Allen, who gently turned her aside. She approached retired, and Walter purchased the Guide, and Phoebe became its him again eight years later. This time Allen authorized her to conduct editor. She renamed it Guide to Holiness, and published it until her prayer meetings. death. She wrote several books. Promise of the Father (1859) was a Over time, she began preaching and conducting revival services, biblical theology that supported the ministry of women in preaching doing so for 30 years. She even preached in Philadelphia at Bethel roles. The Way of Holiness (1843), a work of spiritual theology, was, A.M.E. Church, her denomination’s “mother church.” She preached perhaps, her most popular book. Many consider her to be 19th-cen- frequently on Christian Holiness and published her life-story, tury Methodism’s most important woman. Religious Experience and Journal of Mrs. Jarena Lee (1849), before After Phoebe died, Sarah Lankford, now a widow, married Walter her death. Palmer and resumed leading the Tuesday Meeting. Rev. John Roche Julia Foote was born in Schenectady, New York, in 1823. She memorialized her in the book, Life of Mrs. Sarah A. Lankford Palmer, experienced entire sanctification soon after her conversion at age who for 60 years was the able teacher of entire holiness (1898). 15. In Boston, she joined the A.M.E. Zion Church, a “sister denomi- Mrs. Palmer’s ministry in London deeply influenced Catherine nation” to Lee’s. Her ministry began after her husband died in 1849. Booth, co-founder of the Salvation Army with her husband, Wil- She eventually preached in Canada and as far west as California. She liam. When Palmer was criticized for preaching, Booth published encountered prejudice on the basis of her gender in some quarters, Female Ministry: Woman’s Right to Preach the Gospel (1859). She began but always found enough open doors in A.M.E. and A.M.E. Zion preaching the next year. circles. Her sermons and autobiography are laced with references to The Booths founded the Christian Mission (later The Salva- entire sanctification. Her book’s last chapter is titled “How to Obtain tion Army) in 1865 in the poorest part of London. Their daughter Sanctification.” In 1894, she was the first woman ordained a deacon Evangeline, also a preacher, led the Army’s American branch before by the A.M.E.Z. Church, and in 1900, she was ordained an elder. becoming The Salvation Army’s global leader (or “General”). Through faithful service and response to their call, Jarena Lee and A growing holiness movement in America led some Methodist Julia Foote spread the message of Christian Holiness while expand- ministers to create the National Camp Meeting Association for the ing the footprint of female ministry. Promotion of Holiness (or NHA) in 1867. NHA sponsored major Meanwhile, the Wesleyan-Holiness movement was organizing. It holiness camp meetings and conventions each year and inspired had two points of origin. One stemmed from Rev. Timothy Merritt’s followers to create local, state, and regional holiness associations. advocacy. A New England Methodist, he published the Guide to Several women rose to prominence in the burgeoning holiness camp Christian Perfection, a monthly. The other stemmed from the min- meeting and convention culture. istry of the Worrall sisters—Sarah Lankford and Phoebe Palmer— Amanda Berry Smith was one of these. Born a slave in 1837, her whose families shared a house in New York City. The sisters were freedom was purchased by her father. She moved to New York City, known for piety and leadership. met Phoebe Palmer, and attended the Tuesday Meetings when she Lankford led the women’s prayer groups at two Methodist church- was able. She professed entire sanctification in 1868. She began preaching in churches in New York and New Jersey church for a year under the pastor’s direction. The bands were open soon afterward. Some A.M.E. pastors opposed her, but others sup- to men and women alike, but they were segregated by gender. There ported her. In 1870, she began preaching to predominantly white were actually more female bands than male ones. Dozens of female audiences at holiness camp meetings, gradually becoming a familiar preachers were formed by their experience in the bands, including figure at holiness camps from Maine to Tennessee. She preached in the evangelist Julia Shelhammer, wife of another evangelist, E.E. England in 1878, and then went on to India and evangelized there Shelhammer. under the direction of James Thoburn, a missionary bishop of the Dake died in 1892. Although Free Methodist founder B. T. Methodist Episcopal Church. Two years later, she moved to Africa, Roberts strongly supported the ordination of women, the General where she worked for eight years under William Taylor, another M.E. Conference of 1894 would not authorize it. That action was the bishop. primary cause for the Pentecost Bands to leave the Free Methodist She returned to America in 1890 and began holding revivals. She Church the following year. Once they had separated, the Pentecost conducted one at Asbury M.E. Church in Los Angeles in May 1891, Bands immediately ordained several women and reorganized as the invited by the pastor, Phineas Bresee. The Los Angeles Herald noted Missionary Bands of the World. Allied for a while with the Church of that she preached to “large audiences all week.” Bresee described God (Holiness), they united with the Wesleyan Methodist Church in her Sunday afternoon message in the strongest positive terms, 1958. stating that she preached “as I never heard her before, and as I have The same commitment to female leadership was evident among rarely ever heard anybody preach, in strains of holy eloquence and the three smaller denominations that merged in 1907-08 to form unction, almost equal to Bishop [Matthew] Simpson in the zenith of the Church of the Nazarene. Each parent body ordained women to his power and sacred oratory.” the ministry prior to their joining together. The first woman in this Smith and other capable women influenced Bresee. In 1895, a lineage was Anna Hanscombe, ordained in 1892, who planted a church was organized in Los Angeles under his guidance. It provid- church in Malden, Massachusetts, in 1890. ed, at the outset, an avenue for women to preach. In 1902, Bresee The Nazarene commitment was exemplified by Lura Horton ordained Elsie Wallace, founding pastor of a Nazarene congregation Ingler, born in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, in 1881. She was convert- in Spokane, Washington, and the next year Rev. Lucy Knott, who had ed in May 1896, called to preach two weeks later, and took her first planted the second Nazarene congregation in Los Angeles. meeting on May 31. For her part, Amanda Berry Smith settled in Chicago in 1892 and She conducted revivals in Quaker and Wesleyan-Holiness circles opened an orphanage in the suburb of Harvey in 1899. She operat- and in schoolhouses and churches. The local press called her “the ed it until 1912. She died in 1915, and her elaborate funeral service Girl Preacher” during her early ministry. She was ordained in 1907 at in Chicago was attended by leading A.M.E. officials. the First General Assembly of the Church of the Nazarene. She was In 1866, Maggie Newton Van Cott, another Methodist woman, one of two women (and five men) ordained there. began working at the Five Points Mission, an inner-city ministry Horton was subsequently the pastor of Nazarene churches in that Phoebe Palmer and other Methodist women had established Indiana, Pennsylvania., Vermont, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, in New York City’s slums. At first, Van Cott led prayer meetings and including her denomination’s oldest congregation, the People’s Bible studies, but in 1868, she began conducting revival meetings in Church of Providence, Rhode Island. In 1924, she married Arthur In- northeastern churches. gler, a pastor and gospel songwriter. They were co-pastors in Maine, In 1869, she was licensed to preach, the first woman licensed by Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and at an independent holiness the M.E. church. She was an evangelist for the rest of her life. Bishop church in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Gilbert Haven wrote in 1872 that “she is without doubt today the Arthur was debilitated by a stroke in 1932. Lura pastored the most popular, most laborious, and most successful preacher in the Pawtucket church until he died in 1935. Her final pastorate was at Methodist Episcopal Church.” Waldoboro, Maine. She left pastoral ministry at age 57 but under- Methodist women played a crucial role in fostering a role for took pulpit supply, held revival services, preached at city missions, female leadership in the church, yet it was the newer Wesleyan-holi- and took an active role in affairs of her denomination’s New England ness churches where female leadership moved more centrally to the District for many more years. She died in 1970. fore. These and other examples show that the expansion of female In the Free Methodist Church, the Pentecost Bands emerged as ministry and the spread of the Wesleyan-holiness message were a potent force for expanding female leadership. The Pentecost Band connected at the deepest level. movement was founded by Rev. Vivian Dake to challenge young STAN INGERSOL has been manager of the Nazarene Archives since leaders with a call to commitment and egalitarian ideals. He also 1985. He is the author of several books, including Nazarene Roots wanted to channel their enthusiasm and energy into Free Method- (2009) and Past and Prospect: The Promise of Nazarene History (2013), ism’s service. and is co-author (with Wes Tracy) of Here We Stand: Where Nazarenes Each Pentecost Band was composed of four to six members. Fit in the Religious Marketplace (1998). The members lived simply and typically worked at a Free Methodist