Lesson Seventeen and Eighteen the New Woman & Phoebe's Place

Lesson Seventeen And Eighteen The New Woman & Phoebe’s Place 1 “Shall the sisters pray and speak in public?” This was one of the most pressing questions among churches of Christ from about 1888 and for several more years. 2 In March of 1888 a man wrote to David Lipscomb, editor of the Advocate suggesting that the command, “Let your women keep silence in the churches” (I Cor. 14:34) prohibited women even from teaching children in the Sunday school. 3 Lipscomb responded: “…. That they could teach children and even their husbands but only in a “modest deferential manner,” not in “an assuming, authoritative way”. He added: “Women must never stand “before promiscuous [or mixed] assemblies” but rather teach only in private.” 4 Selina Moore Holman an elder’s wife from Fayetteville, Tennessee challenged some of the traditional assumptions provoking sharp and lively exchanges with Lipscomb that continued on and off for many years. 5 Who was Selina Moore Holman? 1. She was born July 9, 1850 near Lynchburg, Tennessee. 2. She died September 18, 1915 3. She married Doctor T.P Holman in Jan.1875. 4. They had 8 children together. 5. Her father was Capt. J. L. Moore, confederate army officer who died from battle wounds when she was only fourteen. 6 Who was Selina Moore Holman? 6. As oldest child, Selina took on the responsibility of caring for her three sisters and brother by earning a living as a teacher. 7. She met her husband when he treated her for a severe illness in 1874. They married just a year later. 8. She was a strong supporter of the Temperance movement and active in the movement to gain women’s right to vote. 9. She was president of Tenn. Woman’s Christian Temperance Union for 15 years. 7 Who was Selina Moore Holman? 10. She wrote for the Gospel Advocate and her first article appeared in the Feb. 1888 issue entitled, “Shall the Church Help the Saloon To Live?” 11. The article encourage church members to make non-intoxicating drinks for refreshment and even included her own recipe. 12. In 1888 she wrote a letter to the Gospel Advocate taking a different stance from Lipscomb’s stand about women in the church. 8 Who was Selina Moore Holman? 13.She believed husbands are the head of the households and the wives first role is to support the family, but she also believed there was no reason to prevent women from teaching on Biblical topics and to support her claims she pointed to examples of women in the Bible who were placed in positions of power by God. 14. In the 1890’s she aligned herself with the “New Woman” movement which supported the women’s suffrage, better education for women, and more opportunities for church leadership. 9 “A learned Christian woman may expound the scriptures and urge obedience to them, to one hundred men and women at one time, as well as to one hundred, one at a time,…. and no more violate a scriptural command in one instance than the other.” -- Silena Holman – (1888) 10 11 12 13 Arguments Made By Mrs. Holman On Her Beliefs: 1.There were several passage indicating that women were prominent workers in the early church. 2.There were others seeming to teach differently from I Cor. 14:34. 3.She cited Deborah the judge of Israel (Judges 4-6) 4.She cited Anna the prophetess in Luke 2:37-38. 5.She cited Priscilla who taught Apollos. (Acts 18:26) 6. She cited Phillip’s four daughters who prophesied (Acts 21:8-9) 14 Arguments Made By Mrs. Holman On Her Beliefs: 7.She rejected the distinction between private and public spheres that Lipscomb and others sought to maintain. 8.Such distinction, she argued, was much more cultural than scriptural. 9.She rejected Lipscomb’s position that God had made women more emotional and less rational than man. 10.She also rejected Lipscomb’s position that women were suited for nurturing children but not for public teaching or leadership. 15 Some of Lipscomb’s positions on Women and their work in the church: 1. In the story of Adam and Eve Lipscomb asserted the Holy Spirit was saying: “I suffered you to take the lead once; your strong emotional nature led you to violate God’s word and to ship wreck a world, I cannot again trust you to lead.” This appears to me that Lipscomb was putting words into the mouth of the Holy Spirit, a very dangerous position to take or to stand upon. When in truth, this was never said in any place of the Scriptures. -- Wm. Wallace -- 16 Some of Lipscomb’s positions on Women and their work in the church: 2. Lipscomb revealed clearly his deep allegiance to what historians of the period have called the “cult of true womanhood” or the “cult of domesticity.” This vision of the ideal woman emerged in America between 1820 and 1860 and remained dominant until near the end of the century. 3. Lipscomb and Sewell and most other leaders condemned the “strong-minded women” who sought the right to vote. Sewell wrote…. “a principle which , if allowed to spread, threatens to destroy the most sacred of all institutions(the home), and make America a homeless nation.” 17 Synopsis: 1. Selina Moore Holman did not hold a specific position in the local church at Fayetteville, Tn. 2. She was a staunch worker for the local congregation and diligently served in ways that definitely benefited the work of the local church. 3. She was a very outspoken woman who did take on many of the masculine put-downs of the “modern woman” or “the new woman.” 4. She was a proponent of women’s rights, the right to vote and was very opposed to the use of liquor in any form. 5. Later she served as President of the Tennessee Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. 18 PHOEBE’S PLACE “Phebe was a deaconess in the official sense of that word…whenever the necessities of the churches are such as to demand it, the order of the deaconesses should be reestablished.” -- Moses E. Lard -- 19 Campbell’s Ancient Order: 1. Plurality of elders and deacons in each congregation 2. Included among the deacons were “female deacons.” 3. In 1827 Campbell wrote that early Christians in Jerusalem “appointed female deacons, or deaconesses, to visit and wait upon the sisters. 4. Of this sort was Phoebe of Alexander Campbell Cenchrea, and other persons mentioned in the New Testament, who labored in the Gospel. 20 Campbell’s Views Continued: 5.From Romans 16:1 and I Tim. 3:11, he wrote in 1835, “it appears that females were constituted deaconesses in the primitive church. Duties to females, as well as to males, demand this.” 6.Since these specially appointed women comprised part of the church’s “ancient order,” it followed that they should have a place in the restored church. 7. However, Campbell apparently did not crusade for the appointment of deaconesses, but his views had considerable impact. 21 Tolbert Fanning: “The sisters, beyond all question, were as legitimately deacons as the brethren.” He continued, “Paul said, ‘I commend to you Phoebe, our sister, who is a deacon/servant of the church at Cenchrea.” The apostle, not only recommended the brethren at Rome to receive her as a deacon of her church, but to assist her in whatsoever business she had need of them.” The name “deacon”, he added, comes from the service performed: “Philip was called the Evangelist because of his labor and Phoebe was called Deacon in consequence of her labor in the cause of Christ. 22 W.K. Pendleton: Wrote in 1848 that it was “generally regarded, among our brethren, as an essential element in the restoration of primitive order, to ordain, in every church, both deacons and deaconesses.” In 1870 he said: “Besides deacons, every church should have deaconesses, whose duty it is to perform such offices as cannot be so well performed by deacons, and especially such to females, as could not wirh delicacy and propriety be laid upon the deacons.” 23 Robert Milligan: “The Diaconate of the primitive church was not confined to male members, he wrote in 1868. “Deaconesses were also appointed to attend to the wants of the sick and needy, especially of their own sex.” Since the poor and needy will always remain, churches will always “require the attention of both Deacons and Deaconesses just as much as they did in the churches of Jerusalem, Cenchrea, and Ephesus.” “Phoebes should, therefore, constitute a part of the diakonoi of every fully organized congregation.” 24 Moses E. Lard: He saw deaconesses as part of the apostolic order. “Did Phoebe belong to an order of official women in the church?” She certainly belonged to an order of women called servants of the church, who performed their service by apostolic sanction; and the duties of this order were the same as those usually ascribed to deaconesses.” “Phoebe was a deaconess in the official sense of that word.” As a result he urged present-day churches should have them too: ”whenever necessary…the order of deaconess should be re-established.” 25 E.G. Sewell: Women were not “official” deaconesses any more than men were “official” deacons. Sewell and Lipscomb both rejected all “Officialism” in the church. To him, both men and women occupied exactly the same role – appointed servants, nothing more. “There is absolutely nothing in the use of the Greek word diakoneoo, nor in a correct translation of it, to justify such an official idea.” Sewell was troubled to see “a specific class of men in the church called “deacons” for he believed that the term should be applied to any that serves in any capacity in the church.” 26 C.

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