CALL THE QUESTION: RECLAIMING A RHETORICAL WITNESS OF WOMEN’S CLAIMS TO PREACH IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICA FOR CONTEMPORARY HOMILETICS By Donna Giver Johnston Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Religion May 2014 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: John S. McClure, Ph.D. Vanessa B. Beasley, Ph.D. Dennis C. Dickerson, Ph.D. Jaco J. Hamman, Ph.D. Beverly A. Zink-Sawyer, Ph.D. Copyright ©2014 by Donna Giver Johnston All Rights Reserved ii This dissertation is a labor of love. With gratitude, I dedicate this dream-come-true endeavor to three truly inspiring and extraordinary women: my grandmother Ruth McKinney Wertz, who was … my mother Marylu Wertz Giver, who is … and my daughter Rebecca Giver Johnston, who always will be … the wind beneath my wings. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work would not have been possible without the financial support of the Graduate School of Religion of Vanderbilt University. By providing an annual stipend in addition to tuition remittance, I was able to dedicate myself full-time to the study and pursuit of my degree. I am grateful to all of those with whom I have had the pleasure to work with during this project. Each member of my dissertation committee provided expertise and wisdom which has significantly enhanced my project. I acknowledge the importance of Professor Vanessa Beasley’s lesson on rhetorical analysis and her insistence and guidance on identifying my research question. I appreciate Professor Dennis Dickerson’s historical perspective and his challenge to include diversity in the women in the project. I am thankful for the collegial conversations with Professor Beverly Zink-Sawyer and especially for her helping to identify “call” as the narrative thread of my project. I value the critical insights into my dissertation and the collegial encouragement of Professor Jaco Hamman. I am especially indebted to the chair of my committee, Professor John McClure, for his shepherding of my dissertation from whimsical wonderings to what I hope will be a cohesive critical contribution to the field of homiletics. As a teacher and a mentor, he has shown me how to serve the academy and the church with a scholar’s mind as well as a pastor’s heart. I acknowledge the role that the churches I have served have played in my pastoral and preaching formation. To the faithful members of First Presbyterian Church (Findlay, Ohio), Oak Grove Presbyterian Church (Retreat, New Jersey), and Brick Presbyterian Church (Brick, New Jersey), I say thank you for being courageous and not fearful in iv calling a woman pastor. For Anne Weinberg, Ed Erner, and the “Women of Faith” of First Presbyterian Church, I am especially grateful for your continued support and encouragement. I would not have even begun this PhD program had my Sisters in Spirit not affirmed my gifts and confirmed my call. For the faithful friendship, holy humor, and ardent prayers of Mary O. McKey, Nancy Joiner Reinert, Diane Walton Hendricks, and Tiffany Nicely Holleck, I am forever grateful. I could not have finished this dissertation without the companionship of Lisa Thompson. We began this journey together as colleagues and along the way became friends. Thank you, Lisa, for the laughter and the tears, the wisdom and the prayers. I look forward to continuing the journey of scholarship and ministry together, wherever it leads us … God only knows. And now to the ones who have supported me in more ways than I can even begin to name. My parents-in-law Linda and Al Johnston have encouraged my pursuit of my doctorate and have inquired of my progress all along the way. For their persistent questions, patient listening, and positive outlook, I am thankful. My parents Marylu and Nick Giver have dedicated themselves to educating all five of their daughters, and have been our biggest cheerleaders as we received our diplomas. To my mother, who has edited all of these chapters with a careful and skilled eye, I am grateful. To my father, who will be the proudest papa in the crowd on graduation day, I am thankful. Thank you to my sisters Susan, Tina, Carla, and MaryJo, who cared enough to ask how my writing was going and were kind enough to listen as I tried to explain. I am grateful to my son Christian, who, at the dedication of the Seneca Falls chapel, went up to the ribbon cutters, saying, “Can I have a ribbon for my Mom? She is v writing her dissertation on these women.” I am thankful for my daughter Rebecca, who came home from school nearly every day, asking, “So, Mom, how was your day? Did you get some good writing done today?” Despite my demanding writing schedule that made me miss an occasional school event, both of my children have been proud and supportive of me, saying to teachers and friends, “My Mom is writing a dissertation. Isn’t that cool? She is going to be a Doctor!” With the deepest gratitude and love, I thank my husband Brian, for his patience, encouragement, support, and love in the form of: working extra jobs to make up the financial gap left by my meager stipend; not complaining when I got up at 4:00 a.m. to write and hit the snooze multiple times; listening to yet another iteration of my dissertation on long walks with the dog; and his boundless enthusiasm cheering me on when I was not sure I could finish. Brian, I love you more than words can say. And finally, I acknowledge all of the women who shared extraordinary stories of their calls to preach and excruciating stories of their calls being denied. You have inspired me to write this dissertation, in the hopes that you will find the courage to tell your story and claim your call to preach. If my project enables even one of you to embody your call to preach, then I will rejoice and be glad. Most of all, I am grateful to God from whom all blessings flow. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION ................................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... iv PREFACE ......................................................................................................................... xii Chapter I. THE CALL TO PREACH ............................................................................................1 Introduction ..............................................................................................................1 “Inward” inspired call ..................................................................................4 “Outward” institutional call .........................................................................6 The gender gap between “inward” and “outward” call .............................11 Critical examination of the rhetoric of the call to preach ......................................13 Hermeneutics of experience .......................................................................17 Dominant narrative as habitus and doxa ........................................18 Hermeneutics of domination and social location .......................................26 Power .............................................................................................27 Hermeneutics of suspicion .........................................................................35 Interpretation ..................................................................................37 Hermeneutics of critical evaluation ...........................................................41 Rhetoric ..........................................................................................43 Hermeneutics of re-membering and reconstruction ...................................46 Narrative ........................................................................................52 Narrative of call .............................................................................54 Hermeneutics of creative imagination .......................................................56 “Call the Question” ................................................................................................58 Methodological scope ................................................................................67 Part 1 Stasis ....................................................................................67 Part 2 De-stabilization....................................................................68 Part 3 Resolution ............................................................................68 Hermeneutics of transformative action for change ....................................69 Thesis .........................................................................................................71 Conclusion—Looking back and looking forward..................................................72 II. HISTORY AND THEOLOGY OF CALL: TEXT, TRADITION, AND TROPE ...74 Introduction ............................................................................................................74 Text: inspired call .................................................................................................75 Old Testament ............................................................................................76 vii How is one called? .........................................................................76 What is one called to do? ...............................................................77 Where is one called to go? .............................................................78