“Walking Bibles”: Narrating Female Pentecostal Ministry

  • Leah Payne
Chapter
Part of the CHARIS: Christianity and Renewal—Interdisciplinary Studies book series (CHARIS)

Abstract

The manner in which the ministry was gendered male was not the only impediment for women entering the pastorate. The inconsonance between the identities of woman and minister was compounded by the legal prescriptions in the New Testament used to ward off ministers. Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to show how Maria Woodworth-Etter and Aimee Semple McPherson used Pentecostal readings of the Bible to authorize their ministry. First, the chapter discusses the set of scriptures that most American Protestants used to argue for or against female pastors. Then, it outlines the passages that Woodworth-Etter and McPherson used to authorize their ministries. Their approaches show early Pentecostal hermeneutics at work and demonstrate how their biblical interpretations allowed the women to circumvent fundamentalist-modernist arguments about the Bible while supporting pastoral identities built on biblical prototypes.

Keywords

Divine Love Pastoral Identity Female Minister Holy Ghost Ministerial Authority 
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Notes

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© Leah Payne 2015

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  • Leah Payne

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