I came across this while writing my latest research paper for UofB. My heart says, “Let it be, Lord…!”
“Dr. Edith Blumhofer, one of the most outstanding historians of women in Pentecostalism, does not believe there ever was a golden age in the early days of the movement when women were treated equally. After all, the first Pentecostals all came into Pentecostalism from other denominations, bringing along their own established biases. […] yet either because of or despite their Pentecostal faith, women continued to lead. Barred from the pulpit, the preached in the streets. Refused ordination, they became missionaries and went to places were men were afraid to go. They became healers, writers and editors. Without them, Pentecostalism would probably have died out long ago. Blumhofer likes to recall that in the early days when no women were ordained, and the railways gave half-fare privileges to clergy, an announcement appeared in a Pentecostal newspaper about a forthcoming Pentecostal camp meeting. It urged everyone to come and reminded the ministers they were eligible for half-fare tickets. Then it added: ‘Sisters, trust the Lord for the full fare!’ For nearly a century the sisters have been trusting the Lord for full fare, but there is a strong conviction in the movement today that the era of male dominance is fading.”
Harvey Cox, Fire from Heaven : The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-First Century / Harvey Cox (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1995), 137-38.
