The Emerging Role of Women in Preaching
Throughout history, the role of preaching in Christian worship has been very important. Because Christians celebrate the Incarnation, the Word becoming flesh, Christian worship has stressed the value of preaching alongside important ritual action. Especially in Protestantism, worship has been dominated by the sermon.
In recent years, as more and more women are able to fulfill their calling to ministry through ordination and pastoral ministry, more and more women are preaching. What does this mean for worship and spirituality? If Christian worshipers are hearing the Word preached by women, how does this change worship? Will preaching change as more and more women do it?
For years, arguments were made that women should not be ordained. For most Protestant churches this meant that women should not preach. People were warned, “beware of the petticoat in the pulpit.” Yet, by the mid-nineteenth century, a few women had overcome custom and were engaged in a preaching ministry. In 1859 Catherine Booth summarized the popular arguments against “female ministry”: when women indulge in the ambition or vanity associated with preaching they become unfeminine; the Bible specifically instructs women to be silent in the churches; women cannot convey the Word as Christ did because he was a man; women have natural nurturing skills, but public speaking is not a natural gift; home and family will suffer if women are preachers (it was especially onerous to imagine a pregnant preacher); the credibility of the church will deteriorate without respectable male leadership; and finally, women lack the vocal power or stamina for public speaking. In spite of these arguments, women claimed the right to preach. Antoinette Brown was ordained as pastor of a small Congregational church in upstate New York in 1853. At her ordination, the preacher (a male) stated that the church did not gather to give her the right to preach the gospel; if she did not have that right already there was nothing they could do. The church was challenged to recognize her calling.
Since that time more and more ecclesiastical bodies have recognized the call of women to preach. Although sometimes this recognition has limited her audiences or regulated her relationship to sacramental leadership, the number of women preaching and the number of parishioners hearing the gospel preached by women has increased dramatically. In 1922, one woman wrote:
Some brethren are very fearful that women preachers will feminize the church, apparently unaware that the masculine monopoly of the pulpit has already done that.… But while feminizing the church, the brethren fear that the preacher herself will become masculine. This was shown to be the stock argument against every advance step women have taken. It had been said that education would destroy their fine nature; that the vote would make them unwomanly, etc. Women have always worked; men have raised no cry lest scrubbing and washing would make them unfeminine; it is only the more desirable lines of work that cause the brethren to entertain lively fears lest women lose their femininity. (Madeline Southard, The Woman’s Pulpit 1 [1922], 3)
The Impact of Women in Preaching
Women knew that preaching was important. Today, as more and more women attend seminary, they are enrolling in preaching classes and preparing for positions that call on their gifts as preachers. By any standard they are good. But as more and more women preach, they are stretching the church’s understanding of preaching and reshaping the nature of preaching itself.
First of all, women preachers remind us again that the sermon is a unique form of personal communication. It involves a complex mixture of message and person. The preacher not only “delivers” God’s message, he or she embodies it. This emphasizes the incarnational presuppositions behind all preaching. Dogmatics are helpful, but the truest statement of God’s love for the world was not dogma but Jesus Christ. Christians know that the gospel is best shared personally. This is why reading a sermon, or listening to a tape, or even watching a preacher on television is not the same as experiencing the preaching moment. When women preach they remind us that sharing the gospel requires men and women “preaching.”
Second, if good preaching intentionally draws upon personal experience, when women preach, the worshiping community benefits from experiences never shared in quite the same way by male preachers. Most obviously, women preachers use their experience of pregnancy, birth, and mothering to enrich their sermons. Similarly, when Third World Christians preach out of their experiences with political and economic oppression, one discovers new things about his or her faith. All preaching that is done by persons whose life experiences are qualitatively different from those whose voices have been heard for many centuries has new power and strength. Old standards of excellence are shaken and new understandings of “good preaching” take their place.
Third, preaching is relational. The bond between preacher and pew is basic and quite personal. Throughout the centuries, the fact that the preacher was always male perpetuated certain relational patterns. Many of these patterns leaned upon existing social structures (family) and biological realities (sexuality). When a woman preaches, all of these habits are broken. This is why a woman preacher is sometimes so upsetting. She cannot be a “father.” Her presence creates different sexual dynamics. Men and women find it impossible to relate to the preacher in the same way. Century-old patterns of worship and spirituality no longer have the same effect.
Fourth, these changes lead to issues surrounding language. Modern linguistic study has documented that women use language differently than men. Women use more adjectives and adverbs, modifying nouns and verbs and qualifying statements. Women may handle nuances and subtleties of color and emotion more deftly in language. While a man may say “red” the woman may choose to speak of “crimson” or “burgundy.” A man may make an authoritative statement where a woman may more often qualify her statement with tag questions, “Isn’t that true?” or “Don’t you think?” Some think this weakens women’s language, conveying the feeling that she is not sure. In preaching, however, this less authoritative style could be a blessing. After all, to speak about God and salvation is an awesome thing. When the woman preacher shares her journey and vulnerability she may speak more directly to the needs of average believers.
Women have also become self-conscious about the use of masculine words to speak of human experience and to name or address God. In exploring biblical materials, women see the injustice and distortions that have resulted from the use of masculine language forms not warranted by the biblical text. These are not cosmetic problems, because language both reflects and shapes human understanding. Women preachers work self-consciously to be sure that theology shapes the language they use, rather than letting prevailing language usage shape their theology.
Finally, the relationship of preaching to all of worship and spirituality is changing as more women become preachers. In some ecclesiastical traditions preaching never played a strong role. Within most of American Protestantism, however, ordained ministry has been dominated by preaching. Churches still need and want good preaching. Women recognize the importance of preaching, but women are also more willing to accept the limits of preaching. Many women who have spent years in education, music, art, and service occupations come to preaching ready to experiment. The line between sermon, song, action, and prayer gets blurred. It is possible to share the power of God’s Word in many ways. Old assumptions about Word and sacrament change.
All of these factors point out that worship is fundamental to the Christian church. Before there was theology or ecclesiastical structure, there was worship. Women have always worshipped, but women have not always taken on the public authority of preacher and worship leader. (1) When women preach, the church is reminded that every sermon should embody the faith. Preaching needs to be incarnational. (2) When women preach, the church benefits from experiences that have rarely been available to preachers in the past. Preaching needs to draw upon all of the human experience. (3) When women preach, the church remembers that sharing the gospel involves social and sexual realities. Preaching needs to understand human communities and relationships. (4) When women preach, the church discovers that language is never gender-neutral. Preaching needs to use language with great care. (5) When women preach, the church explores the place of preaching in all worship. Preaching needs to appreciate the many ways in which God’s people can and do worship.
Choices for Women Who Preach
Any discussion of women and preaching cannot end without a comment about authority. Women who feel a call to ministry in the church today are confronted with a choice. They can seek to win equity in the existing systems that give only men opportunities to preach. This usually means accepting some of the unexamined assumptions about leadership and preaching that exist in today’s church. This certainly means doing enough, according to current expectations, to be acceptable. Many women are doing this and everyone agrees, “They are doing what men have done for years with great success.”
On the other hand, some women want to preach “as women.” Drawing upon their feminine experiences, they approach the preaching task with new sensitivities and assumptions. They use language differently. They incorporate dialogue and participation. They seek to preach through many forms of worship and spirituality. “They are doing what women have done for years, but no one called it preaching.”
By existing and emerging standards, women as preachers are adding new dimensions to worship and spirituality.