3 of 3

Today a good number of women attending Wesleyan/Holiness churches embrace the ideals of "true femininity" (captured in William Ross Wallace's statement that "the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world"). They chafe at being dubbed "feminists." They prefer to lead through purity, piety, and devotion to their families.

They find encouragement in Focus on the Family's James Dobson, a descendant of Holiness women preachers. His great-grandmother McCluskey and grandmother Dillingham were both ordained Nazarene ministers who served churches with their husbands.

H. B. London, head of Pastoral Ministries at Focus and Dobson's first cousin, recalls that grandmother Dillingham was the "primary pastor" and known for preaching evangelistic services on Sunday evenings. Their great-grandmother McCluskey and her husband prayed for an hour every noon for the spiritual welfare of their family and claimed a promise that four generations would serve in ministry. This holiness legacy is seen in Focus on the Family's position on women ministers. As London puts it, "We feel our pastoral materials should be made available in the same spirit and mindset that prompted Paul to pen, 'There is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.' "

Local churches grant local preaching licenses and extend calls to their ministers, so no national Wesleyan/Holiness statement on ordination could dicate policy to all churches. Within this congregational polity, many women in the Wesleyan/Holiness tradition have discerned the call of God to pastoral ministry.

Their calls came not from a demand for more social freedom but from their reading of Scripture and the movement of the Spirit within.

Rebecca Laird is the author of Ordained Women in the Church of the Nazarene: The First Generation (Beacon Hill, 1993), a columnist for Holiness Today, and a member of the Wesleyan/ Holiness Women Clergy Conference.

Biographical sketches of Antoinette Brown, the first formally ordained woman in the U.S., are available at the Web sites of Oberlin College and Encyclopedia Britannica .

The United Methodist Church offers resources about the history of Methodist women in mission.

Read more about John Wesley's views on women's roles in the church.

Visit the Wesleyan/Holiness women clergy page or link to scriptural defenses of women clergy .

Read the Canadian Free Methodist Church's statement on women in ministry .

Click and scroll down to see current statistics about ordained Wesleyan women .

Rebecca Laird's Ordained Women in the Church of the Nazarene is available from amazon.com.

Previous Christianity Today stories about women's ordination include:

Mainstreaming the Mainline | Methodist evangelicals pull a once 'incurably liberal' denomination back toward the orthodox center. (Aug. 18, 2000)

A Woman's Place | Women reaching women is key to the future of missions. (Aug. 4, 2000)

Will Episcopalians Step into the 'Radical Center'? | Homosexual ordination discussed, women's ordination mandated. (Sept. 1, 1997)

Presbyterian Groups Sever CRC Ties | Women's ordination splits two denominations. (Aug. 11, 1997)

Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

first page |  3 of 3

share this page

September 4 2000, Vol. 44, No. 10