When did Churches begin to Ordain Women as Preachers?
- Elaine R Kelly
- Sep 27, 2021
- 9 min read
Updated: May 8
Early women called to ministry may have worked as evangelists, writers, teachers, and preachers, even as many were prohibited access to theological education or being ordained as clergy. Nevertheless, many women followed their call to preach. When did churches agree to ordain women as clergy or ministers?
Quakers (Religious Society of Friends) 1650s
The Quakers (Religious Society of Friends) had both women and men speak at their meetings since their beginnings in the 1650s. Neither women nor men were ordained in the Quaker denomination, as all were considered saints and priests. Elizabeth Hooton (1600-1672) was the first woman Quaker evangelist; she was beaten, whipped and imprisoned for her preaching. Sarah Blackborow wrote hundreds of pamphlets and tracts in the 1600s outlining Biblical interpretations.
Methodist Episcopal
An Englishwoman, Sarah Crosby, is known as the first Methodist Female Preacher. After her husband left her, she heard John Wesley preach, and she became a Christian.
Meanwhile, Mary Bosanquet Fletcher, a wealthy, independent Englishwoman, refitted one of her mansions for orphans, destitute children and needy women, calling it The Cedars.
Crosby and Bosanquet offered food, clothes, medicine, and education. They also offered Bible reading and prayer, and eventually the women offered religious services that drew crowds and became a Methodist service centre. When the Cedars closed in 1782, Bosanquet married John Fletcher.
Crosby had a vision of Jesus calling her to “Feed my sheep” and believed it meant she was supposed to become a preacher. While churches in England allow women to be ordained as preachers, in 1761 Crosby began preaching, establishing classes in her home, and travelling as an itinerant preacher, giving sermons to the public. John Wesley initially discouraged her from calling herself a preacher, but encouraged her to continue her fruitful ministry.
Bosanquet requested John Wesley to license females to preach when they received an "extraordinary call", and their ability to attract converts to the faith showed God approved their call. Finally, in 1771, Wesley licensed Sarah Crosby to preach.
African Methodist Episcopal 1819
Jarena Lee heard a clear calling to preach, saying, "If the man may preach because the Savior died for him, why not the woman, seeing he died for her also? Is he not a whole Saviour, instead of half of one?"
In 1816, Richard Allen founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which was largely limited to the free states and therefore not a national denomination. In 1819, Richard Allen agreed that Jarena Lee had a calling and authorized her to preach in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Facing hostility, she argued that Mary Magdalene was the first to preach the risen Savior to the disciples. Without her own congregation and became a travelling minister and wrote an autobiography, The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee. Jarena Lee said it should not be considered heterodox for a woman to preach. Heterodox means independent-minded, or not conforming with accepted orthodox, conventional, or normal views.
The Salvation Army 1865
The Salvation Army was co-founded by William Booth & Catherine Mumford Booth and the organization allowed both men and women to preach from its inception in 1865. She is quoted as saying "If we are to better the future, we must disturb the present."
Congregational 1851
Antoinette Brown Blackwell (1825-1921) was the first woman ordained in a major U.S. denomination. She was called to be the minister at a Congregationalist church in South Butler, New York, in 1853. She completed a bachelor's degree at Oberlin College in Ohio in 1847 and then lobbied for admission to theological courses. The administration eventually agreed to allow her to audit the courses, but would not recognize her graduation.
Antoinette Brown and her sister-in-law, Lucy Stone, founded the New Jersey Woman's Suffrage Association in 1869. Brown Blackwell became an avid writer and public speaker on biblical interpretation, women's rights, temperance, and abolition.
Brown Blackwell did not have the formal support of her denomination and faced critical attitudes from the church. Even Brown's close friends in the women's rights movement - Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony - did not support Brown's efforts to serve the church, believing the church was outdated and corrupt. When forced to choose between equal rights and the church, they chose equal rights.
Brown left the Congregational Church in 1857 citing poor health and issues with church orthodoxy. Two infants in Brown's parish died, and she could not uphold the church doctrine that unbaptized children were damned. She married Samuel Blackwell in 1856 and later returned to work as an activist and public speaker.
In 1878, she returned to organized religion, becoming a Unitarian, where she was recognized as a minister. At that time, the Unitarian Church was a Christian denomination, breaking away from other Protestant churches over differences including the damnation of infants and the salvation of the predestined elect.
Universalist Christian Church 1863
In the late 1800s, Universalist was a Christian Protestant denomination differing from other protestant denominations in doctrines of the Trinity and eternal damnation and social justice. Universalists believed God would save every individual from sin through divine grace revealed in Jesus.
Olympia Brown (1835-1926) was rejected by several schools, before being accepted to the Theological School of St. Lawrence University and she became the first woman to graduate from theological school in 1863. Brown married John Henry Willis in 1873, kept her maiden name, and had two children. Olympia Brown became the first woman in the United States to be ordained with official approval from a national denomination, being ordained in 1863 in the Universalist Church of America.
Augusta Jane Chapin attended Olivet College and was ordained as the Universalist minister in 1864, in Lansing, Michigan. By 1920, there were 88 Universalist women ministers, the largest group in the United States.
The first ordained woman to work in Canada was Fidelia Woolley Gillette (1827-1905), who served a Universalist congregation in Bloomfield, Ontario, in 1888. Gillette was raised in the United States, where she obtained a license to preach in 1873 and where she was ordained in 1877.
Some who oppose the ordination of women can discount these early female clergy by calling the churches that ordained them "un-Christian". In the 1800s, the Unitarian and Universalist churches were two Christian protestant denominations. In 1961 the Universalist Church of America merged with the Unitarian Association and it evolved to the present pluralist view which embraces diverse religions not holding Christianity above other religions.
Mennonite Brethren in Christ 1885
The Mennonite Brethren in Christ denomination (now known as the Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada) decided in 1885 that the Bible authorized women to prophesy and labour in the church, so endorsed women as ministering sisters as evangelists and mission workers under the supervision of a male elder or minister. Janet Douglas grew up in Ontario and moved to Michigan and by 1882 she was leading evangelical meetings in her home. In 1885 she preached in Mennonite Brethren in Christ travelling tent meetings or revivals. God blessed the preaching of Janet Douglas and by 1886, when she was 22, she planted a new church in Dornoch, Ontario, and soon after in Kilsyth. She was a lead pastor in both. After marrying, Janet Douglas Hall did joint ministry in Michigan, California, and Alberta. However, the Mennonite Brethren in Christ shifted its theology to oppose women pastors and her grave marker does not recognize her as a minister.
Foursquare Gospel Church 1918
Aimee Semple McPherson was ordained by the Assemblies of God in 1918. She also held a Methodist "exhorter" license and a Baptist preaching license. Born in Ingersoll, Ontario, Aimee's mother was Salvation Army and her father was Methodist.
At age 18, in 1908, she married Pentecostal evangelist Robert Semple. Two years later, Robert died of a disease contracted while evangelizing in Hong Kong. She gave birth to a daughter and moved to New York to live with her mother. IN 1912, Aimee married Harold Stuart McPherson and had a son and was tormented by depression and dreams of God calling her to go and evangelize. After attending a Pentecostal camp in Kitchener, she was baptized by the Holy Spirit and immediately went back to preaching. She left the Assemblies of God to reach larger groups from various backgrounds and she moved to Los Angeles in 1919. Her husband opposed her work and divorced her in 1921. Aimee preached relentlessly and founded the first Foursquare church. IN 1923, she dedicated this 5,000-seat space, called Angelus Temple. Aimee named the Foursquare church in reference to Christ as Savior, Baptizer, Healer, and Coming King.
The United Church of Canada 1936
In 1920, Lydia Emelie Gruchy graduated from the University of Saskatchewan, and in 1923 she graduated from the Presbyterian Theological College in Saskatoon. She was the first woman to enroll in theological studies in Canada but it took 13 years after graduation to become ordained.
While the Presbyterian church did not allow women to be ministers or elders, they could be deacons or missionaries, so the seminary-trained Gruchy had to find male ministers to preside over communion services, baptisms, weddings, and funerals. While male clergy filled in for her, she filled in for them, preaching in their pulpits.
In 1925, the Presbyterian, Methodist, and Congregationalist denominations merged to form the United Church of Canada, largely because the small rural communities distanced from each other were not large enough to support three churches. Gruchy was supported by Nellie McClung, an active United Church member and one of the 'Famous Five' who advocated that women be declared as persons eligible to be named to the Senate. In Nellie McClung's 1937 book, More Leaves from Lantern Lane, she said that when the church ordained Lydia Gruchy:
Since only men could propose or vote on motions at the General Council, men in her presbytery proposed ordaining Lydia Gruchy at every national meeting for thirteen years. With the support of some male colleagues from St Andrew's theological college and United Church Ministers, Gruchy finally achieved her ordination in 1936. Lydia Emelie Gruchy became the first woman to be ordained as a minister in Canada. The biography of Lydia Emelie Gruchy called With Love, Lydia, was written by Rev. Patricia Wotten and is available from Kobo as an e-book or can be ordered from the author's website.
Baptist Women Ordained 1943
Emma Dryer was a preacher and teacher in Chicago in the 1870s. D. L. Moody invited Emma Dryer to teach and train women at his church. IN 1883, Dryer opened and ran her own Bible institute. Three years later, Moody opened his Bible institute, and in 1925 the two merged to form Moody Bible Institute with male and female students.
Rita Gould and Amy Lee Stockton were a ministry team in Chicago. In 1913, Stockton was the first woman to enroll in Northern Baptist Seminary.
Ethel Ruff, born in Canada, graduated from Bethel Seminary in 1942 and preached for Baptist churches in the US and Canada. The Baptist General Conference ordained her in 1943, their first ordained female pastor.
The introduction to her autobiography, When Saints Go Marching: The Memoirs of a Baptist Evangelist, is written by a fellow Canadian Baptist C. Emanuel Carlson, who praised the book for showing “the vitality of a wholesome nonconformity." He said Ruff showed “a heterodox behaviour that springs out of an orthodox faith” and that “set forms and established patterns of behaviour tend to impose their restrictions until the Body of Christ becomes heartless and, in due course, lifeless.”
British Methodist Episcopal 1951
In 1944, Addie Aylestock became a deacon in the British Methodist Episcopal Church (BME), a traditionally Black denomination. Aylestock served as a deacon and worked as a domestic to put herself through Toronto Bible College (now Tyndale University).
After 7 years as a Deacon, with the same responsibilities as her male colleagues, Aylestock was ordained in 1951. She was the first black woman ordained in Canada.
On graduation, she served in Africville, NS, and North Buxton, Ontario. Britain settled Blacks in Nova Scotia who had served Britain in the American War of Independence. Africville was settled largely by formerly enslaved Black Americans after the US Civil War. However, Black settlers were forced to live in an area without the standard services: clean water, sewage, garbage disposal. It was on the outskirts of Halifax and was the home of an infectious disease hospital, a prison, and a dump.
She later pastored churches in Montreal, Toronto, Owen Sound, Fort Erie and Niagara Falls. Aylestock also served as general secretary of the BME conference from 1958-1982.
Conclusion
Today many theological schools have re-examined the Bible and agreed women should be permitted and encouraged as students, pastors, and teachers. But there remains an underlying opposition. Why are women a minority in Master of Divinity programs? Do theological schools include women's Biblical interpretations and writing in their curricula? Do they allow women in preaching classes and practicums? Do they direct women theological graduates to work in roles other than preaching (such as pastoral care, children's programs, and music leadership? Jesus equipped and empowered women as disciples, patrons, evangelists, and apostles. Why would the church not follow his example?
We hope that women who are called to ministry or to lead a church will stand on the shoulders of these, their foremothers.
Elaine Ricker Kelly Author is empowering women with historical fiction about women in the Bible and early church and Christian blogs about women in leadership, church history and doctrine. Her books include:
Forgotten Followers from Broken to Bold, Book 1 (2022)
The Sword A Fun Way to Engage in Healthy Debate on What the Bible Says About a Woman's Role (2023)
Because She Was Called: from Broken to Bold, Book 2, A Novel of the Early Church, imagines Mary Magdalene's trip to testify before the emperor (2024)
Walk with Mara on Her Healing Journey: 21 Steps to Emotional Resilience (2024)
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