Women in God's Army: Gender and Equality in the Early Salvation Army

Front Cover
Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press, 2003 M03 10 - 242 pages

The early Salvation Army professed its commitment to sexual equality in ministry and leadership. In fact, its founding constitution proclaimed women had the right to preach and hold any office in the organization. But did they?

Women in God’s Army is the first study of its kind devoted to the critical analysis of this central claim. It traces the extent to which this egalitarian ideal was realized in the private and public lives of first- and second-generation female Salvationists in Britain and argues that the Salvation Army was found wanting in its overall commitment to women’s equality with men. Bold pronouncements were not matched by actual practice in the home or in public ministry.

Andrew Mark Eason traces the nature of these discrepancies, as well as the Victorian and evangelical factors that lay behind them. He demonstrates how Salvationists often assigned roles and responsibilities on the basis of gender rather than equality, and the ways in which these discriminatory practices were supported by a male-defined theology and authority. He views this story from a number of angles, including historical, gender and feminist theology, ensuring it will be of interest to a wide spectrum of readers. Salvationists themselves will appreciate the light it sheds on recent debates. Ultimately, however, anyone who wants to learn more about the human struggle for equality will find this book enlightening.

From inside the book

Contents

1 Gender Stratification and the Sacred
1
The Salvation Armys Victorian and Evangelical Roots
11
Settled Views?
33
Male Salvationists and Women
63
A Public and Domestic Legacy
93
The Experiences of Female Officers
119
Epilogue
153
Notes
159
Bibliography
215
Index
237
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Page 110 - He made a mistake. He overdid himself for once. It was that word settled it. I said, " Ah! this is just the point. I have never yet been willing to be a fool for Christ, now I will be one;" and without stopping another moment, I rose up in the seat, and walked up the chapel.
Page 42 - Here is a sphere!" was being whispered continually in my inward ear by an inward voice. "Why go further afield for audiences ?" And so the church and chapel congregation somehow or other lost their charm in comparison with the vulgar Eastenders, and I was continually haunted with a desire to offer myself to Jesus Christ as an apostle for the heathen of East London. The idea or heavenly vision or whatever you may call it overcame me, I yielded to it, and what has happened since is I think not only...
Page 110 - My dear husband was just going to conclude. He thought something had happened to me, and so did the people. We had been there two years, and they knew my timid, bashful nature.
Page 49 - Acts xxi. 8, 9. VII. Multitudes of women since then, in all lands, have been commissioned by the Holy Ghost to preach the Gospel and lead His people, which commission they have discharged with overwhelming success. VIII. The Holy Spirit in G-alatians iii. 28 states that there is neither male nor female, but that all are one in Christ Jesus...
Page 17 - That the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes - the legal subordination of one sex to the other - is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.
Page 12 - Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves: and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless.

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