Best Supporting Actress · Episode 1 of 10 · 20 min
The Open Door — When Women Led the Evangelical Church
Evangelical women once preached to thousands, led the largest women's organization on earth, and outnumbered men two to one on the mission field. By 1974 they were building a biblical feminism from inside the movement. The episode recovers that forgotten baseline and the early-1970s spring of evangelical feminism, before asking who closed the door.
Who's who
- Phoebe PalmerMethodist lay theologian and Holiness revival preacher
- Frances WillardPresident of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, 1879-1898
- Aimee Semple McPhersonPentecostal evangelist who founded the Foursquare Church
- Addie Davis+1 more episodeFirst woman ordained by a Southern Baptist congregation, in 1964
- Letha Dawson ScanzoniCo-author of All We're Meant to Be; Evangelical Women's Caucus co-founder
- Nancy HardestyChurch historian; co-author of All We're Meant to Be
- Virginia Ramey MollenkottBiblical feminist scholar; keynoter at the first caucus conference
- Paul King JewettFuller Seminary theologian; author of Man as Male and Female
Where it happens
- Watts Street Baptist Church, Durham, North CarolinaOrdained Addie Davis in 1964
- Angelus Temple, Los AngelesMcPherson's church, dedicated in 1923
- Chicago, Illinois+15 more episodesSite of the 1973 Thanksgiving Workshop and Chicago Declaration
- Washington, D.C.+31 more episodesHost of the first Evangelical Women's Caucus conference in 1975
Timeline
- 1879Willard begins her presidency of the WCTU, the era's largest women's organization
- 1923McPherson dedicates Angelus Temple
- August 1964Addie Davis ordained at Watts Street Baptist Church, Durham
- November 1973Chicago Declaration issued, confessing sexism among other sins
- 1974All We're Meant to Be published; Evangelical Women's Caucus takes shape
- November 1975First national Evangelical Women's Caucus conference, Women in Transition
Still debated
How open the baseline really was is disputed, since nineteenth-century women's authority ran largely through parachurch channels and the door had been partly closed before. Historians also differ on whether the Chicago Declaration was a turning point, and whether Junia was an apostle or merely well known to them.
