Past to Present
By Stan Ingersol
Who Gave The
Women Defend
F
rom the moment she embraced the preaching of the Word, Mary Lee Cagle knew she would have to defend her decision to claim the pulpit. In the 1890s, women preachers had to stand against the weight of social and religious tradition. Holiness movement folklore eventually contained stories of preaching women who endured malicious gossip and slander. Amanda Coulson endured rabid opposition in Batavia, Arkansas, where it was rumored she had murdered her husband and abandoned her children. In truth, she was childless, and her husband, Rev. D. M. Coulson, was very much alive.1
Lay preacher Donie Mitchum
The experience of other preaching women usually reflected simple prejudice. Dr. M. B. Harris, a deacon in the New Testament Church of Christ in Milan, Tennessee, discovered that his wife would not attend church when the scheduled preacher was female.2 Criticism of their roles generated solidarity among preaching women, and that solidarity strengthened the connectional bonds within early Nazarene parent bodies. Apologies defending her right to preach became an early staple of the female preacher’s repertoire. Apologies took the form of sermons, pamphlets, and books. Mary Cagle’s earliest apology was a sermon at Bluff Springs, Tennessee, in1896 titled “Women Preaching.” She dealt with critical scriptural texts used to oppose
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NBUSA Quarterly
