Gender and Pentecostal Revivalism: Making a Female Ministry in the Early Twentieth Century

This innovative volume provides an interdisciplinary, theoretically innovative answer to an enduring question for Pentecostal/charismatic Christianities: how do women lead churches? Few studies in Pentecostal movements investigate how women - once permitted by a denomination or congregation to lead - gain and maintain authority over a congregation. This study fills this lacuna by examining the leadership and legacy of two architects of the Pentecostal movement - Maria Woodworth-Etter (1844-1920) and Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944).

Payne's theoretical approach is distinct from previous analyses of women in Pentecostal/charismatic leadership. Historians usually employ a version of Max Weber's charismatic authority to explain how Pentecostal revivalist ministers are legitimated. Her research shows that this Weberian categorization is ultimately unhelpful, however, because any powerful minister was authorized to a certain degree through charisma. Thus, explaining female minister's authority through charisma does not meaningfully set them apart from their male counterparts. In addition, this approach obscures the often very practical strategies employed by female leaders to gain authority.

Gender and Pentecostal Revivalism provides an interdisciplinary, theoretically engaged answer to an enduring question for charismatic Christianities: how do women lead churches? By examining the ministries of two famous (and infamous) Pentecostal revivalis

This innovative volume provides an interdisciplinary, theoretically innovative answer to an enduring question for Pentecostal/charismatic Christianities: how do women lead churches? This study fills this lacuna by examining the leadership and legacy of two architects of the Pentecostal movement - Maria Woodworth-Etter and Aimee Semple McPherson.

Leah Payne is the Louisville Institute Postdoctoral Fellow in American Religious History/Women's Studies at George Fox University, USA.

Introduction
1. The Ideal American Minister
2. "Walking Bibles": Narrating Female Pentecostal Ministry
3. "Pants Don't Make Preachers": The Image of a Female Pentecostal Minister
4. "A Glorious Symbol": Building a Female Pentecostal Worship Space
5. "Thunder" and "Sweetness": Authority and Gender in Pentecostal Performance
6. "A Regular Jezebel": Female Ministry, Pentecostal Ministry on Trial
Conclusion