Journal: Priscilla Papers
Volume: PP 24:4 (Autumn 2010)
Article: Rhetoric, Religion, And Authority: Pentecostal Holiness Women Preachers Speaking Truth
Author: Kristen Dayle Welch

PP 24:4 (Autumn 2010) p. 11

Rhetoric, Religion, And Authority: Pentecostal Holiness Women Preachers Speaking Truth

Kristen Dayle Welch

Kristen Dayle Welch (Ph.D., University of Arizona) is an Assistant Professor of English, Director of Composition, and Director of the Writing Center at Longwood University in Virginia. She is the author of several articles on rhetoric and Pentecostal women preachers and recently published “Women I with the Good News”: The Rhetorical Tradition of Pentecostal Holiness Women Preachers.

Introduction

As a scholar of rhetoric and as a Pentecostal Christian, I notice that, although rhetoric and religion embody quite different theoretical perspectives, rhetoric, religion, and gender collide when we examine who is given the authority to speak and who is believed within the church.

It is truly remarkable that the women preachers in the International Pentecostal Holiness Church (IPHC) have been permitted to speak authoritatively in their role as truth-speakers from as early as the late nineteenth century through the present day. Even more remarkable is the fact that women preachers were able to claim and exercise the right to preach even before 1907 in what was known as Indian Territory (now known as Oklahoma). They did so by a claim to authority through their call to preach, through the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and through their charisma. These claims to authority were supported by those who came to hear them speak and left educated, converted, filled with the Spirit, forever changed. Additionally, the truth of their callings was verified and validated by those working alongside them who occupied positions of leadership as well as those in the pews of the church. These were people who shared a similar epistemology— that is, a similar way of knowing, understanding, and interacting with the world that was distinctly “Pentecostal,” not only as it was defined on Azusa Street between 1906 and 1908, but also as it was enthusiastically and charismatically practiced in the late 1800s. Therefore, power for women in the IPHC is individual, spiritual, and communal. Most importantly, it is still exercised by women in the IPHC today, though not without challenges at times.

Women Preaching In Indian Territory

Sometime around 1920, Dan York completed memoirs for himself and his wife, Dollie. Both were born in the 1870s or 1880s. Dan writes that, when he was young, his father chose to “come west” from Tupelo, Mississippi, to Paul’s Valley in Indian Territory by “stage.”1 From there, they went to Purdy and lived in a “half dugout” between 1891 and 1892. When they could not find work, they decided to venture out to Texas, but were caught by a blizzard at Tar Springs, Oklahom...