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Theordination of women has been commonly practiced inMethodist denominations since the 20th century, and some denominations earlier allowed women topreach.
Historically,as in other Christian denominations, many Methodist churches did not permit women to preach or exercise authority over men. However, earlier in the 18th century, Methodist founderJohn Wesley did authorise a number of women to preach, includingSarah Crosby. In Britain, thePrimitive Methodist Church always allowed the ordination of women to full-time ministry. The Primitive Methodists had full equal roles for men and women, but theWesleyan Methodist Church only ordained its firstdeaconess in 1890, and afterMethodist Union, theBritish Methodist Church resumed ordaining women aspresbyters (elders) in 1974.[1]
Other Methodist denominations that practice the ordination of women include theUnited Methodist Church (UMC), in which the ordination of women asdeacons andelders has occurred since its creation in 1968, and its splinter denomination, theGlobal Methodist Church, since it was established in 2022. TheFree Methodist Church (FMC) ordained its first woman deacon in 1911.[2][3] TheAllegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection ordained its first female elder in 1853,[4] and theBible Methodist Connection of Churches has always ordained women to the presbyterate and diaconate.[5] Some smaller Methodist denominations do not ordain women, such as theSouthern Methodist Church (SMC),Evangelical Methodist Church of America,Fundamental Methodist Conference,Evangelical Wesleyan Church, andPrimitive Methodist Church (PMC) - the latter two of which do not ordain women as elders nor do they license them as pastors orlocal preachers;[6][7] the EWC and PMC do, however, consecrate women asdeaconesses.[6][7] Some of the groups that later became part of the United Methodist Church started ordaining women in the late 19th century, but the largest group, theMethodist Church (USA), did not grant women full clergy rights until 1956.[8]
John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, was the first within his movement to authorize a woman to preach. In 1761, he granted alicense to preach toSarah Crosby.[9]
Mary Bosanquet was responsible for Wesley formally allowing all women to preach. In the summer of 1771, Bosanquet wrote to John Wesley to defend hers and Crosby's work preaching at her orphanage, Cross Hall.[10][11] Bosanquet's letter to Wesley is considered to be the first full and true defense of women's preaching in Methodism.[10] Her argument was that women should be able to preach when they experienced an "extraordinary call", or when given permission by God.[10][12] Wesley accepted this idea, and formally began to allow women to preach in Methodism.[13][14] Later, Wesley also licensed other women as preachers, including Grace Murray, Sarah Taft,Hannah Ball and Elizabeth Ritchie.
Wesley's appreciation for the importance of women in the church has been credited to his mother,Susanna Wesley. It is said[by whom?] that she instilled in him, and in his brotherCharles Wesley, a fellow preacher in the movement, a deep appreciation for the intellectual andspiritual qualities of women. Susanna Wesley and other women in the early Methodist movement helped to evangelize and were active members in Methodist activities ranging from band classes to raising funds for the continuation of Methodism and managingeducational institutions.
John Wesley's views on women can be found in his 1786sermon "On Visiting the Sick" (Sermon 98). In the sermon, he attacks the requirement ofsubmissiveness that was often imposed on women of the time:
It has long passed for a maxim with many that "women are only to be seen but not heard". And accordingly many of them are brought up in such a manner as if they were only designed for agreeable playthings! No, it is the deepest unkindness; it is horrid cruelty; it is mere Turkish barbarity. And I know not how any women of sense and spirit can submit to it.[15]
Previous to this sermon, John Wesley had also removed the word "obey" from themarriage rite he sent to North America in 1784.[16]
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After John Wesley's death in 1791, several splits happened within the Methodist movement. TheMethodist Protestant Church split from theMethodist Episcopal Church in 1828 and, later in 1844, theMethodist Episcopal Church, South split, leaving a separate Methodist Episcopal Church of the north. The Methodist Episcopal Church previously saw schism, with the departure of some individuals in 1841 resulting in the formation of theWesleyan Methodist Church, out of which theBible Methodist Connection of Churches was created in 1968. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South also gave rise to other denominations that split from it, such as theCongregational Methodist Church in 1852 and theSouthern Methodist Church in 1940.
Wesley's death also marked a shift in the view on women in the church. Some denominations continued to officially sanction the status of women. In 1866, for example,Helenor Davidson was acircuit rider for the Methodist Protestant Church inJasper County, Indiana. She later became the first ordained minister of any Methodist denomination.[17] Starting at the end of the 19th century, the Methodist Protestant Church had not only begun to ordain women, but had also granted them full rights asclergy.
This was not the case for all denominations. During the next decades, the Methodist Episcopal Church reversed many practices, and publicly emphasized the domestic role of women, refusing to acknowledge their more public role as church leaders and preachers.
In 1880, despite support from the Alumni of the Theological School ofBoston University, the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church refused to ordain many of the female graduates. Some of the reasons given[by whom?] for this refusal were:
It was for the latter reason thatAnna Oliver was not ordained in 1880 despite the fact she had graduated fromBoston University School of Theology in 1876, and had served two churches with obvious success. In response, Anna Oliver and her supporters lobbied the General Conference to have all distinctions on the basis ofgender removed from theBook of Discipline regarding status for ordination. Anna Oliver preparedpamphlets in which she outlined the reasons to remove the gender basis for ordination; such as the natural gifts and fruit of women to pastor, the sacramental needs of themission field, the demands ofcharity, the Golden Rule and appeals to what John Wesley would do. In response, the General Conference not only denied the motion to remove the gender basis from ordination in the Book of Discipline, they revoked the licenses to preach of all those women who currently held them.[20] The influential ministerJames Monroe Buckley argued against her saying "I am opposed to inviting any woman to preach before this meeting. If the mother of our Lord were on earth, I should oppose her preaching here. ... There is no power in the Methodist Church by which a woman can be licensed to preach".[21]
Two years later,Anna Howard Shaw, who received her theological degree in 1878, was denied ordination by her presiding bishop, who felt that there was no place for women in the ordained ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church.[22] She left the church and was ordained in the Methodist Protestant Church that same year. She later went to be an activist inwomen's suffrage, and her advocacy contributed to women eventually gaining the right to vote, although she died before the 19th amendment was passed.[23][24]
Margaret Newton Van Cott, an American Methodist preacher born in 1830, devoted her life to evangelism and holding revival meetings across the country.
Walter Ashbel Sellew championed the ordination of women in Methodism and in 1894, he publishedWhy Not?: A Plea for the Ordination of Those Women Whom God Has Called to Preach the Gospel.[25] Sellew was the primary architect of the resolution in theFree Methodist Church that led to the ordination of women asdeacons in 1911, which read: "Whenever any annual conference, shall be satisfied that any woman is called of God to preach the gospel, that annual conference may be permitted to receive her on trial, and into full connection, and ordain her as a deacon, all on the same conditions as we receive men into the same relations."[25]
In 1924 The Methodist Episcopal Church granted women the right to be ordained as local deacons andelders.[26] The Rev. Belle Carter Harmon of Montana was the first woman to be ordained a local deacon in the Methodist Episcopal Church,[27] on 31 August 1924 at Helena, Montana.[28] Aurelia L. McAllister was ordained a local deacon the same day.[28][29]
In 1939, theMethodist Protestant Church (with the exception of the Mississippi Conference that continued the Methodist Protestant Church), the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South merged, forming theMethodist Church. In the Methodist Church, women from the Methodist Episcopal Church-South gained the right to ordination, while the Methodist Protestant women gave up full clergy rights in the merger. The politics used to justify this were said to be that the new denomination already faced sufficient problems. The Louisiana Conference, for example, had five women who had recently been ordained, Fern Cook, Nettie Mae Cook, Lea Joyner, Elaine Willett, and Anna Ruth Nuttall. The newly formed Methodist Church recognized their ordination and accepted them into the conference, yet offered only a few actual appointments.
By 1945, only 3 remained in the conference. One of these women, Lea Joyner, was never given an official appointment. She was told, "no church will have you." She was given a vacant lot and $5,000 and told to start her own church inMonroe, Louisiana. When she died in 1985, she held the distinction of having the longestpastorate in theLouisiana conference, and the largest Methodist church in the world pastored by a woman. The church she started in 1952 had over 2,200 members.[30]
In 1942, theFundamental Methodist Conference split from the Methodist Church and it does not ordain women. TheEvangelical Methodist Church split from the Methodist Church in 1945 and does ordain women as elders.
On May 4, 1956, inMinneapolis, Minnesota, theGeneral Conference of the Methodist Church approved full clergy rights for women. This was done by adding one sentence to the Book of Discipline: "All foregoing paragraphs, chapters and sections of Part III [of the Book of Discipline] shall apply to women as well as to men." Bishops were now required to appoint every pastor in good standing, regardless of gender.Maud Jensen was the first woman to be granted full clergy rights after this decision, in what is now the Central Pennsylvania Annual Conference.[31] Grace Huck was another woman accepted into probationary status as part of this historic vote, and she was received into full connection in 1958. She recalls the resistance to her ministry by a male member of her church in one of her early appointments. She has been quoted as saying that when the district superintendent told the congregation he was appointing a woman minister, one man shouted, "there will be no skirts in this pulpit while I'm alive." She also noted that he later became one of her best supporters.[32]
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TheChurch of the United Brethren in Christ started ordaining women with full clergy rights in 1889.
In 1946, the Church of the United Brethren in Christ united with the Evangelical Church to form theEvangelical United Brethren Church. The Evangelical Church had never ordained women. The Bishops from both churches agreed to not ordain women in the newly formed church, but there was never a vote on it at annual conference. Many churches continued to ordain women with full clergy rights.[33]
As late as 1890, women were first ordained asdeaconesses in the Wesleyan Methodist Church.[1]
TheAfrican Methodist Episcopal Church began officially ordaining female deaconesses in 1948. It elected its first female bishop in 2000.[34][35]
On 2 July 1974, the Methodist Conference in Bristol ordained 17 women aspresbyters (ministers).[1][36] The number of women ministers has grown to roughly equal male ministers. In 1993,Kathleen Richardson was the first woman to be electedPresident of the Methodist Conference (leader of the Methodist Church in Britain).[36]
The originalPrimitive Methodist Church in Britain allowed female preachers and ministers untilMethodist Union in 1932, and also those Primitive Methodist churches which did not join the Union.
Although the original Primitive Methodist Church in Britain allowed female preachers and ministers, the current American branch of the Primitive Methodist Church does not ordain women aselders nor does it license them as pastors orlocal preachers;[6] the PMC does, however, consecrate women asdeaconesses.[6]
In 1861, the American Free Methodist Church reported the fact that women served as preachers and in 1864, the General Conference of the Free Methodist Church created a class of lay non-pastoral ministers known asevangelists, who were both men and women.[3] In 1911, the Free Methodist Church started ordaining women asdeacons and in 1974, the FMC started ordaining women as elders.[3]
In 1968, when the worldwideUnited Methodist Church was formed from theMethodist Church and theEvangelical United Brethren Church, Methodist women clergy were afforded the right of full connection.[26]
In 1972,Jeanne Audrey Powers became the first woman to be nominated for the office of a bishop in The United Methodist Church, but she decline the appointment. In 1980, the first woman,Marjorie Matthews, was elected and consecrated as a bishop within the United Methodist Church.[37] In 1984, the first African-American woman,Leontine T. Kelly was elected and consecrated as abishop.[38] In 2005,Rosemarie Wenner was the first woman to be elected bishop outside the United States.[38] She was elected by theGermany Central Conference.[38]
In 2016, over 12,000 women served as United Methodist clergy at all levels, from bishops to local pastors.[39] By 2020, almost a third of full-time clergy were female.[40]
As of 2025,[update] 17 women are serving as bishops.[41] A total of 33 women have been elected as UM bishops.[39]
To try to address the lack of women of color in faculty positions at United Methodist Seminaries, the Board of Higher Education and Ministry created ascholarship program in 1989; theAngella P. Current-Felder Women of Color (WOC) Scholars program is based in Nashville and is open to women who have one non-Caucasian parent and are studying a PhD/ThD in religious studies.[42]
By 2023, the programme had 55 graduates serving with the UM.[43]
The 2015 Discipline of theEvangelical Wesleyan Church stipulates: "Women may be received on trial and into full connection and be ordained deacon, on the same conditions as men, provided always that this shall not be regarded as a step toward ordination as elder."[7]
In theAllegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection, Antoinette Brown was ordained an elder by Luther Lee in 1853, becoming the first woman to receive holy orders in that denomination (then theWesleyan Methodist Church).[4]
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Upon its founding (April 2022), the denomination continues with the UMC position, in which it split from, with no change to its view of the ordination of women as clergy.[44]
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