WHM: Women in the Pulpit

So let me begin my March celebration by taking up Bardiac's challenge to:

...remember one woman who's provided leadership, to encourage one woman who has potential, to recognize one woman who's contributing, especially if she's contributing in ways that aren't well-valued by the patriarchy.

To that end, today I remember women who have made strides in the area of religion--one of the most patriarchal spaces today. As Roxanne Mountford argues,

the textbook tradition privileging the masculine body of the preacher and an architectural/cultural tradition that gives that body a home sustain gender bias and leave contemporary women preachers search for ways to accommodate themselves to the physicality of preaching. Their bodies are not anticipated by the tradition; indeed, for centuries, their bodies have been explicitly excluded. (3)

Both in the literature on the art of preaching and in the physical spaces of churches, Mountford breaks down how the role of the preacher has been constructed for men and men only. Her analysis offers an opportunity to remember two women who have broken down/through these masculine spaces: Sojourner Truth and Bishop Vashti McKenzie.

Sometimes I hate on Sojourner Truth like some folks hate on Beyonce because she gets too much airplay. But Truth is one of the few Black women to maintain a national and international reputation throughout time despite the fact that we have very little of her actual words. As an abolitionist, a Black nationalist, a feminist--whatever label you want to give her--Truth was able to move people such power that we have not stopped talking about her for centuries. Still the efforts to "claim" Truth by a number of different camps as a political speaker has often diminished the importance of her work as an itinerant preacher.

Not having a secure place in the pulpit as a former slave woman undoubtedly played an important role in Truth reaching out to abolitionist and other circles to advance her message. By utilizing her rhetorical skills as a preacher, Truth was able to blend the traditions of the African American pulpit into an unforgettable social message--one that was always rooted in the Bible. Truth utilized the folk wit, humor, signification, and plain speech familiar to Black church preaching to shed light on the institution of slavery and the problems of inequality in the nation. Her physical presence, which has been noted over time because of her height and solid frame, was matched by her most powerful instrument, her voice. Historian Nell Irwin Painter describes Truth’s voice,

Her voice was low, so low that listeners sometimes termed it masculine, and her
singing voice was beautifully powerful. Whenever she spoke in public, she
also sang. No one ever forgot the power and pathos of Sojourner Truth’s
singing, just as her wit and originality of phrasing were also of lasting
remembrance. (3)

Truth's combination of singing and preaching fits into a long tradition of Black women who have marshaled the power of music and words. Truth, like Jarena Lee, Amanda Berry Smith, and Zilpha Elaw, seized the opportunity to be a spiritual leader in the early Black community. However, Truth, like Maria Stewart, distinguished herself by combining preaching and politics and speaking to audiences across gender and racial lines.

Truth's leadership is mirrored by today by Reverend Dr. Vashti Murphy McKenzie, who became the first woman bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in 2000. She was also the first woman pastor of Payne Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore, Maryland. In ways similar to Truth, Bishop McKenzie has demonstrated throughout her career both spiritual leadership and a commitment to political activism. Born into a family of faith and social concern, McKenzie is the descendant of John H. Murphy, Sr. who started the Afro-American Newspapers and Vashti Turly Murphy, one of the founders of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.


Like her family, McKenzie took up the family trade of journalism, faith, and activism. She has worked as a radio host, a columnist, and is the author of several books, including: Strength in the Struggle: Leadership Development for Women, Journey to the Well, Not without a Struggle: Leadership Development for African American Women in Ministry. Not Without a Struggle outlines 10 commandments for African American women in position of leadership in the church, demonstrating McKenzie's devotion to addressing the needs of women in the faith community and continuing her work to "break the stain glass ceiling." She has been an active participant in The State of the Black Union hosted by Tavis Smiley and her outspokenness has drawn many fans. Her consistent leadership as a Christian woman and her dedication to causes such as relief for Hurricane Katrina victims and fighting the AIDS epidemic here and abroad is admirable and needed in these times.
Time Magazine said of McKenzie in 2004:

Bishop McKenzie has a time-tested philosophy on combatting patriarchy. "For
women, especially for African-American women," she says, "you always have to be
better than men to get ahead." Assigned a 300-member church in a depressed part
of Baltimore in 1990, she not only built the congregation to 1,700 but also
worked with the state of Maryland to get 600 area people off welfare, save a
public school and renovate a key local building. Her election campaign for
bishop in 2000, following another woman's 1996 defeat, was unapologetically
aggressive, featuring T shirts, buttons and campaign visits to dozens of
churches. Her victory was a milestone for a church whose membership is 70%
female.

Bishop Vashti McKenzie is definitely a woman to be celebrated as she continues to move through the glass ceiling of the church and the masculine space of the pulpit.

I am blessed to have women ministers and spiritual leaders in my family and in my family-to-be. Both Dr. J and I have aunts who are ordained ministers, my godmother is a creator and head of a missions organization that provides healthcare education, literacy, and relationship counseling to South Africans. Today, I celebrate their willingness to join the work of women like Truth and McKenzie and break down the barriers facing women in communities of faith.