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CHRISTIAN CHURCH/DISCIPLES OF CHRIST TRADITION AND WOMEN
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296 l PROTESTANTISM—DENOMINATIONAL TRADITIONS serve God and their society in spite of the resistance they often faced in their own denominations. Their contributions to Baptist life range from the pen to the pulpit and from their homes to the other side of the world. SOURCES: For additional reading, see Leon McBeth’s Women in Baptist Life (1979) and Eleanor Hull’s Women Who Carried the Good News (1975). Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham provides a fine history in Righteous Discontent: The Woman’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920 (1993). Primary materials from Mary Webb, Isabel Crawford, Joanna P. Moore, and Helen Barrett Montgomery can be found in William H. Brackney’s Baptist Life and Thought (1983). Additional information about Isabel Crawford can be located in her autobiography Joyful Journey (1951). For a more thorough discussion of the concept of personal service, see Mrs. H. M. Wharton’s article in Royal Service, September 1925. Helen Barrett Montgomery ’s essay on civic roles was printed in The Baptist, August 28, 1920. To read more of Lansing Burrows’ comments, see How Baptist Work Together (1911). See Catherine Allen’s A Century to Celebrate: History of Woman’s Missionary Union (1987) for a comprehensive history of the WMU, Southern Baptist Convention. CHRISTIAN CHURCH/DISCIPLES OF CHRIST TRADITION AND WOMEN Loretta M. Long THE FUNCTION OF women in the Christian Church/ Disciples of Christ tradition (or the Disciples) has been a principal issue of contention from the movement’s inception . It has rolled through the history of the tradition , also known as the Stone-Campbell movement, gathering enough weight eventually to divide its members and excite substantial debate even in the twenty- first century. Although essentially conservative for most of its early history, the Disciples’ approach to the role of women still offers a narrative of extremes in viewpoints from the most liberal to the most conventional. The divergent history of the Disciples of Christ tradition itself makes it difficult to draw clear lines around the experience of women within it, particularly in its earliest years. Several groups of Christians in the earlynineteenth -century United States shared similar theological convictions but operated independently in separate regions of the country. They communicated often with each other, and although the groups never officially joined, they may still be classified as part of one religious movement. These groups defined themselves by their emphasis on scripture as the only basis for authority, the primacy of the local church, and the spiritual equality of all believers. By the 1830s the Disciples of Christ, under the leadership of Alexander Campbell and Barton Stone, became the most numerous and well known of the groups. The name of their group generated controversy from the beginning, with Campbell preferring “Disciples” and Stone preferring “Christians.” While their movement is frequently referred to as the Disciples of Christ in the nineteenth century, that would change after the splintering of the movement. By the 1930s, the Disciples had spawned three separate traditions: the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the Churches of Christ, and the Independent Christian Churches. The first separation gained official notice in 1906 when the more conservative, predominantly southern, “Churches of Christ” requested separate listing in the religious census published that year. Leaders of the Churches of Christ such as David Lipscomb of Tennessee objected to expanding the central doctrine of Alexander Campbell, dedication to scripture as the only foundation of church practice. Lipscomb particularly disputed emerging Disciple practices such as the creation of missionary societies, the development of a denominational structure, and the support of women preaching, which he argued did not conform to scripture . The resulting ethos of the Churches of Christ emphasized radical congregational autonomy and a conservative reading of the New Testament as the foundation for church policy. The Independent Christian Churches emerged by 1927 from a dispute within the Disciples body over the developing denominational structure of the church and the form it would take. The Independent Christian Churches, like the Churches of Christ, rejected denominational hierarchy particularly as the Disciples supported open membership within that structure (accepting unbaptized members into the Christian Church). After their departure, the remainder of the Disciples were commonly known as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), and by the twentieth century the term Disciples generally applied only to them. Most important , after 1906, one can no longer speak of the Disciples tradition in terms of one single movement. Several factors contribute to the disparate attitudes toward women...