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5 [Helen Barrett Montgomery\ The clear teaching in regard to the holiness of God has made impossible the divorce between religion and ethics wherever the Bible is adequately taught or obeyed.1 Helen Barrett Montgomery’s (1861–1934) vocational pilgrimage enabled her to craft a Trinitarian biblical theology of evangelism. An influential leader in the women’s ecumenical missionary movement, Montgomery traveled widely and wrote copiously, including one of the earliest New Testament translations by a female scholar, the Centenary Translation of the New Testament (1924).2 Montgomery 183 1 H. B. Montgomery, The Bible and Missions (West Medford, Mass.: The Central Committee on the United Study of Foreign Missions, 1920), 13. 2 H. B. Montgomery, trans. Centenary Translation of the New Testament (Philadelphia: The American Baptist Publication Society, 1924). This publication commemorated the first hundred years of the American Baptist Publication Society. According to Dana Robert, Montgomery’s Centenary Translation is “the first translation of the Bible into English that translated Pheobe’s role as ‘minister’ rather than ‘deaconess’ ” (American Women in Mission: A Social History of Their Thought and Practice [Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press], 281 n 60). Robert mentions Katherine Bushnell and her biblical study text, God’s Word to Women: One Hundred Stories on Woman’s Place in the Divine Economy, 2d ed. (Mooseville, Ill.: God’s Word to Women Publishers, 1923), calling it “the most noteworthy attempt by a missionary woman to comment on the Bible from a cross-culturally aware, proto-feminist perspective.” Dowd points out that Montgomery’s purpose in translating the New Testament was evangelistic. She goes on to trace Montgomery’s dependence upon Bushnell in her New Testament translation. Bushnell’s biblical commentary is strikingly similar to Montgomery’s translation in the case of 1 Corinthians 14:34-36. Montgomery 184 Saving Women seems to break new theological ground for evangelism studies in her biblical theology, The Bible and Missions (1920), which predates similar themes echoed by Karl Barth (1886–1968) almost a decade later. Montgomery’s biblical theology is also notable for its attention to the Old Testament, which continues to lack sufficient consideration in the current study of evangelism. Montgomery is often recognized as the first woman elected to serve as president of the Northern Baptist Convention (1921–1922)— the first woman to hold such a leadership position in a major Christian denomination.3 Very active in the women’s ecumenical missionary movement, Montgomery’s writing figured prominently in a book series published annually from 1900 to 1938 by the Central Committee on the United Study of Foreign Missions. Montgomery’s election to the presidency occurred in the midst of a difficult time for women’s missions as a result at least in part of tensions provoked by controversies between competing fundamentalist and liberal agendas.4 According to Montgomery, a significant aspect of her formation in faith was the influence of her family, particularly her father. In her reviewed Bushnell’s God’s Word to Women for The Baptist in July 1924—Montgomery’s translation was published in December 1924. In her review article, Montgomery refers to Bushnell’s treatment of Romans 16:1 and Phoebe’s role. Though Montgomery does not cite Bushnell, Montgomery’s notes also demonstrate a strong resemblance to Bushnell’s. S. Dowd, “Helen Barrett Montgomery’s Centenary Translation of the New Testament: Characteristics and Influences,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 19 (1992): 135, 143–48. For further discussion of women’s roles and ministry in Montgomery’s New Testament translation, see Dowd’s subsequent article, “The Ministry of Women in Montgomery’s Centenary New Testament: The Evidence of the Autograph,” American Baptist Quarterly 20 (2001): 320–28. 3 R. Omanson, “Bible Translation: Baptist Contributions to Understanding God’s Word,” Baptist History and Heritage 31 (1996): 14. The NBC formed in 1908, but the constituencies had already affiliated as a result of schism in 1845 that also produced the Southern Baptist Convention. According to McBeth, the divisions between the Northern and Southern bodies were less pronounced in 1845 than in 1900 when many major denominations experienced healing of mid-century divisive wounds. The schism of 1845, according to some, seemed to facilitate greater missional possibilities. Subsequently the NBC would adopt a new name, American Baptist Convention, implemented in 1950 (H. L. McBeth, The Baptist Heritage: Four Centuries of Baptist Witness [Nashville: Broadman, 1987], 392, 463, 564, 578–79). Interestingly, The New York Times honored Montgomery with an announcement from the American Baptist Publication Society. However, the...

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