Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America, Set

QUAKER WOMEN IN NORTH AMERICA

QUAKER WOMEN IN NORTH AMERICA l 329 Methodist laywomen continued their active participation in the church after the formation of the Methodist Church and, later, the United Methodist Church. In 1940, the women’s foreign and home missionary societies of the three denominations united as the Woman’s Division of Christian Service under the Board of Missions and Church Extension of the Methodist Church. The Woman’s Division constituted one of four divisions under the new Board. The women leaders of the missionary societies worked with local societies to ensure a smooth transition to the new structure. The Woman’s Division had three departments, Foreign, Home, and Christian Social Relations and Local Church Activities, each with its own executive secretary. The responsibilities of the secretaries included establishing goals, drafting resolutions, planning conferences, and implementing programs. They ensured that the connectional system, which involved churchwomen at all levels, worked effectively and efficiently. The Board of Missions reorganized in 1964, which resulted in the foreign and home mission work of the Woman’s Division being moved to the World and National divisions of the Board. Women from the Woman’s Division held seats on the boards of both the World and National divisions. The Woman’s Division then included departments for Christian Social Relations, Program and Education for Christian Mission, and Finance. In 1968, the women’s organizations combined without major disruptions. The new Women’s Division oversaw the work of the local auxiliaries: the Women’s Society of Christian Service, for homemakers, and the Wesleyan Service Guild, for employed women. Also that year, the Women’s Division requested that the Uniting Conference form a Study Commission on the Participation of Women in the United Methodist Church. At the same time, the Women’s Division formed an inhouse Ad Hoc Committee on Churchwomen’s Liberation . In 1972, the two types of auxiliaries were combined to create United Methodist Women with program areas called Christian Personhood, Christian Social Relations, and Christian Global Concerns. As well, the General Conference that year created the Commission on the Status and Role of Women at the urging of the Women’s Division, which has played an important role in bringing women’s issues to the attention of the church. The 2000 General Conference offered a glimpse of the current activities and concerns of women in the United Methodist Church. The General Commission on the Status and Role of Women and the Women’s Division , General Board of Global Ministries, submitted important proposals that were approved by the delegates to the General Conference. The Women’s Division resolutions included reaffirmation of the use of diverse biblical metaphors and language reflecting diversity and inclusiveness in worship and church publications, opposition to recruiting and training children to be soldiers and to making children targets for sexual abuse and gender-based violence, and a call for the church to educate about and advocate against hate crimes. The General Commission on the Status and Role of Women supported resolutions and legislative proposals to increase efforts toward the eradication of sexual harassment in the United Methodist Church and its institutions , to ensure full and equitable participation of women at all levels of the church, and to recommit to eliminating sexual misconduct in all ministerial relationships , among other agenda items. Since the establishment of Methodist societies in the United States in the mid-eighteenth century, the participation of women has been an integral aspect of church life. Furthermore, Methodist women have been involved in the changes and movements that have defined American society for almost two and a half centuries. Given the current activities of United Methodist clergywomen and laywomen, the contributions they make in the future will continue to shape their denomination and the broader world. SOURCES: Jean Miller Schmidt’s Grace Sufficient: A History of Women in American Methodism, 1760–1939 (1999) is the most comprehensive history of the topic for the period before the establishment of the Methodist Church in 1939. William L. Andrews’s Sisters of the Spirit: Three Black Women’s Autobiographies of the Nineteenth Century (1986) includes the autobiography of Jarena Lee. Women in New Worlds: Historical Perspectives on the Wesleyan Tradition, vol. 1, Hilah Thomas and Rosemary Keller, eds. (1981), and vol. 2, Rosemary Keller, Louise Queen, and Hilah Thomas, eds. (1982), have essays on many important Methodist women. See also Phoebe Palmer, Promise of the Father (1859) and Margaret Henrichsen, Seven Steeples (1953). Web sites for the United Methodist Church are...