Renovating Rhetoric in Christian Tradition

4: “With the Tongue of [Wo]men and Angels”: Apostolic Rhetorical Practices Among Religious Women

45 4 — “With the Tongue of [Wo]men and Angels” apostolic rhetorical practices among religious women Aesha Adams-Roberts, Rosalyn Collings Eves, and Liz Rohan In 1804 an African Caribbean Methodist woman, Anne Hart Gilbert, wrote a history of Methodism that sought to correct circulating histories of the Antiguan Methodist church (written by white men) by exposing corrupt practices of some white missionaries and inserting black women into this history.1 Yet in order to reimagine her community, she had to adopt a voice that would grant her religious and rhetorical authority. Her efforts to come to voice raise the question: How can we best understand the ethoi of Hart Gilbert and women like her, women who grapple not only with the masculine norms of rhetorical practice but with the masculine frameworks of traditional Christianity? Some women within Christian traditions have used an apostolic rhetoric to speak authoritatively and simultaneously to foster a sense of community within their religious groups. Specifically, we explore the apostolic rhetoric of four historical women within three distinct traditions of Christianity and across three centuries : Anne (1768–1834) and Elizabeth Hart (1771–1833), late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century African Caribbean Methodist missionaries; Eliza R. Snow (1804–1887), nineteenth-century Mormon woman and president of the 46 ■ aesha adams-roberts, rosalyn collings eves, and liz rohan Female Relief Society; and Janette Miller (1879–1969), a white middle-class evangelical missionary who grew up in the American Midwest. This apostolic rhetoric is a powerful lens: it explains the rhetorical ethoi of women in Christian traditions across race, geography, and time. Unlike a prophetic voice, in which the prophet-speaker is positioned above and outside his audience, an apostolic voice positions the speaker within a spiritual community . In many ways this apostolic ethos is a paradoxical one. It draws its authority from both divinely issued spiritual calls as well as physical lived experiences .2 It frequently relies on a humility topos or claim of personal deficiency precisely to establish authority and sufficiency as a spiritual leader through whom God speaks.3 And by establishing spiritual conversion, an apostolic ethos allows former outsiders to become insiders. Where prophets historically concerned themselves with spiritual reform, apostles combine this spiritual concern with a pragmatic bent: where John the Baptist speaks as a voice in the wilderness, Paul attends to the needs of a growing congregation. Invoking an apostolic model allowed the women to strengthen their communities through three distinctly apostolic rhetorical practices: translating the word of God for community members and helping them understand the practical implications of the word; regulating local affairs by calling for reform and identifying those who fall short; and teaching appropriate Christian behavior through example.4 “Who Is Sufficient for These Things?”: The Hart Sisters’ History of Methodism Anne and Elizabeth Hart labored among Antiguan slaves, educating and evangelizing them. These two sisters, born to an African Caribbean slaveholding father and a devout Methodist mother, occupied complex positions within their colonial society. As members of the free colored community, they “occupied a critical intersecting zone” between the white elitist landholders and the enslaved Africans, for while they were granted limited political power, they still were not viewed as equals.5 Nonetheless, the Hart sisters held privileged positions in their community: they were directly related to two of the four founding families of the Methodist movement in Antigua; they both married white men and eventually founded the English Harbor Sunday School and the Female Refuge Society, where they taught hundreds of men, women, and children—both slave and free, black and white—to read. As preaching missionaries in charge of the spiritual instruction of hundreds of women and children, the Hart sisters exemplified a reliance on alternate sources of power. Both sisters were solicited by the Reverend Richard Pattison, an English missionary to the West Indies during the late eighteenth century, to write a history of Methodist activity in Antigua.6 Both sisters completed their books in “with the tongue of [wo]men and angels” ■ 47 1804, and both used the title History of Methodism. But these texts are remarkably different in terms of their self-representation, means of asserting authority, and ostensible ends. While Anne Hart constructs herself as an apostle with the authority to oversee missionary activity in Antigua, Elizabeth Hart uses her personal conversion to implicitly argue for both the spiritual and moral equality of black people. Despite these differences, both...