In August 2020, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution— giving women the right to vote—will mark its 100th birthday.  In the decades before its passage and for some time after, leading voices in the Churches of Christ opposed women having the right to vote and opposed women exercising that right, asserting that is contrary to scripture and against God’s will for women to do so.

Many of those voices held the view that the Bible teaches that God does not want women teaching or having authority over men in any public setting — not in public, not in government, not in the workplace, not in the worship service, not in public speaking, not in conventions, not  in the military, …  — and God wants “women’s sphere” limited to the home and raising children.

Churches of Christ college presidents, preachers, owners editors, and contributors of and to the Gospel Advocate, women, and Bible professors asserted it is God’s will that women not have the right to vote and not participate in politics.  A sampling of their statements:

+  “[E]vil would result from the after effects of woman suffrage.  It is … the law of God … that the influence of woman must be exercised through man, and when she takes the reins in her own hands it works evil ….”

+  Put women “into the rugged field of politics, voting, office holding, with their … worldly excitement, and you at once start human society, morality, and even Christianity on a downward grade. ….”

+  “When women enter politics and hold office, they necessarily become no longer fit for wives and mothers. …”

+  “‘A woman who spends the whole day at a desk, in the law courts, or in a house of assembly … is no longer a woman, she cannot be a wife, she cannot be a mother.'”

+  “Should Christian women vote under any circumstances? … No.”

Effects and echoes of this view remain.

The vast majority of Churches of Christ today completely prohibit women women from speaking, leading, or actively serving in their worship services and from teaching males, in Sunday School or elsewhere, above the age of about 10.  The Churches of Christ are nearly alone among Christian groups in doing this. 

Women are barred by the elders in the vast majority of congregations from reading scripture, leading singing, leading prayer, helping with communion, making communion remarks, preaching, making announcements, leading singing, or otherwise actively serving in the worship service and are barred from teaching any male above the age of about 10 or who has been baptized in Sunday School or Bible classes.

The view that women are not to have authority over men anywhere at all in public (not just in the worship service) and that men are the God-ordained authority over women in all places also remains within pockets of the Churches of Christ.

More often, in most pockets of the Churches of Christ, it is not spoken of often one way or another.  That is, it is left ambiguous.  The presence of this view and that it underlies some of the theology barring women is unrealized by large swaths of the membership.  That 1 Tim 2:12 applies everywhere, and not just in the worship assembly, was the view advocated publicly by the most influential branches of the Churches of Christ and its most influential persons through at least the early 1900s, for example.

The barring of women and girls from speaking in the assembly is starting to change, as most colleges affiliated with the Churches of Christ now allow women to speak in their chapel services and a small-but-growing number of congregations have women speak in their worship service.  The vast majority of Churches of Christ, though, continue to bar them.

Here are excerpts from 10 articles published in the early 20th century in the Gospel Advocate, the leading Church of Christ publication at the time, opposing women’s right to vote.  This was, by far, the prevailing view expressed in the Gospel Advocate and barely a dissenting word on the matter can be found.  Tennessee, the state in which the Gospel Advocate was headquartered and home to a large portion of Churches of Christ members, did not vote on the 19th Amendment until August 1920.

1.  It is sinful for a woman to speak at a convention, and influence of a woman must be exercised through a man. 

“It is a good work to close out saloons …; but it is productive of evil to do that work in an unscriptural way ….  [M]ost of the speakers during the [anti-alcohol] convention were women.  Paul says: “Let a woman learn in quietness with all subjection. But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over a man, but to be in quietness.” (1 Tim. 2: 11, 12.) … [A]n excellent and sensible woman … delivered a brilliant speech …. But the same Book that teaches the truths she presented [(the Bible)] condemns her for presenting them upon the platform. …” [(with men present)]

“[E]vil would result from the after effects of woman suffrage.  It is the law of nature, and the law of God, that the influence of woman must be exercised through man, and when she takes the reins in her own hands it works evil to both man and woman by lifting her out of the sphere in which she was placed by the Creator.  … God has not created her to take the lead or to occupy the platform in politics or religion.”

(James A. Allen, then Contributor to, later Editor of, the Gospel Advocate, “The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union,” Gospel Advocate (Dec. 19, 1907), p. 812.)

2.  Women must keep their place, otherwise they transgress God’s plan and will be punished.

“If I didn’t believe the Bible, I might accept this big perplexing question … as only another opportunity for woman to prove that no obstacle can stop her ….”

“When God created the world, he made a law to run it by ….  To transgress this law is to be punished.  God would not be supreme if we were allowed to add to and take from his original plan.  …”

“So it is no small matter that we keep in our places … The suffrage question is, I believe, of far more importance than most people think.  No doubt it will be a turning point in the history of our country. …”

[Citing the Titantic men putting “women and children first,] “Since [men] have proved by being put to the test that they will even give their lives for us, don’t you think we could trust them to make laws for us?”

(May Selley, “Is Equal Suffrage Worth the Fight?  No! Thinks a Business Girl,” Gospel Advocate (Mar. 20, 1913), pp. 268-270.)

3.  The Bible tells us whether women should vote—God knew when he created women where he wanted women to remain during their existence. 

“[W]e have an infallible guide as to whether women shall vote or not vote; and that unerring guide is the Bible.  …  I am pleading earnestly for woman to build a happy home for her husband, children, and herself.  And guided by that wonderful Book, … she will … have a glorious success.”

“… I call upon every man, woman, boy, and girl to contend earnestly for such a woman as the Bible describes; a woman content to labor in the sphere assigned her by divine wisdom.  … [T]he great Father knew what he created every being … for; and where he wanted them to remain during their existence in this world.”

(Fannie S. Scobey, “Shall Women Vote?,” Gospel Advocate (March 27, 1913), p. 293 (the GA editor introduces the article as “timely” and “lucid”).)

4.  If women go out of their sphere and start voting, etc., it puts morality and Christianity on a downward path and it brings evil to all connected.

“Faithful, godly women … are in a large measure the guardian angels for the wellbeing of the family and for the general good of human society.  But take women in a measure out of that sphere and put them into the rugged field of politics, voting, office holding, with their trains of trouble and worldly excitement, and you at once start human society, morality, and even Christianity on a downward grade. ….”

“Let woman remain in the station in which the wisdom of God placed her.  In that sphere she can be a wonderful blessing to the whole human race; out of it she may prove a great drawback.”

“None of God’s divine arrangements for the good of humanity can be changed without bringing evil instead of good to all connected with the change.”

(E.G. Sewell, Editor of the Gospel Advocate, “Questions About Billy Sunday and Woman Suffrage,” Gospel Advocate (April 15, 1915), p. 362.)

5.   Women seeking to enter politics is the greatest danger threatening America; they should stay where God placed them.  

“Women dressing in a fashion to shock … and their seeking to enter into the slime and filth of politics constitutes, ‘to my mind, the greatest danger threatening American civilization. … If women could only appreciate the power with which God has invested them and use it as he has directed, they could lift this old sin-cursed world back to God. Let us pray for the dawning of the day when our women will in truth become queens, reigning over the circle in which God has placed them. … Sisters, let politics alone, and dress as becometh the daughters of the Lord, ….”

(F.W. Smith, “Woman Suffrage,” Gospel Advocate, (Oct. 23, 1913), pp. 1010-1011.)

6.  The Devil tells women that not having equal rights with men is bad and, similar to Eve, women are listening and deceived, causing men to make women’s suffrage a law, which is contrary to God’s law. 

“But, in the face of all these warnings and commands of our loving Heavenly Father, that same crafty serpent has stolen into our nearest approach to Eden, the home, and is destroying the sacredness of the hearthstone and rendering happy homes fewer and fewer by telling woman that she is persecuted and downtrodden because she is not permitted to have equal rights with man ….”

“[I]nstead of resisting the devil and forcing him to flee from her, she has stopped to listen to his arguments and is being deceived, and, just as she did on that unhappy day just prior to her expulsion from Eden, she is using her influence over man, and again he is blindly yielding, and has already made woman suffrage a law, even though it is directly opposed to God’s law.”

(Fannie Hurst, “Decries Woman Suffrage,” Gospel Advocate (Aug. 28, 1919), pp. 830-831.)

7.  A female working outside the home is no longer a woman, wife, or mother.

“‘A woman who spends the whole day at a desk, in the law courts, or in a house of assembly, may be a most honorable and most useful individual, but she is no longer a woman, she cannot be a wife, she cannot be a mother.  In the conditions of our society the emancipation of women is in its very nature the negation of marriage.’  The experience of the human race has demonstrated the wisdom of God in ordaining that man should be the head of the woman, as Christ is the head of the church.”

(J.C. McQuiddy, “Woman Suffrage,” Gospel Advocate (July 22, 1920), p. 715.) (pivotal article)

8.  The Bible is contrary to what woman-suffrage leaders want.

“The Bible is very much in the way of woman-suffrage leaders.  In order to nullify the following scriptures and other similar passages, they repudiate the Bible: “Unto the woman he said, … and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.” (Gen. 3:16.) “Let a woman learn in quietness with all subjection. But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to have dominion over a man, but to be in quietness. … (1 Tim. 2: 11-15.).”

(J.C. McQuiddy, owner and business executive of the Gospel Advocate and prolific writer and publisher within the Churches of Christ, “Mrs. Catt and Woman-Suffrage Leaders Repudiate the Bible,” Gospel Advocate (Aug. 12, 1920), p. 788.)

9.  Women in politics are not fit as wives or mothers.  Women must keep to their proper sphere, including man’s dominion over women.

“It women could vote and go no further, there might not be so much objection to it.  … But it is not simply the privilege of casting the vote that woman is seeking, but she is seeking equal political rights.  … When women enter politics and hold office, they necessarily become no longer fit for wives and mothers. …”

“It is true that some women object to the teaching of the word of God and are ready to reject it because it does not conform to their ideas. They object to man’s dominion over woman, as recorded in 1 Tim. 2:11-16; but if husbands love their wives as Christ loved the church, which they are taught to do, there is no weight in this objection. … So long as women are kept in their proper sphere and so long as men do the work that God has ordained for them to do, we may expect the human race to grow purer and better and happier.  How much better it is to follow the wisdom of God than to follow the wisdom of men!”

(J.C. McQuiddy, “Woman Suffrage,” Gospel Advocate (Oct. 28, 1920), p. 1049 (pivotal editorial).)

10.  Christian women should not vote, even if they have the right to.

“Should Christian women vote under any circumstances? … No.  Christian women have their greatest power and influence in the God-ordained sphere for Christian women; and this is not in politics.”

(H. Leo Boles, Ph.D., then President of Lipscomb College (and long-time head of the Bible department), “Query Department,” Gospel Advocate (Aug. 16, 1928), p. 782.)

Conclusion

First:  (A)  If your congregation existed 160 years ago ——

would your congregation view the Bible as commanding black people not to have authority over white people in Genesis 4:10-16 and 9:20-27 (often called the Curse of Ham and Cain) and as approving slavery of black persons, even though there is a mound of scripture contradicting this view?  (These curses were relatively widely believed in the south in the 1800s and after.)

(B)  Does scripture actually mean that black persons cannot have authority over white persons?

Second:  (A) If your congregation existed about 100 years ago —–

would your congregation oppose giving women the right to vote because of the sphere God gave women and because of 1 Tim 2:12, “But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.”?  (Read again leading voices in the Churches of Christ said about 100 years ago.)

(B)  Does scripture actually mean that women cannot vote or participate in politics?

Third:  (A)  If your congregation exists today —–

would your congregation oppose allowing women to speak or lead in any way  in your worship service because it believes the Bible commands women not to have authority over men and not to speak in the assembly in 1 Tim 2:12 and 1 Cor 14:34-35, even though nearly all of Christianity recognizes those passages do not have that meaning and there is an even bigger mound of scripture contradicting the view that women cannot speak or lead in the assembly?

(B)  Does scripture actually mean that women cannot speak or lead in the worship assembly?

Most Important:  (A)  When

(1) there are lots and lots of scripture passages in which God asks women to speak to, teach, lead, and have authority over men, in an assembly and elsewhere, and

(2) Christ asks women to love (serve, worship, …) God with all their heart, soul, and mind, and to love (serve, …) others as themselves, …. then

is it a sin, unethical, and immoral for a congregation to block women from speaking to, teaching, leading, and having authority over men and for a congregation to block women in the worship service from serving God and serving others with their all and as they are treated?

(B)  Is it spiritually, mentally, and physically healthy for young girls to be discriminated against for years and years and years by people in the church and to watch their moms and friends be discriminated against for years and years by people in the church, all while those people are communicating to those girls through their action and inaction that it is God’s will that those young girls be discriminated against?


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