Southern Baptist Sisters: In Search of Status, 1845-2000.

Holcomb, Carol Crawford

Southern Baptist Sisters: In Search of Status, 1845-2000. By David T. Morgan. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2003. 200 pp.

David T. Morgan's purpose for writing Southern Baptist Sisters was to document the role of women in "promoting the denomination's growth and development in the face of male fears that too much activity on the part of women would lead to their gaining control" over the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Morgan demonstrates that the fundamentalist takeover of the SBC returned women to a subordinate status--"where their female ancestors had been when the denomination was founded in 1845" (5). Morgan repeatedly ties the "male fears" of the nineteenth century with the "male fears" of the fundamentalist leadership of the SBC in the 1980s and 1990s. Southern Baptist Sisters is suited for readers interested in a rigorous defense of women's leadership in the church and an introduction to the history of Baptist women.

The strength of the book lies in the stories of women that Morgan weaves into his narrative. His initial chapter places Baptist women within the broader context of women in Christianity. The second chapter sheds helpful light on Baptist fears of women's leadership by documenting the scandals related to the women's fights movement, particularly the Beecher-Tilton affairs in the 1860s and 1870s. Morgan provides an engaging description of the proceedings of the SBC meetings of 1885 and 1918, during which women were barred from the floor of the convention and subsequently reinstated as messengers. Also helpful are his discussions of missionaries to China and the development of the Woman's Missionary Union in chapters four and five, respectively.

Morgan's passion for his subject shines clearly in the sixth chapter as he narrates the "Quest of Southern Baptist Women for Ordination." The chapter opens with the events of the 2000 SBC meeting, followed by an overview of the role of female deacons and preachers from the colonial era to the present. The chapter also examines the struggle for ordination in the 1960s and 1970s, documents the founding of Baptist Women in Ministry, and culminates with the conservative backlash against women in the 1980s and 1990s.

While there are commendable aspects of this work, Baptist historians and scholars in the field of women's studies will be less than satisfied with much of what they encounter. Southern Baptist Sisters lacks focus and organization. The author attempts too sweeping an introduction to the history of women in religion in America. He moves without warning from subject to subject and century to century. The book depends heavily upon secondary sources, and the themes within chapters are often obscured by digressions. Despite these limitations, Southern Baptist Sisters provides a passionate argument in favor of women's ordination and a solid denunciation of the fundamentalist leadership that is determined to impose Victorian domestic ideology on twenty-first-century women.--Reviewed by Carol Crawford Holcomb, associate professor of religion, University of Mary Hardin Baylor, Belton, Texas.