It's settled. Women can't vote in a Baptist church. No wait. COULDN'T vote in a Baptist church

Below is a snippet from an association meeting in Hallifax County held at the Kehukey [sic] Meeting- House August 5, 1771. The quote is selected from many questions posed to the association for comment.

--James Sprunt Historical Monograph No. 5. Minutes of the Kehukey Association (BAPTIST) With Letter of Joel Battle Fort, and with Introduction and Notes by Kemp Plummer Battle, LL.D, PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY 1904

Comments

[Lydia]

What state?

[peter lumpkins]

North Carolina

http://baptisthistoryhomepage.com/kehukey.association.html

[eric]

didn't find it in google search. When did a woman gain the right to vote in that baptist
church?

[peter lumpkins]

Google is necessary but insufficient for solid modern research

[Scott Shaver]

Ah yes.....the spirit of ESS in its embryonic "baptist" expression.

From my chair they can definitely place that one where the sun never shines :)

[Robert Vaughn]

What our history yields can be both odd and interesting. I recently obtained a copy of Customs of Primitive Churches by Morgan Edwards, clerk of the Philadelphia Baptist Association. It is a kind of church manual from 1768, close to the same period as the Kehukee Association query. Edwards believed in elderesses and deaconesses -- even that they should be ordained -- but did not believe women should vote in conference.

[Scott Shaver]

Robert:
That is fascinating. What part of the U.S.? Current state?6

[Scott Shaver]

Ignorance is bliss. Philadelphia. Do you know whether or not there was a strong mix of former Lutheran Germans intermarried with Anabaptists in that mix. My ancestors were in that area during the time period in question.

[Robert Vaughn]

Though the association was called Philadelphia, its influence cast a much wider net. Besides Pennsylvania at one time it included churches in New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Virginia and Maryland (mostly New Jersey after Pennsylvania). They influenced the organization of the Kehukee Association which Peter mentions above. The PBA stills exists, a member of the ABCUSA. Don't know much about the people, other than that there was a strong Welsh influence. Edwards himself was from Wales. In 1746 PBA took up the question of women voting in the church and seem to have concluded that they could (it's kind of hard to read with modern glasses!).

One thing interesting about Edwards promoting eldresses is that he was a Regular rather than a Separate Baptist.

[Robert Vaughn]

Eric, when women gained the right to vote in Baptist churches will likely vary by location. In our church history (where I grew up) a woman was elected to serve on a committee for the first time in 1910, but none were elected as associational messengers until 1939. There was no specific mention when they first voted.

I found a bit regarding Virginia in Avenues of Faith: Shaping the Urban Religious Culture of Richmond, Virginia by Samuel C. Shepherd Jr. He wrote that "In 1971 and 1918 messengers to the Southern Baptist Convention voted to admit women..." He mentions other Virginia efforts for women voting as Pine Street BC in 1916,
Leigh Street BC in 1922, the Dover Baptist Association in 1917 and the Baptist General Association of Virginia in 1920. (pp. 185-186) This puts it in the same time frame as the popular drive in America for women's political suffrage.

Curiously, historian Loyd Allen (at McAfee) said that the Southern Baptist Convention amended its constitution in 1888 "to prevent women from voting at its annual meeting." (May not necessarily mean they voted before then; this may have been more to fix an oversight and make a statement in a changing world.)

[Scott Shaver]

Thank you Robert Vaughan.

Perhaps the new improved,inerrant and culturally sensitive Southern Baptist Convention could set itself on an better historical trajectory by now APOLOGIZING TO ALL WOMEN (regardless of ethnicity). Where's McKissic and Cross and Moore when you need em ladies?

[Tom]

Scott:

I figure the SBC will apologize to all Women once all the women have left the SBC.

[Scott Shaver]

You may be onto something Tom.

Their divorce rate would seem to accelerate the possibility you've raised while SBC talking heads, in turn, rend their clothes in sack-cloth and ashes over the marriages of one Donald J. Trump