Ordination of women in Methodism

However, earlier in the 18th century, Methodist founder John Wesley did authorise a number of women to preach, including Sarah Crosby.

In the summer of 1771, Bosanquet wrote to John Wesley to defend hers and Crosby's work preaching at her orphanage, Cross Hall.

[13][14] Later, Wesley also licensed other women as preachers, including Grace Murray, Sarah Taft, Hannah Ball and Elizabeth Ritchie.

that she instilled in him, and in his brother Charles Wesley, a fellow preacher in the movement, a deep appreciation for the intellectual and spiritual qualities of women.

[17] Starting at the end of the 19th century, the Methodist Protestant Church had not only begun to ordain women, but had also granted them full rights as clergy.

In 1880, despite support from the Alumni of the Theological School of Boston University, the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church refused to ordain many of the female graduates.

for this refusal were: It was for the latter reason that Anna Oliver was not ordained in 1880 despite the fact she had graduated from Boston University School of Theology in 1876, and had served two churches with obvious success.

In response, Anna Oliver and her supporters lobbied the General Conference to have all distinctions on the basis of gender removed from the Book of Discipline regarding status for ordination.

Anna Oliver prepared pamphlets in which she outlined the reasons to remove the gender basis for ordination; such as the natural gifts and fruit of women to pastor, the sacramental needs of the mission field, the demands of charity, the Golden Rule and appeals to what John Wesley would do.

In response, the General Conference not only denied the motion to remove the gender basis from ordination in the Book of Discipline, they revoked the licenses to preach of all those women who currently held them.

[21] Two years later, Anna Howard Shaw, who received her theological degree in 1878, was denied ordination by her presiding bishop, who felt that there was no place for women in the ordained ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

[23][24] Margaret Newton Van Cott, an American Methodist preacher born in 1830, devoted her life to evangelism and holding revival meetings across the country.

[25] Sellew was the primary architect of the resolution in the Free Methodist Church that led to the ordination of women as deacons in 1911, which read: "Whenever any annual conference, shall be satisfied that any woman is called of God to preach the gospel, that annual conference may be permitted to receive her on trial, and into full connection, and ordain her as a deacon, all on the same conditions as we receive men into the same relations.

Maud Jensen was the first woman to be granted full clergy rights after this decision, in what is now the Central Pennsylvania Annual Conference.

[31] Grace Huck was another woman accepted into probationary status as part of this historic vote, and she was received into full connection in 1958.

She has been quoted as saying that when the district superintendent told the congregation he was appointing a woman minister, one man shouted, "there will be no skirts in this pulpit while I'm alive."

Although the original Primitive Methodist Church in Britain allowed female preachers and ministers, the current American branch of the Primitive Methodist Church does not ordain women as elders nor does it license them as pastors or local preachers;[6] the PMC does, however, consecrate women as deaconesses.

[26] In 1972, Jeanne Audrey Powers became the first woman to be nominated for the office of a bishop in The United Methodist Church, but she decline the appointment.

To try to address the lack of women of color in faculty positions at United Methodist Seminaries, the Board of Higher Education and Ministry created a scholarship program, which has over 40 participants and more than 22 graduates with doctorate degrees in theology.

[citation needed] The 2015 Discipline of the Evangelical Wesleyan Church stipulates: "Women may be received on trial and into full connection and be ordained deacon, on the same conditions as men, provided always that this shall not be regarded as a step toward ordination as elder.

[4] Upon its founding (April 2022), the denomination continues with the UMC position, in which it split from, with no change to its view of the ordination of women as clergy.