Overlooked Legacies: Honoring the Mothers Who Shaped Our Faith
WRITTEN BY: AMBER TREMBLETT
Have you heard of St. Monica? Chances are if you aren’t familiar with her name, you’re familiar with her legacy. She was the mother of St. Augustine, one of the most influential theologians in church history.
As a woman responsible for her son’s spiritual formation, she approached her bishop asking for help, begging him to help her bring St. Augustine back to the Christian faith.
He replied, "Go, go! Leave me alone. Continue what you are doing. It is not possible that the son of so many prayers and tears should be lost."
These words spoken back to St. Monica are a testament to her influence as spiritual presence in the life of her son.
She was committed to teaching her son the ways of Jesus, shaping the legacy of his faith and what would eventually become our faith.
And yet, almost everything we know about St. Monica comes from St. Augustine’s, Confessions. We know her story solely through his. It is clear in his writing that his mother had a significant impact on the development of his faith. But it is not until after her death that we have come to recognize Monica as a spiritual leader in her own right.
Women Erased
Doesn't this story sound familiar? How many of us have seen the quiet strength of women shaping our families and communities?
The story of Monica and Augustine is consistently repeated throughout the history of the Christian faith. Even today, Christian society relies on women to care for and offer Christian education to children. And still, in many cases, these very same women are not trusted to use their voices in other spaces in the church.
Women regularly serve in church communities as children and youth pastors, but a female in a lead pastor role is rarer than (insert clever idiom here). Women are called upon to volunteer as Sunday school teachers but less frequently as guest speakers. Men are faithfully asked to use their voice in women-only spaces, but women are scarcely asked to do the same in men-focused ministries.
Our Christian culture has done an excellent job of erasing many of the countless women who have tried to follow their calling and add their voices to the interpretive history of the faith. Amanda Benckhuysen in her book, The Gospel According to Eve, aims to bring these women out of the shadows.
Her purpose in writing this book was to shed light on the many women throughout history who have lent their voices to theological and spiritual discourse, but who have largely been ignored because of their perceived inferior morality and intellect. Not only does her book help correct some of the poor work that’s been done in diversifying our reading lists*, but it also highlights the very real injustice done to women throughout history and even today.
Women Rewritten
By the 19th century, femininity was expected to be expressed through domesticity which included the moral and spiritual formation of the family, particularly the children. In other words, myriad prominent 19th century preachers and spiritual teachers can thank their mothers for the early, and most formative, years of their faith development.
Benckhuysen writes that domesticity “inadvertently encouraged women to become interpreters and teachers of Scripture and gave them natural venues for socializing the next generation of political, cultural, and religious leaders.”
Women, by and large, were responsible for laying the foundation upon which many male faith leaders built their legacies.
Women were expected to take on this role in the home, and, in fact, were condemned if they did not. However, they were in turn prohibited or ignored when they attempted to follow their calling outside of the family unit.
In the 19th century in the United States, well over 100 juvenile Christian education resources were published by women and yet these resources do not figure in the interpretive history of the Christian faith.
Women were consistently and passionately writing during these years of the church and yet so many women today have no idea that they have shoulders they can stand on.
Myriad prominent 19th century preachers and spiritual teachers can thank their mothers for the early, and most formative, years of their faith development.
Women Rebuilt
The women of history have shaped legacies in the form of male preachers and leaders, but they have also paved the way for the women of today who are learning to use their voices despite the copious cultural barriers and historic baggage that may inhibit their journey.
It is unfair that these mothers of the faith have largely been lost to the archives of history and that the majority of people are unaware of the role they have played in the lives of our greatest faith leaders.
It is unjust that these women’s words were not considered important enough to carry into the future.
It is inexcusable that these women have not been recognized as spiritual leaders when it has been their leadership which has shaped so many of our significant leaders.
But we will no longer allow them to be forgotten. These mothers are trailblazers. They are women of God that faithfully responded to God’s call on their lives. They loved Jesus too much to sit down and accept the role their patriarchal society had given to them. They used their voices even when it was risky to do so.
At Women Speakers Collective, we endeavor to be a driving spiritual force in the lives of the members of our community members and beyond.
For this reason, we insist on carrying forward the legacies of these forgotten women. And we will relentlessly honor their work and accomplishments by empowering women to speak up, lead boldly, and continue the fight for justice and equality, until every woman is heard.
*For further reading, check out some of the women that Benckhuysen highlights in her book.
The Worth of Women
Christine de Pizan and her works Letter of the God of Love and The Book of the City of Ladies.
In these works de Pizan questions the popular interpretation of Eve during her time period (14th-15th century) and the poor literary works it produced.
Support Women and Preachers and Speakers
Margaret Askew Fell and her 1666 work “Womens Speaking Justified, Proved, and Allowed by the Scriptures.”
M. Marsin and her works The Woman’s Advocate and Two Remarkable Females of Womankind.
Rebecca Cox Jackson and her work Gifts of Power: The Writings of Rebecca Jackson, Black Visionary, Shaker Eldress.
Catherine Booth and her work Female Ministry: Or, Woman’s Right to Preach the Gospel.
These works largely present arguments for a woman’s right to preach based on honest scriptural interpretation and date back to the 17th century.
Forming Children
Esther Hewlett Copley and her works Scripture History for Youth, A Brief View of Sacred History, and Scripture Biography.
Lucy Barton and her work Bible Letters for Children.
Sophia Ashton and her work Mothers of the Bible.
Many of these women embraced their role as spiritual and moral teacher and aimed to increase their influence in the public sphere through their works. In some cases, they succeeded. Though some of their theological opinions will differ from ours, the recovering of their voices is important in understanding the truth of our theological history.
Sources:
AUGNET : 1021 Monica and Augustine. http://www.augnet.org/en/life-of-augustine/growing-up/1021-monica-and-augustine
Benckhuysen, Amanda. The Gospel According to Eve: A History of Women’s Interpretation. IVP Academic. 2019.
About the Author
Amber Tremblett is a full-time Anglican priest in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Besides writing, she expresses her creativity through crocheting and figure skating. She loves to read and is an avid consumer of book-related social media content. Amber's favourite place to rest is by the ocean. If you’d like to read more of Amber’s writing, she has been published in Clayjar Review, and she runs a personal blog, which you can find at amberiswriting.wordpress.com.