Gender and Pentecostal Revivalism

This innovative volume provides an interdisciplinary, theoretically innovative answer to an enduring question for Pentecostal/charismatic Christianities: how do women lead churches? Few studies in Pentecostal movements investigate how women - once permitted by a denomination or congregation to lead - gain and maintain authority over a congregation. This study fills this lacuna by examining the leadership and legacy of two architects of the Pentecostal movement - Maria Woodworth-Etter (1844-1920) and Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944). Payne's theoretical approach is distinct from previous analyses of women in Pentecostal/charismatic leadership. Historians usually employ a version of Max Weber's charismatic authority to explain how Pentecostal revivalist ministers are legitimated. Her research shows that this Weberian categorization is ultimately unhelpful, however, because any powerful minister was authorized to a certain degree through charisma. Thus, explaining female minister's authority through charisma does not meaningfully set them apart from their male counterparts.
In addition, this approach obscures the often very practical strategies employed by female leaders to gain authority.