Outside the Mainstream: Women's Religion and Women Religious Leaders in Nineteenth-Century America

Abstract

In order to understand fully the status of women in a particular religious tradition, it is helpful to consider the views held within that tradition on four topics. the character of the divine, human nature, the function of the clergy, and the nature of marriage. While the assumptions which have been held by mainstream religious groups on these topics appear to be linked to the absence of female leadership, certain marginal religious movements have taken positions which seem to have a positive relation to leadership roles for women. These marginal groups are characterized by (1) a perception of the divine that deemphasizes the masculine, (2) a tempering or denial of the doctrine of the Fall, (3) a denial of the need for a traditional ordained clergy, and (4) a view of marriage which does not hold that marriage and motherhood are the only acceptable roles for women. In this analysis of Shakerism, Spiritualism, Christian Science, and Theosophy, the author examines the particular manner in which each manifested these doctrinal positions and explores the roles which women occupied within the four groups. The article concludes with some observations on the causal relationship between doctrine and leadership roles for women and on how the concerns expressed in the four movements discussed parallel those of contemporary feminist theol

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