God's Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission

by R. Marie Griffith

In recent decades, religious conservatives and secular liberals have battled over the "appropriate" role of women in society. In this absorbing exploration of Women's Aglow Fellowship, the largest women's evangelical organization in the world, R. Marie Griffith challenges the simple generalizations often made about charismatic or "spirit-filled" Christian women and uncovers important connections between Aglow members and the feminists to whom they so often seem opposed. Women's Aglow is an international, interdenominational group of "spirit-filled" women who meet outside the formal church structure for healing prayer, worship, and testimony. Aglow represents a wider evangelical culture that has gained recent media attention as women inspired by the Christian men's group, Promise Keepers, have initiated parallel groups such as Praise Keepers and Promise Reapers. These groups are generally newcomers to an institutional landscape that Aglow has occupied for thirty years, but their beliefs and commitments are very similar to Aglow's. While historians have examined earlier women's prayer groups, they've tended to ignore these modern-day evangelical groups because of their assumed connection to the "religious right."

God's Daughters reveals a devotional world in which oral and written testimonies recount the afflictions of human life and the means for seeking relief and divine assistance. A relationship with God, envisioned as father, husband or lover, and friend, is a way to come to terms with pain, dysfunctional family relationships, and a desire for intimacy. Griffith's book is also valuable in showing the complex role that women play within Pentecostalism, a movement that has become one of the most important in twentieth-century world religions.

Genres: Nonfiction, Religion, Gender Studies, Theology

286 pages, Paperback

First published October 8, 1997

About the author

Marie Griffith is the Director of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, where she also serves as the John C. Danfoth Professor of Humanities. She has written extensively about religion in U.S. history and in the present. She focuses particularly on issues of gender and sexuality, matters that have grown ever more divisive in American society and politics in recent years. She has taught at Northwestern, Princeton, and Harvard, Universities and has published in both scholarly and popular venues. She is committed to civil discourse across political and religious lines, and she intends her writing to be accessible to a wide array of readers (not simply scholars). Her latest book, *Moral Combat*, explores debates over sex in American Christianity over the past century and their profound impact on U.S. law and politics.

Reviews

[Steven H · Rating 5 out of 5]

AN ‘OUTSIDER’ LOOKS OBJECTIVELY AT THE ‘AGLOW FELLOWSHIP’

Ruth Marie Griffith is Professor in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis, and formerly was a Professor at Harvard University.

She wrote in the Introduction to this 1997 book, “Women’s Aglow Fellowship provides a fascinating window into … important questions, as the largest interdenominational women’s mission organization in the United States… and own burdened with the task of recasting the traditionally Christian doctrine of female submission to male authority into formulations appealing to women… In my research on this organization I have attempted to discover the meaning of continued adherence to the doctrine of submission and authority, in theory and practice, when men not only occupy positions of leadership as pastors and as husbands but also hold leadership positions as ‘advisors’ to Aglow itself; not surprisingly, I have discovered a high degree of innovation, not to mention historical development, in Aglow women’s interpretation of female submission.” (Pg. 14)

She continues, “As my research continued, I became increasingly aware of a set of unarticulated but nevertheless powerful rules, codes, and disciplines that restrict dissent within Aglow by framing it as a kind of betrayal. At the same time, I noted various modes of resistance to these boundaries… Even so, I have witnessed significant instances of what I believe to be real challenges to status quo standards, along with a variety of means through which conservative evangelical women rework the social roles they inhabit. Throughout, I have struggled against the temptation to romanticize resistance… Thus a major focus of the following chapters will be the analysis of challenges to the ideological norms of Aglow, and of the external world, along with the means by which contemporary evangelical women continuously redraw the renegotiate the boundaries of power and authority.” (Pg. 15-16)

She continues, “One question frequently posed to me during my work on the project is whether or not I believe that the intense religious experiences Pentecostal and charismatic Christians claim to experience are ‘real,’ meaning they are of divine origin. The only answer I can give is that my analysis sets aside such questions, neither affirming nor negating the possibility that what happens in prayer is truly ‘of God’ but instead focusing on what is human…. I hope that at the very least I have rendered their stories decently and that the women may recognize something meaningful about themselves in my description of their experiences, understanding that I do not pretend to have revealed the ‘whole truth’ about their lives. Mine is an attempt to construct … ‘new, less false’ stories than those usually told about American evangelical women…” (Pg/ 22-23)

She notes, “Whatever differences or tensons may exist between the global aspirations of the international leaders and the rather more limited concerns of local participants, Aglow ultimately serves both purposes aiming to establish and intimate network of caring, praying women that can evangelize and heal their sisters across all parts of the earth.” (Pg. 54)

She says, “The ritual sense that these women share, forged in a symbolic world that allows them to redefine themselves as healed, delivered, and set free, produces and reinforces power relationships in crucial ways… Yet this sense also opens up possibilities for new worlds to be imagined and lived and thus may open the way for vital transformations of another, more concrete and potentially more radical, order.” (Pg. 79)

She explains, “Longing to share their most shameful secrets as well as their most seemingly mundane desires, these women strive to surrender themselves… in order to find full acceptance of who they are. This dissolution takes place most tangibly through prayer… When they open themselves to God this way in public, they also expose their secret failings, disappointments, and sufferings to other female sympathizers. It also appears likely… that the kinds or hierarchical arrangements that characterize their intimacy with God may also characterize their close social relationships, including alliances with evangelical women to whom they have divulged their inner shame.” (Pg. 137-138)

She notes, “These Aglow hierarchies are not so rigid as to prevent innovation or even reversal… certain rules and scripts upholding discipline and hierarchy are embedded in the Aglow framework of beliefs and practices and are also variously resisted, softened, and qualified within that framework.” (Pg. 168)

She points out, “As increasing numbers of charismatic women have become divorced, single mothers, the older ideal of the happy, submissive wife has given way to newer models of women warriors battling the forces of Satan and helping each other surmount the ordinary obstacles of their lives. Admissions of childhood abuse and alcohol-drenched marriages have tempered the older idealism about squeaky clean and happy families, yet the tone of victory still resounds ,as the women create alternative family relationships with God and with their evangelical sisters.” (Pg. 198)

She concludes, “Notions of submission and surrender, of secrecy, openness, and intimacy, and of healing and transformation---all of which are enacted through prayer, through stories, and through changed behavior in everyday life---provide these women with means of reinventing themselves, of ‘making room’ for new selves within a social context that is alto believed to be made new… the determination these women manifest in reworking their lives hods potential for more changes in the future.” (Pg. 213)

This book will be of interest to those seeking an ‘outsider’s’ perspective on this evangelical group.

[Kaitlynn Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the book God’s Daughters: Evangelical Women and the Power of Submission by R. Marie Griffith discusses the beliefs and lives of Anglow women. The author provides narratives of Anglow women from participating in the praying groups and attending conferences, while also using written submissions in the Anglow magazine. Through these sources, the author is trying to “help bring the broader main stream evangelical culture in America, especially its female participants, into clearer focus”. There are three main lenses that the author is trying to analyze these women in, which include “gender, identity, and power”. 1 The author describes how in the Anglow faith, women are typically lower in the order of ranking as compared to God, their husbands, and eventually sons, which is where they belong according to scripture. For identity, the women discussed in the book perceive that they become the model of how a woman should act and behave in several ways, such as submitting to her husband and that she is typically the one at fault for failures in the relationships. These women accept this role and that becomes who are they in every sense. In terms of power, the women believe that they are to serve God and their husbands and listen to every word they say, while putting their needs last. Although most women today would often see these characteristics that define the religion as unacceptable, these women believe that it is their calling and where they are supposed to be.
Through this book, Griffith is trying to provide the reader the understanding of a religion, one that might be different from what they practice, through the lense of women who are in the Anglow community. The author adds to the reader’s vocabulary by introducing new terms such as “feminine mystique” and “female restlessness”, while also providing the definitions in the context of the Anglow women. Not only are the new terms added, but new definitions of words that the reader already knows are redefined in the same context of the new terms. These new and redefined terms that the author provides allows the reader to understand how the women in the Anglow community defined themselves and practiced their faith. By providing the narrative stories of several women throughout the book, the reader is able to understand the terms on the ground level and through the eyes of the women. Also, the author is making the data she is presenting very accessible to individuals who do not know very much about the religion with the terms.
Although one might consider this book to be strictly a religious studies book, there are a couple of other disciplinary boundaries that it crosses as well. One that stuck out the most throughout the entirety of the book is that of anthropology. The author uses one type of research method that is typically conducted by anthropologists: ethnography, more specifically participant observation. Through this method, the researcher is able to interact with the group they are observing instead of viewing and recording data from the sidelines. The tricky part about this type of research method is that the line between researcher and participant can often be blurred, like when Griffith discusses one participant paying dues for her to join the organization and two women placing praying hands on her while she was in her vehicle. The other main disciplinary boundary that this book crosses is that of history. Although the author uses a large amount of narratives throughout, she does include the history and progression of the Anglow religion, particularly how women were involved and evolved in it.
In terms of where this book sits in historiography, the author is providing a narrative history that is not typically used in history. By doing so, the author is allowing the readers to connect with the women in the book, whether or not they share the same religious beliefs, in order understand the religion at a very basic level. Also, the amount of narratives that the author provides perhaps hones in the point that Anglow women truly accept the religious beliefs and adhere to them. Not only do the amount of narratives act as examples for the argument that the author is providing, but maybe the author is also trying to provide somewhat of a shock value to the readers, particularly women. At the time this book was written, there had already been two waves of feminism throughout America and the #MeToo movement was not in the picture quiet yet. Maybe the author wanted this book to start the discussion of feminism again, which it certainly does for the present time.
Overall, this book provides a great example of religious studies to readers who are not well versed in the field or those who are just starting out in it. The author does a great job presenting her argument and providing data to back it up. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, perhaps more because it discussed women and gender studies and used a typical anthropological research method that I am familiar with. Although I liked this book, I think that the research could be continued to examine what the males discussed in their groups and how the female group dynamics changed once males where allowed in their groups.

[Spencer · Rating 5 out of 5]

God's Daughters stands apart in its erudition. If we could all approach our lives with the same degree of rigor and self reflection that Griffith put into this book, the world would be a better place.

[Kelly Figueroa-Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is my interpretation of this work that Griffith is trying to solve a problem. She, a self-proclaimed feminist, and Christian, finds it troubling how Evangelical women’s faith is portrayed in main stream intellectual circles. In fact, she believes studying this group of women, usually understood to be or even self-understood to be anti-feminist, is an imperative of feminist inquiry:

"…I remain convinced of the need to bridge disparate worlds, to translate the lives of evangelical women in terms nonevangelicals can understand, insofar as such an enterprise is possible. If properly executed, such a translation ought to contribute to what I take to be a central feminist goal: a heightened understanding of 'other'--read "nonfeminist"--women, who challenge particular assumptions and contradictions within feminist thought and thereby help both to expand and to refine feminism's possibilities."

Griffith’s agenda is to repair feminism’s view of a group of women that have been written off as anti-feminist and therefore have not been an important subject of feminist scholarship. The complexity Griffith uncovers in the motivations, practices and beliefs of Evangelical women transforms the discourse of feminism, opening it up to new lines of inquiry to which the field had not considered of import before. What troubles me in the book, a bit, is that this agenda is reduced to an “impulse” even though Griffith admits she often “articulated [it] in… conversations with the women in Aglow”, and clearly it forms an important aspect of the narrative Griffith portrays throughout the rest of her book. I find it to be more than an impulse, but instead it is her overarching agenda. An agenda to heal a brokenness she perceived between two groups of women, who have more in common than either group would want to admit.

I’m not really sure how or even if I would change Griffith’s work in order to reflect this agenda more transparently. I think she effectively reaches her goal through her methodology. She speaks to feminists in their own language, by citing and using the research of other feminist scholars, using the stories and testimonies of the women she is studying, and demonstrating the influences of the variety of contextual factors shaping the practices of these women. Griffith uses language feminist scholars understand in order to get them to hear the voice of a female community that up until this point has been silent in feminist discourse.

[Yasmine Flodin-Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely fascinating, definitely want to learn more about this demographic. Thoughtfully written, with a good balance of critical scholarship and deference to the book's subjects and their lived experiences and perceptions of the world.