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Mothers in Israel: Methodist Beginnings Through the Eyes of Women
Women have played an integral part in Methodism from the beginning, but many of their stories have been forgotten or distorted. The most well-regarded were known as "Mothers in Israel," a term referring to Deborah the judge in the Old Testament. Eighteenth century women like Susanna Annesley Wesley, Sarah, Ryan, Mary Bosanquet Fletcher, Frances Mortimer Pawson, Sarah Crosby, and many more were pivotal in the growth of the Methodist movement as class leaders, visitors to the sick, devotional writers, teachers, and even preachers. Discover the richness of their legacy of faithful witness through this exploration of their own theological writings and reflections and their message for the Church today.
182 pages, Paperback
First published December 11, 2020
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About the author
Donna L. Fowler-Marchant
1 book7 followersDonna L. Fowler-Marchant is the author of Mothers in Israel: Methodist Beginnings Through the Eyes of Women and a Methodist minister currently appointed to a circuit just outside London. A graduate of Meredith College, a women's liberal arts college, Duke University Divinity School, and Wesley Theological Seminary, her interests include exploring women's roles in early Methodist history and highlighting their stories so contemporary people can discover their relevance today. In addition to writing and delivering thousands of sermons, she maintains a regular blog called Travels With Wesley as well as a Facebook page and an Instagram account of the same name. This is her first book.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 3, 2025
Retelling the history of Christianity in ways that take women’s agency, experience, and formative contribution seriously is long overdue. Long relegated to footnotes or only discussed as ancillary to male participants, the leadership of women has been marginalised, a product of the patriarchal system that controlled the narratives of male-dominated churches. Donna Fowler-Marchant has provided us with a short and very focused study of representative eighteenth-century women at the headwaters of the movement. In five concise chapters, she provides biographical sketches of prominent women in early Methodism including Susannah Annesley Wesley, Sarah Ryan, Sarah Crosby, Mary Bosanquet Fletcher, and Hester Ann Rogers, describing their ministries as ‘the backbone of early Methodism.’ An interesting element of the book is the description of how the extensive impact of Methodist women preachers, and aspects of their distinctive spirituality were quite deliberately written out of the story by male Methodist editors.
Eighteenth-century Methodism was an unstable, fractious, diverse, and socially disruptive movement, held together by John Wesley’s organisational genius, charismatic personality and benevolent autocracy. In such a context, the leadership of women flourished (though even Wesley drew definite boundaries around it). As Methodism ceased to be a religious society and coalesced into a strong and growing Wesleyan Methodist denomination throughout the nineteenth-century, it became decidedly more sedate and came to prohibit the preaching of women, although they did persist, as shown by Jennifer Lloyd’s treatment of the period 1807-1907 in Women and the Shaping of British Methodism (2010). Methodism’s male theologians and historians preferred a different story of origins, one in which women were relegated to the role of helpers and supporters to men. These editorial coverups included failing to mention the preaching activities of women in their published obituaries. Powerful men such as Jabez Bunting, Henry Moore, and Joseph Benson heavily edited journals and letters to remove offending elements before publication.
One particularly egregious example of editorial censorship is the case of Henry Moore’s removal from Mary Bosanquet’s journal the account of a dream in which she breastfed a child. At first unable to produce milk, she persevered and soon found she had ‘milk enough’ for all the world. She took this to mean that if she continued in her preaching, God would increase her capacity for ministry. According to Fowler-Marchant, ‘Moore’s evident discomfort with this vivid image of a nursing mother along with his interest in portraying Mary as a model of female modesty and Methodist piety led him to sanitize her story by removing these down to earth references to her sexuality.’ (p. 75)
John Wesley had a somewhat asexual capacity for platonic intimacy with women, a quality that contributed to the flourishing of female agency in early Methodism. One of many interesting incidents in the book is the story of Hetty Wesley, who fell pregnant out of wedlock and was shamed by her father, Samuel, who forced her into a loveless marriage with an older man who became her violent abuser. John Wesley intervened on behalf of his sister standing up to his father in an attempt to support her. The material on the women of the Epworth household is a reminder of how long overdue is a good scholarly biography of the Wesley sisters, each of whom led interesting lives worthy of investigation.
The book draws widely on existing work including Paul Chilcote’s research on the women of early Methodism in John Wesley and the Women Preachers of Early Methodism (1991), and Her Own Story (2001). Women scholars whose work has enriched our understanding of the period, including Vicki Tolar Burton’s Spiritual Literacy in John Wesley’s Methodism (2008), Susie Stanley’s Holy Boldness (2002), and Phyllis Mack’s Heart Religion in the British Enlightenment (2008) are well drawn upon. While at times there is something of an over reliance on such secondary sources (the chapter on Susanna Annesley Wesley, for example, relies heavily on standard biographies such as those of John Newton and Arnold Dallimore), Fowler-Marchant’s well-written overview deserves a wide readership. It would serve well as a set text to accompany courses on the history of Methodism, ensuring that the remarkable women of early Methodism are not left out of the story.
Eighteenth-century Methodism was an unstable, fractious, diverse, and socially disruptive movement, held together by John Wesley’s organisational genius, charismatic personality and benevolent autocracy. In such a context, the leadership of women flourished (though even Wesley drew definite boundaries around it). As Methodism ceased to be a religious society and coalesced into a strong and growing Wesleyan Methodist denomination throughout the nineteenth-century, it became decidedly more sedate and came to prohibit the preaching of women, although they did persist, as shown by Jennifer Lloyd’s treatment of the period 1807-1907 in Women and the Shaping of British Methodism (2010). Methodism’s male theologians and historians preferred a different story of origins, one in which women were relegated to the role of helpers and supporters to men. These editorial coverups included failing to mention the preaching activities of women in their published obituaries. Powerful men such as Jabez Bunting, Henry Moore, and Joseph Benson heavily edited journals and letters to remove offending elements before publication.
One particularly egregious example of editorial censorship is the case of Henry Moore’s removal from Mary Bosanquet’s journal the account of a dream in which she breastfed a child. At first unable to produce milk, she persevered and soon found she had ‘milk enough’ for all the world. She took this to mean that if she continued in her preaching, God would increase her capacity for ministry. According to Fowler-Marchant, ‘Moore’s evident discomfort with this vivid image of a nursing mother along with his interest in portraying Mary as a model of female modesty and Methodist piety led him to sanitize her story by removing these down to earth references to her sexuality.’ (p. 75)
John Wesley had a somewhat asexual capacity for platonic intimacy with women, a quality that contributed to the flourishing of female agency in early Methodism. One of many interesting incidents in the book is the story of Hetty Wesley, who fell pregnant out of wedlock and was shamed by her father, Samuel, who forced her into a loveless marriage with an older man who became her violent abuser. John Wesley intervened on behalf of his sister standing up to his father in an attempt to support her. The material on the women of the Epworth household is a reminder of how long overdue is a good scholarly biography of the Wesley sisters, each of whom led interesting lives worthy of investigation.
The book draws widely on existing work including Paul Chilcote’s research on the women of early Methodism in John Wesley and the Women Preachers of Early Methodism (1991), and Her Own Story (2001). Women scholars whose work has enriched our understanding of the period, including Vicki Tolar Burton’s Spiritual Literacy in John Wesley’s Methodism (2008), Susie Stanley’s Holy Boldness (2002), and Phyllis Mack’s Heart Religion in the British Enlightenment (2008) are well drawn upon. While at times there is something of an over reliance on such secondary sources (the chapter on Susanna Annesley Wesley, for example, relies heavily on standard biographies such as those of John Newton and Arnold Dallimore), Fowler-Marchant’s well-written overview deserves a wide readership. It would serve well as a set text to accompany courses on the history of Methodism, ensuring that the remarkable women of early Methodism are not left out of the story.
January 9, 2023
Rev. Dr. Donna L. Fowler-Marchant has done Methodism a great service in writing this book. She demonstrates that women were indeed the backbone of the earliest Methodist movement. These Mothers in Israel as they were called (if you want to know why, read the book) from Suzanna Wesley, the mother of John and Charles to Sarah Crosby and others had a formative impact on the first generation of Methodists. Their influence is seen to this day.
Although some later suppressed their story. Fowler-Marchant reclaims the narratives of these women and their significance. I highly recommend this book. Pastors, offer this book as an options for a women's study. In fact, offer it as an option for your men's group at church. A blessing awaits for all who delve into its pages.
Although some later suppressed their story. Fowler-Marchant reclaims the narratives of these women and their significance. I highly recommend this book. Pastors, offer this book as an options for a women's study. In fact, offer it as an option for your men's group at church. A blessing awaits for all who delve into its pages.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews