• Rewriting the Faithful
• Sally Dwyer-McNulty (bio)

According to historian Catherine A. Brekus, scholars of women and religion often feel compelled to address whether women were liberated or oppressed through their religious experiences.¹ The books under review here all emphasize that a life of faith is not so simple. They remind readers that women are not one unified group with the same experiences within a religion; that empowerment can take place in the context of submission; and that as women have reflected upon and recast their roles in their faith communities over time, they have not necessarily aimed for positions men held. By examining internal gender politics, these books expand beyond labels such as “conservative” or “progressive,” and provide a view of women who are not easily defined.

Jenny Wiley Legath’s Sanctified Sisters is a detailed study of the Protestant deaconess movement in the United States from the late nineteenth century through the early decades of the twentieth century. Legath identifies trends among denominations where possible. All deaconesses, for instance, initially shared the requirements of single status (presumed celibacy), distinct garb, and an allowance. Beyond these common traits, Legath observes that Methodist, Presbyterian, and Episcopal deaconesses were more often American born and influenced by the Social Gospel Movement, which encouraged Christians to act on their religious values by addressing social and economic inequalities resulting from industrialization and unregulated capitalism. Meanwhile, Lutheran, Evangelical Synod, German Reformed, and German Methodist deaconesses took inspiration from the Kaiserwerth and the Inner Mission theology, a product of the religious awakening coursing through Germany in the first half of the nineteenth century. Among the distinctive features of the awakening was the revival of the position of deaconess and an emphasis on activism to address issues such as healthcare, convict rehabilitation, and teacher training. In the United States, Inner Mission-inspired [End Page 145] deaconesses also understood the role of deaconess as a path to Americanization and typically focused on providing nursing services. Churches with hierarchical and connectional structures, such as Lutherans and Methodists, were also more successful at promoting the role of deaconess than congregational churches, such as the Baptists.

Legath draws on a rich collection of sources to illustrate how deaconesses crafted their identity, in part, to deflect concerns over being (initially) unmarried women in public positions. For instance, while Protestant ministers expected women to become mothers, deaconesses presented their work as “spiritualized motherhood,” supporting natural mothers who lacked the “qualifications” for proper mothering (59). Deaconesses claimed to possess the scientific training, thrift, and maternal skills that they presumed were missing among immigrants and poor mothers. Regarding remuneration, since deaconesses initially received an allowance rather than a salary, they interpreted their money as “special money,” gendered and untainted by the market economy. Finally, not only did their allowance distance the deaconesses from male ambition, but the deaconesses negated their own agency regarding their work. “The agent of the divine call [was] God, not the women,” Legath contends, and the deaconesses obeyed the call (139–140). If fellow Protestants had reservations about these professional servants, their carefully curated identities would have diminished them.

Historical treatments of early twentieth-century America tend to divide women into predominantly white and secular Progressive reformers, and immigrants and Black women, who maintained a religious identity and were either on the margins of popular reform movements or the focus of reform. Legath’s deaconesses, though primarily white, complicate those categories. Included in the deaconess fold were women of varied economic backgrounds and immigrants, most often German, who benefitted from an Americanization process among co-ethnic and religious peers. White deaconesses, Legath points out, did not work alongside Black deaconesses. Most early deaconesses came from Anglo-American and Northern European origins...

•  重写忠实者
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  莎莉·德怀尔·麦克纳尔蒂（简介）

历史学家凯瑟琳·A·布雷库斯 (Catherine A. Brekus) 表示，研究妇女与宗教的学者经常感到有必要探讨妇女是否因她们的宗教经历而获得解放或受到压迫。 ¹这里所评论的书籍都强调信仰生活并不那么简单。它们提醒读者，女性并不是同一宗教中具有相同经历的统一群体；她们是女性。赋权可以在服从的情况下进行；随着时间的推移，随着女性反思并重新塑造她们在信仰社区中的角色，她们不一定会瞄准男性所担任的职位。通过审视内部性别政治，这些书超越了“保守”或“进步”等标签，并提供了一个难以定义的女性观点。

珍妮·威利·莱加斯（Jenny Wiley Legath）的《神圣姐妹》详细研究了从十九世纪末到二十世纪初期的美国新教女执事运动。 Legath 尽可能识别各教派之间的趋势。例如，所有女执事最初都要求单身（假定独身）、独特的服装和津贴。除了这些共同特征之外，莱加斯还指出，卫理公会、长老会和圣公会的女执事大多是在美国出生，并受到社会福音运动的影响，社会福音运动鼓励基督徒通过解决工业化和不受监管的资本主义造成的社会和经济不平等来践行自己的宗教价值观。与此同时，路德教会、福音教会、德国改革宗和德国卫理公会的女执事们从凯撒沃斯神学和内在使命神学中汲取灵感，这是十九世纪上半叶席卷德国的宗教觉醒的产物。觉醒的显着特征之一是女执事地位的复兴，以及强调解决医疗保健、囚犯康复和教师培训等问题的行动主义。在美国，受内在使命启发的[完第145页]女执事也将女执事的角色理解为通向美国化的道路，并且通常专注于提供护理服务。具有等级和联系结构的教会，如路德教会和卫理公会，在促进女执事的作用方面也比公理会教会，如浸信会更成功。

莱加斯利用丰富的资料来说明女执事如何塑造自己的身份，部分原因是为了转移人们对（最初）担任公共职位的未婚女性的担忧。例如，新教牧师期望女性成为母亲，而女执事则将她们的工作描述为“精神化的母性”，支持那些缺乏适当母性“资格”的亲生母亲（59）。女执事们声称拥有科学训练、节俭和母性技能，她们认为这些是移民和贫困母亲所缺乏的。在报酬方面，由于女执事们最初领取的是津贴而不是工资，她们将自己的钱解释为“特殊钱”，没有性别歧视，没有受到市场经济的污染。最后，她们的津贴不仅使女执事远离了男性的野心，而且女执事们否定了她们自己在工作上的代理权。莱加斯认为，“神圣召唤的代理人是上帝，而不是妇女，”女执事们服从了召唤（139-140）。如果新教徒同胞对这些职业仆人持保留态度，那么他们精心策划的身份就会削弱他们的地位。

对二十世纪初美国的历史处理倾向于将女性分为以白人为主和世俗的进步改革者、移民和黑人女性，她们保持着宗教身份，要么处于民众改革运动的边缘，要么成为改革的焦点。莱加斯的女执事虽然主要是白人，但使这些类别变得复杂。女执事中包括不同经济背景的女性和移民，其中大多数是德国人，她们从同族和宗教同侪的美国化进程中受益。莱加斯指出，白人女执事并不与黑人女执事一起工作。大多数早期的女执事都来自英美和北欧血统......