When the Baptist movement began four centuries ago, revolutionary forces had destabilized the centers of social control that had long kept women in their place. In the early seventeenth century, Baptist women began to speak their minds. Through their prophetic writings, these women came to exercise considerable influence and authority among the early churches. When Baptists became more institutionalized later in the century, the egalitarian distinction dissipated and women's voices again, for a long history, were silenced. However, long ago, in early Baptist life in England, women did preach--well and often.
In A Company of Women Preachers, Curtis Freeman collects and presents a critical edition of these prophetic women's texts, retrieving their voices so that their messages and contributions to the tradition may once again be recognized.
Curtis W. Freeman is Research Professor of Theology and Director of the Baptist House of Studies at Duke Divinity School. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.
Freeman's book will be of interest to anyone working in the seventeenth-century Quaker women's writings and provides a valuable tool for comparative work.
--Betty Hagglund, University of Birmingham "Quaker Studies"Freeman's collection succeeds in its aims: it gives a pulpit to a class of women preachers that might not otherwise have it. The texts are engaging in themselves merely for the richness of the modes of religious expression contained therein before consideration is even given to the extraordinariness of such vocal women in a time and community which would seem predisposed to silence them.
--Sean Patrick Webb, Harding School of Theology "Homiletic"...a precious and vital (both essential and lively) resource for anyone who has an interest in Baptist history or women's preaching.
--Catriona Gorton, Hillhead Baptist Church "Regent's Review"We owe Curtis Freeman a debt of gratitude, not only for making these texts available so easily, and with such a helpful introduction, but for all the questions we are now faced with as a result of being able to read them together.
-- "Baptist Quarterly"