Christian Suffragettes?

[McCulloch]

Christian Suffragettes?

And how long...did women get the right to vote?

It wasn't the Christians holding it up, it was the atheists/heathens.

Historically, was the push for the right for women to vote a Christian initiative or were the Christians generally opposed? Is there support for the idea of women's rights in the Christian New Testament?

[McCulloch]

Surely no one is claiming that Elizabeth Cady Stanton was a Christian. Neither can her part in getting the women's vote in the USA be understated.

Lydia Taft was a Congregationalist, but there is no indication that her religion was a motivating force for acquiring the vote.

Ernestine Rose was Jewish.

Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Abby Kelley were Quakers not a Biblical Christians.

Margaret Fuller was an admirer of the work of Emanuel Swedenborg.

Fanny Wright was a freethinker who attacked religion and stood with Robert Owen.

Gerrit Smith was a a non-sectarian Christian.

Lucy Stone was expelled in 1851 from the West Brookfield congregation she had long attended for being "engaged in a course of life evidently inconsistent with her covenant engagements to this church." Stone joined a Unitarian church.

Paulina Kellogg Wright Davis resigned from her church to protest its pro-slavery stance.

William Lloyd Garrison's religion, if any, was not important enough to include in his Wikipedia bio.


South Carolina, one of the most Christian State of America did not ratify the Nineteenth Amendment until August 22, 1973. Alabama, September 8, 1953.
Florida, May 13, 1969. Georgia, February 20, 1970. Louisiana, June 11, 1970. North Carolina, May 6, 1971. Mississippi, March 22, 1984.

[McCulloch]

Adolf Hult, an early 20th century Lutheran pastor claimed that "Suffragism [is] Gripped by Feminism." He said that the suffrage movement had been taken over by "lust and immorality." He feared that the fall of women would lead to the fall of the world. "Must men put on the iron glove?" he asked.

The Reverend John Williams of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church made a distinction between the mainstream suffragists and the radical fringe. Nonetheless, he argued that the more moderate element of the movement failed to limit the excesses of the radicals who were undermining Christian morality, marriage, and home life. The Victorian ideal that a woman's place was in the home as preordained by God. "God meant for women to reign over home, and most good women reject politics because woman suffrage will destroy society."

And a minister from Ponca, Nebraska quoted scripture and said that God simply forgot to list one more commandment " women shall not vote.

In Britain, the well-known Evangelical writer Hannah More (1745-1833) was a prominent opponent of those such as Mary Wollstonecraft who advocated rights for women in accordance with the ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Converted to Evangelicalism through her friendship with the abolitionist and philanthropist William Wilberforce, she began to write works which were designed to promote a greater sense of moral responsibility in the ranks of the English upper classes.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Page 1 Post 2:

Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Abby Kelley were Quakers not a Biblical Christians.

Please clarify this statement. I've yet to see a Quaker that did not tote a Bible at some point during their day/week/life.

[Goat]

From Page 1 Post 2:

Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Abby Kelley were Quakers not a Biblical Christians.

Please clarify this statement. I've yet to see a Quaker that did not tote a Bible at some point during their day/week/life.

Well, there are a number of Susan B Anthony God quotes out there.


I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.


and


I always distrust people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows.

[McCulloch]

Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Abby Kelley were Quakers not a Biblical Christians.

Please clarify this statement. I've yet to see a Quaker that did not tote a Bible at some point during their day/week/life.

NB: Quakers are officially known as the Religious Society of Friends.

The Quakers were the original Christian Liberals. They generally do not accept the Bible as authoritative. All quoted material from Quaker sources.

The Place of the Bible

Friends hold that the words of the Bible should not be taken as the final revelation of God. The Books had been written by men who were acting under the power of the Holy Spirit and it was necessary to read the words in the power of the same spirit and to listen to what the Spirit then spoke in your heart. The words were active agents in the sense that, when read in the Spirit at the appropriate time, they would spring to life for the reader and take the reader forward on his or her spiritual journey.
[...]
The Religious Society of Friends is an Alternative Christianity which emphasizes the personal experience of God in one's life. Quakers understand the necessity of first listening to God before working in the world. They affirm the equality of all people before God regardless of race, station in life, or sex and this belief leads them into a range of social concerns.

Friends and the Bible

Friends consider that true religion cannot be learned from books or set prayers, words or rituals, which George Fox called 'empty forms'. When Quakerism began in England, the Bible had only just come into common circulation in English translation and was widely read and quoted. Most Protestant groups attributed a great finality and infallibility to it. The common desire for an external authoritative standard was very strong. In religious controversies, each group tried to find support somewhere in the wording of scripture.

At times, Friends fell into the same habit. But they also believed in the contemporary revelation of God's will, parallel to what was described in the Bible. George Fox once said: "You will say Christ saith this, and the apostles say this, but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of Light and hast thou walked in the Light, and what thou speakest is it inwardly from the God?"

Friends refuse to make the Bible the final test of right conduct and true doctrine. Divine revelation is not confined to the past. The same Holy Spirit which has inspired the scriptures in the past can inspire living believers centuries later. Indeed, for the right understanding of the past, the present insight from the same Spirit is essential. Friends believe that, by the Inner Light, God provides everyone with access to spiritual truth for today.

[Homicidal_Cherry53]

Christian Suffragettes?

And how long...did women get the right to vote?

It wasn't the Christians holding it up, it was the atheists/heathens.

Historically, was the push for the right for women to vote a Christian initiative or were the Christians generally opposed? Is there support for the idea of women's rights in the Christian New Testament?

Women's suffrage was not really religious issue. Some Christians supported women's suffrage (as is indicated by some of the examples provided by McCulloch who were Christian) and others obviously didn't (if most Christians supported women's suffrage, there would have been no debate over it, and it wouldn't have taken so long to come about). It is therefore difficult to say whether or not Christians on the whole were opposed to women's suffrage or supported it. A person's position on it seemed to be generally independent of their religion.

[McCulloch]

Women's suffrage was not really religious issue. Some Christians supported women's suffrage (as is indicated by some of the examples provided by McCulloch who were Christian) and others obviously didn't (if most Christians supported women's suffrage, there would have been no debate over it, and it wouldn't have taken so long to come about). It is therefore difficult to say whether or not Christians on the whole were opposed to women's suffrage or supported it. A person's position on it seemed to be generally independent of their religion.

Most of the examples of Christians who supported women's suffrage were not Biker's kind of Bible believing Christians.

[JoeyKnothead]

Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and Abby Kelley were Quakers not a Biblical Christians.

Please clarify this statement. I've yet to see a Quaker that did not tote a Bible at some point during their day/week/life.

NB: Quakers are officially known as the Religious Society of Friends.

The Quakers were the original Christian Liberals. They generally do not accept the Bible as authoritative. All quoted material from Quaker sources.

The Place of the Bible

Friends hold that the words of the Bible should not be taken as the final revelation of God. The Books had been written by men who were acting under the power of the Holy Spirit and it was necessary to read the words in the power of the same spirit and to listen to what the Spirit then spoke in your heart. The words were active agents in the sense that, when read in the Spirit at the appropriate time, they would spring to life for the reader and take the reader forward on his or her spiritual journey.
[...]
The Religious Society of Friends is an Alternative Christianity which emphasizes the personal experience of God in one's life. Quakers understand the necessity of first listening to God before working in the world. They affirm the equality of all people before God regardless of race, station in life, or sex and this belief leads them into a range of social concerns.

Friends and the Bible

Friends consider that true religion cannot be learned from books or set prayers, words or rituals, which George Fox called 'empty forms'. When Quakerism began in England, the Bible had only just come into common circulation in English translation and was widely read and quoted. Most Protestant groups attributed a great finality and infallibility to it. The common desire for an external authoritative standard was very strong. In religious controversies, each group tried to find support somewhere in the wording of scripture.

At times, Friends fell into the same habit. But they also believed in the contemporary revelation of God's will, parallel to what was described in the Bible. George Fox once said: "You will say Christ saith this, and the apostles say this, but what canst thou say? Art thou a child of Light and hast thou walked in the Light, and what thou speakest is it inwardly from the God?"

Friends refuse to make the Bible the final test of right conduct and true doctrine. Divine revelation is not confined to the past. The same Holy Spirit which has inspired the scriptures in the past can inspire living believers centuries later. Indeed, for the right understanding of the past, the present insight from the same Spirit is essential. Friends believe that, by the Inner Light, God provides everyone with access to spiritual truth for today.

I take it you've never been to Greensboro, NC. There are many Friends churches in that area, and on church day the ladies all have Bibles.

My objection to the term "Biblical Christians" is that the (OT)/NT Bible is a Christian book, and as such there's a bit of a Scotsman fallacy at work.

I won't belabor the point, my objection is noted for the observer to consider.

[Homicidal_Cherry53]

Women's suffrage was not really religious issue. Some Christians supported women's suffrage (as is indicated by some of the examples provided by McCulloch who were Christian) and others obviously didn't (if most Christians supported women's suffrage, there would have been no debate over it, and it wouldn't have taken so long to come about). It is therefore difficult to say whether or not Christians on the whole were opposed to women's suffrage or supported it. A person's position on it seemed to be generally independent of their religion.

Most of the examples of Christians who supported women's suffrage were not Biker's kind of Bible believing Christians.

It is true that Quakers are not biblical literalists, nor do they even consider themselves Christian anymore, but I believe you mentioned a congregationalist or two and congregationalists were probably one of the most fundamentalist Christian sects of the time.