Simply ChurchFanny Crosby was one of the most prolific and best-known hymn writers of all time, composing more than 9,000 hymns, many of which are still popular today, as well as secular poetry. Blind from soon after birth, she loved to compose simple gospel songs that could be used in evangelism. Ira Sankey attributed much of… Read More
Jarena Lee, an African American preacher, was born (free) in 1873 and worked as a servant girl in the home of a white family 60 miles from where she lived. As a teenager, she moved to Philadelphia where she heard the preaching of Richard Allen, founder of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and surrendered her… Read More
It is reported that when Harriet Beecher Stowe met Abraham Lincoln in 1863, he said to her, “So you are the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.” Harriet Beecher (1811-1896) was the seventh of 12 children born to Lyman Beecher, a Congregational minister who was committed to social justice. The Beecher… Read More
Helen Roseveare was one of my heroines when I was in medical school. Although I never met her personally, I knew various of her family members. Born in England in 1925, Helen Roseveare became a Christian as a medical student at Cambridge University (my father-in-law, Donald Dale, was a medical student there at a similar… Read More
Ursula of Munsterberg (1491-1534), was the grand-daughter of King Georg Prodiebrad of Bohemia. Like most other nuns of the time in Germany, she was placed into a monastery as a child. She hated the rigors of the monastic lifestyle–the night vigils and fasting–and longed to escape. She spearheaded a project to smuggle some of Luther’s… Read More
Matthias Zell was a Catholic priest, who, after his conversion to Protestantism during the Reformation, married and was one of the first priests to be excommunicated from the Catholic church. His wife, Katherina (1497-1562) was a writer, who loved to converse about the Kingdom of God. She said of herself, “Ever since I was ten years… Read More
Blandina was martyred in AD 177. A slave, she and her master were part of a Christian community in Lyon, (now in France). They were among a number of people who were arrested and brought to trial in the forum under the imperial legate in the reign of Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Those who renounced… Read More
For a very patriarchal society, God used a remarkable set of women in leadership roles in the stories of the Old Testament: Eve was the mother of all living (Genesis 3:20). Miriam is described as a prophet (Exodus 15:20). She may have been the sister who watched over Moses in his basket when he was discovered by… Read More
Considerable light was shed on the heresy of gnosticism in 1945 when a number of ancient gnostic manuscripts were found in the Nag Hammadi Valley in Egypt. (Gnostics believe in secret or hidden knowledge and reverence women.) It became clear from these new discoveries that gnostics believed that Adam and Eve were mythical figures and… Read More
What can men do to open the door for women to step out into everything God has for them? For years, my husband, Tony, opened the door for me in every conceivable way . He included me in any speaking engagement he had. He promoted my writing. He encouraged me to voice my opinions. He knew… Read More