Male Advocates in the Early Decades of the Transatlantic Methodist Deaconess Movement

Abstract

Essay Abstract “Male Advocates in the Early Decades of the Transatlantic Methodist Deaconess Movement” will analyze the pivotal contributions in the early decades of the deaconess movement of male advocates as founders, financiers, bishops, clergy, authors, and spouses. These men, representing Methodist denominations in the United States, Canada and Great Britain, utilized their power to lobby and cast affirmative votes for denominational approval. They penned detailed studies about deaconesses that provided historical propaganda for the movement, donated buildings and capital to finance deaconess work in their city, and one male advocate, the Rev. Dr. Thomas Bowman Stephenson, a minister in the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Great Britain, founded the deaconess movement in his denomination. Still, while they vigorously championed the deaconess movement, there was not universal agreement among them about the rationale for their support.