Revivalist women's submission: Women's spiritual authority, biblical feminism and cosmofeminism

Abstract

The question of whether or not feminisms can be found among revivalist women has been widely debated in the field of women's and gender studies. My research with Pentecostal women in the countries of New Zealand and the USA (Missouri) argues that Pentecostal women have a unique brand of feminism intertwined with what they term ‘submission,’ a submission given to God before men. In qualitative interviews, participants revealed the multi-dimensionality of submission as an inseparable tenet of their spiritual power in faith healing, prophecy and other spiritual gifts. Using a biblical feminist perspective, a branch of feminist theology that looks at biblical representations of women through an egalitarian lens, I provide an overview of the differentiated beliefs surrounding the women's approach to submission doctrine and biblical feminism itself. I conclude by arguing that the women's positive engagement with difference in the masculine dominated social field of Pentecostalism can be understood as an expression of a grounded cosmopolitanism.