Raised as a Southern Baptist in Rome, Georgia, Susan M. Shaw
earned graduate degrees from the Southern Baptist Theological
Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, was ordained a Southern Baptist
minister, and prepared herself to lead a life of leadership and
service among Southern Baptists. However, dramatic changes in both
the makeup and the message of the Southern Baptist Convention
during the 1980s and 1990s (a period known among Southern Baptists
as "the Controversy") caused Shaw and many other Southern Baptists,
especially women, to reconsider their allegiances. In God Speaks to
Us, Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home, and Society, Shaw
presents her own experiences, as well as those of over 150 other
current and former Southern Baptist women, in order to examine the
role, identity, and culture of women in the largest Protestant
denomination in the country. The Southern Baptist Convention was
established in the United States in 1845 after a schism between
Northern and Southern brethren over the question of slavery. Shaw
sketches the history of the Southern Baptist faith from its
formation, through its dramatic expansion following World War II,
to the Controversy and its aftermath. The Controversy began as a
successful attempt by fundamentalists within the denomination to
pack the leadership and membership of the Southern Baptist
Convention (the denomination's guiding body) with conservative and
fundamentalist believers. Although no official strictures prohibit
a Southern Baptist woman from occupying the primary leadership role
within her congregation -- or her own family -- rhetoric emanating
from the Southern Baptist Convention during the Controversy
strongly discouraged such roles for its women, and church
leadership remains overwhelmingly male as a result. Despite the
vast difference between the denomination's radical beginnings and
its current position among the most conservative American
denominations, freedom of conscience is still prized. Shaw
identifies "soul competency," or the notion of a free soul that is
responsible for its own decisions, as the principle by which many
Southern Baptist women reconcile their personal attitudes with
conservative doctrine. These women are often perceived from without
as submissive secondary citizens, but they are actually powerful
actors within their families and churches. God Speaks to Us, Too
reveals that Southern Baptist women understand themselves as agents
of their own lives, even though they locate their faith within the
framework of a highly patriarchal institution. Shaw presents these
women through their own words, and concludes that they believe
strongly in their ability to discern the voice of God for
themselves.
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