Posted by Mary Wimberly on 2009-03-23

A leading scholar in the field of women evangelists will give the Marie NeSmith Fowler lecture at Samford University Tuesday, March 31.

Priscilla Pope-Levison, author of Turn the Pulpit Loose: Two Centuries of American Women Evangelists, will speak at 10 a.m. in Reid Chapel. The public is invited free of charge.

Dr. Pope-Levison will discuss the varied ways women have felt the call to evangelistic ministry, the methods they adopted as evangelists, and the institutions they founded, including schools, denominations and churches.

Professor of theology and assistant director of women's studies at Seattle Pacific University, Pope-Levison is an ordained Methodist minister who has served as a church pastor and a college chaplain.

In her research, she has uncovered fascinating primary sources-sermons, articles, diaries, letters, speeches and autobiographies-that bring women evangelists to life. In addition to her book on women evangelists, she is the author of Evangelization from a Liberation Perspective and co-author of Jesus in Global Contexts and Return to Babel: Global Perspectives on the Bible.

The lecture series, sponsored by Samford's Christian Women's Leadership Center, honors the late Mrs. Fowler of Hartselle, a Samford graduate who was one of the first female pharmacists and pharmacy owners in Alabama.

 
Samford is a leading Christian university offering undergraduate programs grounded in the liberal arts with an array of nationally recognized graduate and professional schools. Founded in 1841, Samford is the 87th-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Samford enrolls 6,101 students from 45 states, Puerto Rico and 16 countries in its 10 academic schools: arts, arts and sciences, business, divinity, education, health professions, law, nursing, pharmacy and public health. Samford fields 17 athletic teams that compete in the tradition-rich Southern Conference and ranks 6th nationally for its Graduation Success Rate among all NCAA Division I schools.