Holiness in Black and White

Priscilla Pope-Levison, SPU Professor of Theology and ordained United Methodist minister, is the speaker for this year's Paul T. Walls Lecture in Wesleyan Theology. The lecture will draw on two decades of research on American women evangelists.

Holiness in Black & White:
Women, Race, and Sanctification

Wednesday, May 1, 7 p.m.
First Free Methodist Church
3200 Third Avenue W. (adjacent to campus)

The event is free, open to the public, and wheelchair accessible.

Priscilla Pope-Levison, Keynote Speaker

Priscilla Pope-Levison

Priscilla Pope-Levison, PhD, an ordained United Methodist minister, has spent two decades doing primary research on American women evangelists, in archives stretching from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, to Seattle’s First Free Methodist Church. The fruits of this research have appeared in The Ashgate Research Companion to World Methodism, Methodist History, Pacific Northwest Quarterly, Handbook of Women Biblical Interpreters, Westminster Dictionary of Women and Religion in America, Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in America, and Historical Dictionary of the Holiness Movement.

Dr. Pope-Levison's first book on the topic, Turn the Pulpit Loose: Two Centuries of American Women Evangelists (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), will be followed by a second this fall, Building the Old Time Religion: Women Evangelists in the Progressive Era (NYU).

About the Lecture

This year's Walls Lecture will focus on Wesleyan/Holiness women evangelists in the early 20th century, including Emma Ray, an African American who preached in Seattle rescue missions alongside SPU students and went on to become a Free Methodist Conference Evangelist.

"I look forward to Priscilla’s lecture, which will drill down into Free Methodism’s founding commitment to the ministry of women," said Paul T. Walls Professor Rob Wall.

Michael Hamilton, Respondent

Michael S. Hamilton, PhD, is associate professor of history and chair of the History Department at Seattle Pacific. Dr. Hamilton's research specializes in 19th- and 20th-century American church history.

Robert W. Wall, Paul T. Walls Professor of Scripture and Wesleyan Studies

Rob Wall, ThD, is SPU’s Paul T. Walls Professor of Scripture and Wesleyan Studies. In keeping with the purpose for the Walls endowment, Dr. Wall’s teaching and writing, whether for scholars or students, pastors or parishioners, seek to incline God’s people to a faithful reading of Scripture that makes them more wakeful to God’s word and responsive to the leading of God’s Spirit. An elder of the Free Methodist Church, Dr. Wall enjoys an ecumenical ministry of preaching and teaching in congregations of various faith traditions.

Paul T. Walls

Paul T. Walls spent 31 years on SPU’s Board of Trustees. Known for his integrity and financial acumen, a successful career in real estate cultivated the ability to help manage the growth of Seattle Pacific from a college into a university. So too did his life of strong and active service to the Free Methodist Church at both local and national levels.

Before his death in 1998, Paul and his wife, Vera, established an educational foundation to help students realize a seminary education that provides the intellectual and spiritual leadership to stimulate and strengthen the denomination into the future.

This is an Inaugural Year academic showcase event.

Pre-Lecture Dinner for Prospective Seminary Students

If you’ve been considering seminary, you're invited to a free informational dinner with Seattle Pacific Seminary DeanDoug Strong and current Seminary students before the Walls Lecture. More information.

Alma White

Turn the Pulpit Loose

Response magazine talked to Dr. Priscilla Pope-Levison about her book, which looks back on an unheralded group of U.S. evangelists: women.