Women’s Bible study armed them to judge preachers rather than to seek the pulpit.

Evidence

Some pastors, noting this interest, became alarmed at seeing so many women with Bibles in their hands and asked them, ‘What are you women doing with so many books? Are you going to preach”? The reply was, ‘No, we are not going to preach, but we are going to learn so much about the Bible that nobody can preach to us but a real preacher.” — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent, 1253

Categorization

• SEED: Potential essay on how oppressed groups acquire authority to police their own institutions through credentialed expertise rather than formal office.
• XREF: connects to: Black women leaders contested the equation of church authority with ordination — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 367; Women exerted church power by judging ministerial literacy, not seeking ordination — Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Righteous Discontent: The Women’s…, 352