Learning from the Herstory of Preaching in the Global South: Reflections on the Preaching Lives of Rebecca Protten and Dora Yu

Abstract

The existing literature on the history of Christian preaching has mostly been written as the history of Western male Christian preaching. This reflects the Western church’s general fixation on the white male (and, in some cases, the Black male) preaching body as the ideal or normative preaching body. Of course, there is much to learn (and unlearn) from the theology and preaching of Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, Charles Spurgeon, and other well-known male voices in the company of preachers. Moreover, some important historical work has already been done that draws attention to women and minority preaching traditions in the West. However, with the exception of the work of scholars like Eunjoo Mary Kim, one is hard pressed to find much writing on the history of Christian preaching outside the West, especially the preaching of women. This must change if those of us who are Western Christians are to be faithful in engaging the breadth and depth of the global church. For, while preaching is always particular to a place and time, learning from sisters and brothers around the world can help us become more aware of our homiletical biases and assumptions, the nature of the Spirit’s work in cultural contexts that are different from our own, and the painfully close relationship between colonialism and proclamation that still haunts much preaching today. In other words, as Jerusha Matsen Neal notes, we need a “global homiletic conversation.” This is especially the case given the growth of Christianity in the global South. Indeed, Cleophus LaRue and Luis Nascimento argue in their recent book The Future Shape of Christian Proclamation that the wisdom of the West “will no longer be the primary conversation partner at the homiletical table” of the future. Though this is an exciting prospect, I believe that, for this to become a reality, among other things, we in the West must learn from the hidden history of the Spirit’s work in a diverse range of homiletical witnesses, particularly the witness of women in the global South. Consequently, building on the work of others, this article aims to take a small step toward recovering the “herstory” of Christian preaching in the global South—that is, the homiletical witness of women outside the West. To do so, I offer a select examination of the preaching lives of two women: the seventeenth-century Caribbean missionary Rebecca Protten and the early twentieth-century Chinese evangelist Dora Yu (Yu Cidu). Among the many possible preachers that could have been chosen for this study, I highlight Protten and Yu as multi-lingual women of color who engaged in unconventional proclamation across multiple borders while navigating the complex dynamics of power and privilege.