Shall Woman Preach?: Or the Question Answered

"My chief aim has been to present biblical truths in such a form that the anxious inquirers after truth may be better able to understand the commands and will of God respecting the much-disputed question of the ordination of women."

These words were first published in 1891 and still spark interest today. Here the Rev. Louisa Mariah Layman Woosley addresses issues which were raised in the controversy over her ordination, and provides us with her own convictions that led her through the early struggles in her ministry.

Louisa M. Woosley was the first ordained woman minister in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and in the larger Presbyterian tradition in America. Her ministry began with her first sermon delivered on January 1, 1887, and continued for more than fifty years. She was an extremely successful evangelist and a local pastor. For twenty-five years she served as the stated clerk of Leitchfield Presbytery, and in 1938 she was elected moderator of Kentucky Synod.

Woosley's ordination by Nolin Presbytery in 1889 sparked the controversy over the ordination of women in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, an issue that continues to the present day. After her first four years of evangelistic ministry, Louisa Woosley produced Shall Woman Preach or the Question Answered, a lively record of a woman's commitment to ministry, and an affirmation of the future role of women in the church.