Bøger af Kristen Dayle Welch

How do we define the sacred? Looking for answers, Dr. Kristen Welch interviewed several Pentecostal women preachers in Lake City, South Carolina in the summer of 2010: Rev. Jewelle Stewart, Rev. Rita Wrenn, Rev. Ruth Powell (now deceased), Rev. Dorothy Cox, Rev. Betty Sue Walling, and Rev. Leona Coker. Also included is an interview with Revs. John and Louise Mayhue and their son Alan, and a transcript of Lennie Cordie Rex's story of her baptism in the Holy Spirit. Drawing upon these interviews, Dr. Welch explores the role of the sacred through the testimonies of these women. A chapter on legacy points the way toward the future for women of the IPHC (International Pentecostal Holiness Church). The books ends with a full transcript of each interview.

The first book to share interviews with women preachers of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church (IPHC), Dr. Welch explores rhetoric, gender, and religion in the biographies, autobiographies, and histories that detail what it means to be a Pentecostal woman preacher in Oklahoma. Archival materials provide a picture of Pentecostalism years before Oklahoma became a state in 1907, and a transcribed interview with the former Presiding Bishop of the IPHC, James Leggett, gives a contemporary view of what it means to be Pentecostal in the 21st century. A Christian scholar who grew up in the IPHC, Dr. Welch draws upon the field of rhetoric to use Jim Corder's theory of generative ethos to illuminate the way identity is constructed on individual, collective, and spiritual levels. She shows the role place plays in the development of faith and character in her chapter "We are of this Place: Oklahoma and Ethos." She concludes the book with an honest look at the administrative levels of the IPHC and ends with a note of hope for the future.