“Florence Crawford and Egalitarian Precedents in Early Pentecostalism”

Florence Louise Crawford, (1871-1936), one of six original female members of the Azusa Street Mission administrative board, was largely responsible, with senior pastor William J. Seymour, for the egalitarianism for which the revival is celebrated. Although often overlooked and misunderstood, she played a key role both in shaping and propagating this theological aspect of the Pentecostal message as a leader, evangelist, and publisher. As the former Los Angeles president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union under the leadership of Francis Willard and Katharine Bushnell, Crawford joined the early Azusa Street mission’s twenty-five attendees with a fully-developed, trenchant biblical defense of gender egalitarianism. The placing of Crawford within the context of this egalitarian theological stream has been underappreciated when seeking to understand her contribution to early Pentecostalism. It is likely that her gender egalitarianism provided a theological bridge for expanding egalitarianism in all forms, including the racial, socio-political, and cultural egalitarianism that would sweep the Apostolic Faith Mission at Azusa Street. That egalitarianism was her core belief is demonstrated in her unwavering adherence to its principles throughout her long tenure. By reconsidering primary information, this chapter seeks to understand and demonstrate Crawford’s contribution of theological egalitarianism to the nascent movement while liberating it from the work of later scholars of secondary sources who had the benefit of historical hindsight or who may have perceived events through the lens of their own particular agendas.