Monday, March 27, 2017

Jarena Lee and the malice of Satan

Throughout her writing, Jarena Lee frequently references the "malice of Satan" as the source of her spiritual struggles. She extensively describes this in her account of her journey of toward conversion and sanctification; however, she also mentions it when she received her call to preach (she first thought it might be Satan's voice calling her) and throughout her preaching ministry (at one point, she claims that the kingdom of Satan fell as she was preaching a sermon and in another instance, that Satan tempted her to give up her journey since she was probably not going to be permitted to preach anyway). For Lee, Satan was a real presence in her life seeking to tempt and destroy. How does Lee's perception of this correlate to other Methodist ministers during this time? Were other Methodist preachers as avidly concerned about spiritual warfare? Furthermore, to what extent does Lee's descriptive accounts of her experience of and sermons on resisting Satan influence her relative popularity as an itinerant preacher? This obviously resonated with her audiences for her to be permitted to preach in places that women had not previously preached before.

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