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Sermonizing Women: Christian Civic Virtue And The Public Sphere, Adrianne Wadewitz

Adrianne Wadewitz

Although often thought of as a masculine genre, women writers effectively employed the sermon not only to enter doctrinal and other religious debates but also to create a broader space for women within the public sphere. In using this distinctively religious genre, women writers as diverse as Hannah More, Mary Wollstonecraft and Anna Laetitia Barbauld gave a moral legitimacy to the participation of women in a wide range of public issues. Their sermons presented an image of the reforming woman who could shape the public sphere through religion; constructing a moral public sphere became a Christian duty for women, as …