Baptist Women around the World: the Baptist History and Heritage Society voted to dedicate the 2005 annual meeting to the topic "Women in Baptist History" and to issue an open call for papers.

Nearly forty paper proposals were submitted, and twenty-eight were accepted and subsequently presented at our meeting held at Samford University. Many of those papers relating to Baptist women in America were published in the Summer/Fall 2005 issue of Baptist History and Heritage.

This Winter 2006 issue also includes articles presented at the 2005 meeting, most of which relate to the theme "Baptist Women around the World." In the first article, Carla Romarate-Knipel, a faculty member holding assistant professor appointments in both the College of Theology and the Religion and Ethics Department of Central Philippine University, introduces readers to the life and work of Angelina Buensuceso, who was the first woman minister to be ordained by the Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches. Next are two articles dealing with the work of English Baptist women, written by Kirsten Timmer and Karen Smith. Timmer's article explores the conforming and dissenting roles of English Baptist women during the Restoration period, while Smith examines the formation of the Baptist Zenana Mission in India by British Baptist women and these women's subsequent discovery of their own cultural captivity. James Elisha's article focuses on the mission work done by Canadian Baptist women among the women in Andhra, India, from 1874 to 1924. Scott Bryant's paper describes the speeches, messages, and sermons delivered by women to Baptist World Congress audiences, the activities of the Baptist World Alliance's women's committee, and the involvement of women in BWA leadership.

Also included are five articles dealing with the work of Baptist women in the United States. Jana Mayfield Mullen introduces Rebecca Anna Phillips, a Primitive Baptist woman who, despite the restrictions on women's public voice, wrote and published a spiritual autobiography and composed articles on biblical interpretation that appeared regularly in Primitive Baptist journals between 1880 and 1911. Laine Scales offers insight into one Baptist woman, Jewell Legett, who was a student at the Woman's Missionary Union's Training School in the early twentieth century. Dan Kent and his daughter, Barrett Kent Border, examine the life and work of Amelia Bishop, a current day "quiet revolutionary." Peter Smith explores the influence of Asenath Brewster who did pioneering work in urban missions during the early twentieth century. The final article was produced by William J. Reynolds, retired professor of church music at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Reynolds has written numerous articles for Baptist History and Heritage, and in 2003, he received the society's Distinguished Service Award. He now has compiled for our readers a list of the women whose hymns and tunes are found in the 1991 Baptist Hymnal.

In 1987, Leon McBeth remarked that most Baptist historians "simply ignored women. They did not say anything bad about them; they did not say anything at all about them." (1) His comment surely is no longer true, for Baptist historians now are preserving women's experiences, recording their thoughts and reflections, and examining their contributions.

(1.) H. Leon McBeth, "Perspectives on Women in Baptist Life," Baptist History and Heritage 22, no. 3 (July 1987): 10.